Pumping Irony

Concrete results from a three-hour sledgehammer workout. A lot of forward-thinking trainers and gym rats these days are turning to the humble sledgehammer for a great whole-body workout. They say slamming a big old tire with an 8-, 10-, 12-, or 16-pound sledge will help you develop some serious core mojo as well as improve…

Exercise, like anything else, gets easier the more frequently you do it, so I was rightfully concerned last week when I met my old tennis buddy, The Baseline Machine, over at the Nokomis courts for our first match of the season. TBM, it seems, had been playing indoors all winter and had joined a league…

Well, last week wasn't really ideal for making my tennis debut.

Could stress be linked to memory loss?

An old buddy of mine died recently. We’d grown up together, played Little League baseball (he was our first baseman; I played second) and backyard football. And though we’d lost touch after our college years, it was still a bit of a shocker. At the funeral, his sister described his two months in the hospital…

I was just clearing dishes from the table after dinner last night when my son said two little words that are changing my life.

Sleep is a wonderful thing. Indeed, as I’ve grown older and levels of a certain hormone have subsided, it is from time to time preferable even to that other word that begins with the letter “s” and describes an activity that often occurs in the bedroom. I know what you’re thinking: How can you prefer…

As I think I’ve mentioned before, I typically put my bicycle away each fall when the first snow flies and start pedaling again when the streets are clear in the spring. It’s an act of self-preservation, I suppose, and a nod to convention. I can walk to work. And for longer trips, there’s always the…

Mr. Parkour (AKA my son) has been on a bit of a fitness jag this week and, because I’m the kind of guy who wants to support healthy habits, my poor, aging body has been pretty sore. Tuesday night, for example, I was sitting in my comfy chair, sipping a cup of tea and reading…

I had a curious urge this past weekend to pull on my sneakers and go jogging down West River Road. This is not something I typically think about doing on a gray Saturday afternoon with the temps in the 20s and the sidewalks fitted with a greasy mix of slush and ice, but the thought did actually occur to…

True to form, I overdid it a little yesterday at the gym (gotta scale back my reps on those 350-pound bench presses), and today I’m paying for it. I think I strained a bicep or something on my left arm because I can’t really straighten it out without feeling some pain. Reminds me of an…

Winter has arrived in the form of wet snow and icy sidewalks, so I've retired my bicycle for the duration and have been making the 1-mile trek across the river to my office on foot. I do this each morning with some trepidation, but my knee seems to be improving.

I’ve been battling a bit of a cold for the past few weeks, somehow managing to keep it at bay with a regular regimen of sleep, vitamins, and the occasional intervention of Echinacea and homeopathic aconite. All in the service of buttressing my 59-year-old immune system. As the Zen monk said as he fell from the…

There’s a scene in Shane, one of my favorite westerns, in which the gunslinger Shane (played by Alan Ladd) and the homesteader Joe Starrett (Van Heflin) do battle with a gnarly old stump in Starrett’s dusty front yard. They go after it with axes for a while and, when they see it’s weakening, they just start pushing…

A week ago, this knee thing had me a little worried, but it’s been improving pretty steadily in the past few days, to the point that Saturday’s annual taking-in-the-dock ritual didn’t even do it in. I think I’ve written before about this little exercise: yanking heavy metal stanchions out of the frigid water, pulling up…

I’m not a guy who visits the doctor very often (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it), but I do enjoy reading about the Big Medical Breakthroughs that seem to surface in the newspaper every week or so. It’s comforting somehow to know that there are folks out there working 24/7 to cure the various…

I’ve been having a little trouble getting to the gym lately, so a recent article in Science Daily that delved into the mysteries of motivation caught my attention. The piece describes some interesting new research at the University of Illinois that suggests we should be asking ourselves whether we’re going to get something done rather than telling ourselves to do it.…

Mr. Parkour and I paid a visit last night to Gleason’s Gym, a sprawling gymnastics center artfully hidden in a suburban industrial park just south of the city. This was not my idea, but I tagged along with my housemate/former child out of curiosity and a faint notion that I should be supporting his newly won interest in fitness. You’d…

The other night, I was standing in the kitchen minding my own business when my son, whom I now refer to as Mr. Parkour, walked in to inquire about something or other, and while awaiting my response grabbed the molding above the door and cranked out a couple of modified pull-ups. Then, my daughter, who’s always been known…

My son and I traveled to the fancy gym in the suburbs last night for a workout.

Winter is giving way to spring around here, which makes my morning and evening walking commutes both exhilarating and treacherous. Patches of ice materialize at inopportune times, so mindful walking is the order of the day: one foot in front of the other. I've managed to maintain my footing so far, unlike My Lovely Wife, who has taken a couple of tumbles this winter.