Alan S. Oser

My shoulders depressed me this morning. They were the shockingly feeble sight facing me in the bathroom mirror as I started to brush my teeth. The concave chest above the balloon of a belly was also dispiriting.

“You must start to exercise,” I have been told over the last two years by my wife, my daughter, my son, my doctor, several friends, two grandchildren, my cleaning lady, my mailman and my shoemaker. They were thinking not only of my shoulders, chest and belly but also of the general rundown condition they sense when they see me. Exercise is good for the heart, the stamina, the psyche and, possibly, the libido. All right. I know it. I agree. Yes, it should be done. It will be done! Now let me alone.

The trouble is that exercise programs are a terrible bore. “Well, at least go out walking in the park,” people say. But for me even long walks alone in the park are a bore. They inflict my company upon myself. That is never good for more than a quarter of a mile.

The answer is the local YMCA, and a while ago I joined. To others this seemed possibly the first step toward a general rehabilitation. For me the goal was simply to be able to see those shoulders in the bathroom mirror without wincing. And of course now that I have started exercising, I am recommending this program to everyone else.

First one must master the exercise machinery that the Y has installed. It is state-of-the-art. Weird metallic contraptions bear signs that name the body parts they are designed to revive. On the first day a trainer sets up a modest exercise program, on six machines in my case. He advises me to repeat the program at least two times a week, gradually raising the level of weights I am pulling or pushing with arms or legs. The machines are named for the body parts they test – the seated leg press, seated leg curl, leg extension/pectoral fly, rear delt and the pectoral fly.

I have no idea what a pectoral fly or a rear delt is. Nevertheless, after four months I have managed to increase the weights I am pulling or pushing. With doughty determination I can push 90 pounds 12 times on the seated leg press now. This thrills the machine. It congratulates me on the screen: “Good job! Do you want to increase the weight next time?” I click my mouse on “No,” mentally remarking, “You must be kidding,” although, from time to time, I do increase the weight a bit for my next visit.

I’m finished with all six machines in 20 minutes. Looking around, I see that the exercise room is filled with the sweating bodies of younger men and women. I estimate they are pushing or pulling three times the weight I am, and working out three times longer than I am. They carry towels to wipe perspiration from the leather seats when they finish with a machine. I don’t have to do that since I am not sweating at all. If I feel perspiration coming on, I stop. My muscles are tired well before perspiration sets in. I never change clothes to do these exercises.

Before striding jauntily from the room, and feeling little fatigue, I must review my progress at the computer station. Using my private password, I call up my record of achievement today, this week, this month, this year, and from the beginning. I find I have earned 2,860 “fit points” since I started. This was achieved by lifting a total of 116,816 pounds to date (1,168 fit points), doing the exercises at 133 stations (1,330 fit points) and putting in 72.21 minutes at the cardiovascular machine (362 fit points), where I slid my legs back and forth for a seemingly endless six minutes on several occasions.

The total of 2,860 fit points pleased me until I read on the screen about “award points.” To reach the highest level of achievement I would need 500,000 award points, the platinum award. Next comes the silver award at 400,000, the gold at 300,000, and so on down to the lowest level, white, at 15,000 fit points. At the rate I am going it will take two years to reach the white award.

But then, who cares about awards. More important is the mirror test, and here there is in fact some progress. My shoulders have stiffened. And my critics have quieted. They know I am trying. “I’m off to the Y,” is a comment that impresses my wife. If she knew what a “fit point” is I could tell her that I have earned 2,860 of them. But I myself don’t know what it means.

The problem is that none of this is very helpful for the heart, and it is the heart that we’re told we should be thinking about. That’s why I should be doing all that walking I’m not doing. That’s why I should be on that boring treadmill when I arrive at the exercise room. I used to give that very advice to my own father when he was in his 70’s – and overweight to boot. I never saw him exercise or play sports at any age. He rarely walked farther than a car door. But he lived to 95.

I realize that exercise alone is not enough to keep me healthy. I must eat and sleep properly too. I must not put my feet to a test they cannot pass – running when I should walk, for example, or walking when I should take a taxi. I must adopt a positive attitude.

People who exercise regularly do seem to have a positive attitude. Is it the exercise that gives rise to it, or is it the positive attitude that allows them to exercise regularly? Here lies my deficiency. Poor attitude precedes weak limbs. I struggle, sometimes successfully, to overcome it. Although success leads me to the exercise room once or twice a week, and consequently slightly stronger limbs, the attitude struggle persists.

As an alternative, how about jogging, or even fast walking, on a regular basis. This would have many valuable benefits for the body, although do little for the mirror image. The trick is to start young and keep it up.

Be like the cardiac physician I once visited. He was a in his 40’s, and the picture of health and positive attitude. A certain chirpiness of manner never left him.

He was still running marathons every year. On the wall of his office, well displayed, a string of certificates, about 20 of them, confirmed his completions and running time in races in New York, Boston and Chicago. Each year his time was a few minutes longer than the year before, but at the age of about 45 he was still finishing in under four hours.

The man was in good shape, obviously, but it was his chirpiness that made the best case for the running that kept him in good shape. I should have started running long ago, and in later age subsided to regular fast walking and modest daily exercises in the privacy of my home. I would still be healthy and chirpy, like that doctor.

And my shoemaker would leave me alone.