All right who is still hitting the gym or other exercise around here??

When I graduated from college in 1968, I weighed 265# and smoked three packs of Lucky Strikes per day (smoked a pipe in between cigarettes). One day in August, after 10 hours of swinging a 16# sledge hammer in a limestone quarry (summer job for college expenses), I said, "I've got to quit smoking." Haven't touched it since.

Six months later I looked in the mirror one morning and said, "I don't like that [fat] look." Decided to go on a diet immediately. Fifteen weeks later I was down to 195# (I'm 6'2"). I did it with diet -- well balanced 1200 calories per day -- and religious performance of the Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Program.

Three or so years later, after moving to Princeton, NJ, I began running outdoors. I got hooked to the point that I was running 50-60 miles per week, week in and week out. Kept that up for a few years, till I left academia and got into business. I no longer had that kind of time; so, the running went down to 20-25 miles per week. All this period of running I did some stretching, but had dropped the calisthenics that had been part of the Royal Canadian Air Force regimen.

Lack of proper balance in my routine -- i.e., too much running -- caught up with me, and in 1993 I had serious back pain. A physiatrist in Menlo Park, CA, gave me a choice: Go under the knife with no promise that surgery would solve the problem causing the pain or do a prescribed exercise regimen for the rest of my life that would likely control, not eliminate the cause of the pain. Kept running five or six days per week, but at a sensible level of about 20 miles per week.

This routine was interrupted in 2005 (or so) when kickback from a log I was feeding into a chipper hit my thigh and hyper-extended my right knee. I ignored the pain till my knee finally collapsed on a four-miles run. Back to the physiatrist and physical therapist.

I can't run anymore; the knee just won't support it. However, I now do 30 minutes, five days per week on a Cybex Arc Trainer at a pretty intense level for an old curmudgeon like myself -- burn 500+ calories in the 30 minutes. In addition, I do two sets of stretches for 16-18 minutes; one after the aerobic workout on the Arc Trainer and the second after an 18-minutes exercise routine called "Back School" by the physiatrist from Menlo Park or a 24-minutes weight-training routine to keep core muscles around the spine in shape (this was also part of the Menlo Park doctor's prescribed regimen). These latter two routines I do three times per week each, sometimes doing both in one day.

My diet? Well, for over 35 years, after losing the excess in the late 1960s, I watched it very carefully, but had few problems because I was running so much. Since starting the Arc Trainer routine, however, I've begun to pick up some pounds. I need to go back on the 1200-calories-per-day diet for a few weeks!

My problem: I love nuts and cheese. The former aren't bad in moderation, but the latter is a killer -- starting to see the cholesterol climb!

The benefit of all this exercise is that it gives me 1.5-2.0 hours in my exercise area three to six days per week during which I listen to good sound through the system described in my signature! :-)

All right, I know this is more than anybody wanted to hear, but you asked!

cnh wrote: »

Good stuff, Moose!

Personally, I'd say if you're over 50 you should NOT be running over 3 miles a day if that unless you REALLY want to take out your back and your knees! And even 3 miles may be too much. Look at W. Bush, that is! He was running like a fiend for years until his body began to say NO MAS. He then switched to biking. A SMART move on his part as we was moving up in years!

cnh

You are absolutely right! And, even when you are younger, you need to stretch properly and do exercises to maintain muscle tone in the right spots (especially around the spine and in the leg muscles that are not really exercised in running). Finally, good shoes are important!