Performance Week – What I learned.
While we near the one year anniversary of Fit4, I began with Mike for a few years before. I was
in a rut physically and I needed some fresh ideas.
Exercise has always been a part of my life, since my high school days. So you do understand,
those glory days of swimming championships were six decades ago. The pains and perceived physical
limitations of age were bothering me. More than that, they were limiting my activity. It seemed like a
slow downhill slide and I was seriously not happy with this view. Now many who may still be reading
might think that seventy five is old, but in my mind, I wasn’t really going to accept that as a fact.
Still at seventy five, happily still counting, but allow me a kvetch, my knees are tender from
twenty years of running, my shoulder is stiff from lifting weights, my back, well everyone has back
problems from sitting at a desk for forty years and I do have the usual medical problems of old age. Still,
there had to be a way out of this dilemma.
After five or so years of personal training I thought I had made some good progress. For old
men, the challenge is to put on their pants without holding on to something. Balance is usually gone.
Flexibility is also lost and strength to hold yourself up is also diminished. Everyone may laugh, but I am
proud that on most days I can put on my pants standing on my own. No holding on, no sitting down.
Sometimes I stumble.
So, until the Performance Week I could see improvement in many of the exercises. I can balance
with the kettle bell, do split squats with weights. I can bend in squats and have enough flexibility that
now, when I drive and change lanes, I can turn my head to look.
But Mike allowed me, and all of us, to work at our own pace, which as compared to many in my
sessions, to be very slow and deliberate.
On Performance Week, Mike combined tasks with time to completion and all of a sudden I realized,
conditioning is also needed. Could I complete those torturous ten sets of four exercises of ten reps in 28
minutes? Not even close. Did I realize that recovery time held me back? Do I need to keep working at it
a bit harder and realize that I need to push myself? Guess it’s a never ending but worthwhile challenge.
Guess I’ll have to sign up for a super extended package.
