Fitness and Moving Furniture

If there were times when general fitness protected me against a sprained back, twisted ankle, torn ligament or cardiac failure, then moving heavy furniture was inarguably one of them. I think that my wife Lori and I hold the record for the couple that moved the most since we arrived to the Bay Area. In seven years we moved 7 times, having lived in numerous rental places, bought and then sold a home, and recently settled into a new home with a lovely mortgage. All that moving and I’m still in one piece. (I can’t say the same about our china.)

This last move I had hoped that I won’t go through the furniture-moving process for at least another five to 10 years, but then I realized that I have friends – and friends help friends move. That is, for a burrito and a beer.

This past weekend I helped Gabe (FIT’s very own trainer and General Manager) and his wife Michelle move into their new home (congratulations!). Gabe and I carried an impossibly heavy tabletop a good distance and up two flights of steps. While carrying the tabletop, which oddly weighed more than his Italian leather sofa, we joked that the task felt like “nothing for us” even though we grimaced like we ate bad fish, our forearms burned with searing lactate, and our hearts suffered tachycardia. The fact was that, even though we were relatively fit, great physical exertion still hurt like hell. But the benefit of being fit was that we were able to tolerate a high level of discomfort. We made the entire trip without setting down or dropping the tabletop.

Fitness and Water Sport

On a different occasion not too long ago, my wife and I accompanied our friends to their cabin at Donner Lake, where we wakeboarded on a relatively breezy afternoon. White caps sprawled across the wind-swept lake – thousands of little white horses, snorting and rearing to take me down. This was my first time wakeboarding, and no matter what kind of confidence I gained from snowboarding on the slope in the winter, it would be drowned with wakeboarding on the lake in the summer.

The life jacket I wore was maybe eighteen sizes too big, but gearing up in the back of the Mastercraft we all agreed that I was at least wearing a life jacket, but no one thought about the effect an oversized jacket would have when I’m in the water with my feet strapped to the wakeboard. That effect, as I discovered quickly, was that the jacket did the Vulcan-ear thing over my head, so my body (with its 6 percent body fat) was dunked like a cinderblock under water while my feet were locked onto the wakeboard, the buoyancy of which kept my feet above my head. Essentially I was dunked upside-down, with only my feet above water and part of the life jacket visible but mostly empty.

So with my arms I doggy-paddled backward to get my head above water, but Donner Lake kept lapping my face. Then I grabbed the rope handle and waited for the boat to idle around to the proper position to pull me out of the water. Meanwhile, I swore that I would drown. Finally (finally!) a burst of motor and I was instantly above water, fighting unskillfully with all my muscles to stay up but within six seconds I face-planted into the drink. Now I was tired, hurt, and hopelessly flailing my arms again, swallowing a good portion of Donner Lake. When the boat pulled around, I grabbed the handle for another attempt. Of course, this left me with only one arm available to perform this pathetic one-arm backward doggy-paddle in order to get random, panicky breaths of air, while remaining mostly under water and wishing I were back on the dock drinking a margarita in the sun.

Later that afternoon, over margarita, my wife said that she kept thinking I had drowned because she didn’t see me for a really, really long time until the boat accelerated and then I would pop out of the lake for about 6 seconds. (You’re welcome for the entertainment, honey.) I began to think that I really should have drowned because it felt as bad as the toughest Crossfit workout – you know, the intense burn, the breathlessness, the heart palpitation, and the near-blackouts. Suddenly I realized that the fitness I gained from Crossfit was probably the very thing that kept me going through countless bouts of face-plants into cold water, each of which was immediately followed by thrashing and splashing with every ounce of energy in an otherwise upside-down watery suspension, out in the south end of Donner Lake.

Fitness and Motorcycling

As some of you know, after more than a dozen years, I recently returned to motorcycling. Many of you have been polite to refrain from saying that I’ll kill myself. Some of you have gently reminded me to ride carefully as I leave to get on the bike. No doubt motorcycling can be dangerous. And, as I am told by many people, “it’s” never me but the other drivers. And this statement, universally uttered by all who commute in metropolitan traffic, is actually everyone’s polite effort to not offend the rider’s skill but to hint at the lunacy of riding a motorcycle on today’s roads. Still I have gratitude for all those who remind me to be careful out there; I can never receive too many reminders.

I am more awake on a motorcycle than ever in my life, not in a philosophical sense but in a self-preservation sense. But how does fitness find its home on a motorcycle when the rider simply sits and steers?

Will my fitness on a motorcycle keep my spine intact if I crash head-on with an SUV? Will I break into a million pieces if I tumble down the freeway? I don’t know because it depends on numerous variables. But, in the same crash situation, wearing the same protective gear, is my chance of survival better than that of an unfit rider? I hope so, and I think so. With skill being equal, will my fitness allow me to control the motorcycle better than an unfit rider in an extreme situation? Very likely.

Many people who “lay” their motorcycles down do so in parking lots while not in motion, mostly because their bikes inadvertently tilt too far to one side. Often the rider in this situation fails to control the weight of the bike and is forced to “lay” it down, resulting in costly damage to the body of the bike. And perhaps a twisted knee. I think strength, however, is an advantage in the prevention of such embarrassing scenario. My motorbike weighs nearly four hundred pounds. While balanced, the bike requires barely any strength to hold straight, but tip it over progressively and you’ll feel the weight increase exponentially. I believe that, with a stronger body, the motorbike can be tilted farther before control is lost. This translates to a lower risk of the common “lay down” in parking lots, which occurs inevitably in front of a group of the Hell’s Angels.

But the biggest benefit to being a fit rider is the mental part. During tough bouts of exercising, I have learned to stay focused, no matter how terrible the discomfort. Training under duress improves the preservation of mental sharpness in stressful situations. Although I consider motorcycling an enjoyable experience, I cannot say that it is devoid of stress while riding in Bay Area traffic. While riding I find my focus to be razor-sharp, always scanning ahead and behind, evaluating every object (moving or not), orientating myself for predicted situations, posturing for responses. I ride with the same mental energy I put into my workouts, the kind that keeps me mentally sharp when the discomfort escalates to a level that often leaves the untrained disoriented and fuzzyheaded.

After reading the above, I realize that I write this piece with the kind of blunt confidence about motorcycling that might ultimately beckon bad karma on the road. Well, with my effort in being a careful rider, I will have to assume that bad karma, bad luck, or whatever name it goes by, is always on the hunt for me on the roads, around the turns, at the intersections, in the shadows – and I believe it’s healthy to assume nothing less. Karma or not, I feel that riding is not always about luck but about vigilance.

It so happens that health, quality of life and longevity are also not always about luck but about diligence. You’ve got to train for fitness and life. There is no way around it.