Reflections

It's no longer possible to wake up on Sept. 11 and view it as just another day, so I won't be writing about health or fitness today.

For eight years now, at least for those of us who live in the Northeast, it has been hard to trust a beautiful September morning. That Tuesday dawned so crisp, clear and promising.

It was my day off, and I was in my car, on my way to go mountain biking, when I heard the reports on the radio that the twin towers of the World Trade Center were no more. I at first thought it was a hoax, a modern-day version of a War of the Worlds broadcast, until I heard the voice of the late Peter Jennings. He was someone I trusted, at a time when I trusted few.

I went ahead and rode my bike, because I didn't know what else to do.

When I returned home and turned on the TV, I couldn't bear to watch for long. To continue would be to endure an endless loop of horror — of flames and smoke and falling bodies and buildings collapsing into dust — so I shut off the TV, and my phone, and spent the rest of the day and evening in a state of disconnect.

The days immediately afterward seemed equally unreal. The skies fell eerily silent, as the nation's air traffic came to a halt.

I also remember the unusually good manners on the road — so many cars with American flags fluttering from their antennas, their drivers letting me merge with a friendly wave instead of cutting me off and using gestures of another sort. Everywhere, there seemed to be a sense of solidarity, of community, like I've never felt before.

Neither the silent skies nor the return to civility lasted for long.

It is hard to trust a beautiful September morning. I'm relieved that here in the Northeast today, it is gray and rainy.

Are personal trainers intimidating?

I recently received an e-mail from a friend who had been considering working with a personal trainer and wanted to know what she could expect. She had some hesitations and concerns, all of them valid, but one of her questions took me by surprise.

"My perception is that personal trainers only want to work with younger, already fit, size-12-and-unders who are serious athletes," she wrote. "I am none of those. Are personal trainers willing to work with a wide range of body types, fitness levels and physical challenges as long as the client has a doctor's OK, clear goals and is willing to put in the work?"

The answer to that question is a resounding YES! A good personal trainer should have the skills and desire to work with a variety of clients.

Her question, though, got me to thinking about the image that personal trainers present. Like everyone else, personal trainers come in different shapes and sizes, and to generalize would be a disservice to all.

But there's a saying in the personal-training business that your body is your best advertisement, and clearly there are plenty of trainers out there who flaunt what they have. My friend's question made me wonder whether it's truly a good business move. Could some of those rippling muscles be turning off more would-be clients than attracting them?

The answer to that is impossible to know, but I do think people who are trying to make changes in their lives and behavior might be more likely to succeed if they have as a role model someone who has, to some extent, been through what they've been through. One of the reasons I decided to get into personal training at the age of 51 is because I sense a lack of older trainers, at least in the gyms, who might better serve that "aging boomer" population we keep hearing so much about.

This is not to say, certainly, that a young trainer could not work quite well with older clients, or that an older trainer could not serve younger clients well, or that a trainer with a Mr. Universe physique could not inspire and help a client who is obese. Like any other profession, there are good trainers and bad, whether young or old, "ripped" or "average."

I suppose it is ultimately up to each person who seeks the services of a trainer to find one he or she can work and communicate well with and achieve positive results. It might not always happen on the first try.

To those of you who, like my friend, might feel a bit intimidated, I would offer this advice: Keep in mind that you are seeking a service, and trainers are there to provide that service. They are beholden to you. Make sure that they live up to your expectations and treat you with respect, whatever your goals and current state of fitness.

Testing, 1, 2, 3 ...

I figure one of the advantages of having a blog is that I can occasionally use it to toot my own horn, so if you don't like that kind of self-generated noise, please cover your ears, because I have an announcement to make.

I passed the American Council on Exercise personal trainer certification exam on Friday! Hooray for me!

I took the computer-based version of the exam at TechComm partners, a proctored testing center in Smithfield, R.I. The exam was divided into two sections — 150 multiple-choice questions and a two-part training simulation involving two different client scenarios.

The exam took me 3 hours and 20 minutes to complete. By the end of it, I had no idea whether I'd passed, nor did I care at that particular moment. My head was spinning, my stomach was growling, and I just wanted to go home.

Maybe I'm just out of practice at taking tests — let's just say it's been, ahem, a while — but I found the experience grueling.

So I hit the "submit" button and then held my breath while filling out a brief survey about the testing experience. I guess I had expected a screen with fireworks to come up if I passed, so when the survey was over and I saw a sentence that began, "The test scores you achieved on the comprehensive ACE Personal Trainer Certification Examination ..., " my heart sank.

But then I read on: "... appear below. Congratulations! You passed the test!"

So does this mean I can now call myself a personal trainer? No, not exactly. In a few weeks I will receive my certificate from ACE, a respected organization in the fitness industry, attesting to the fact that I possess a good base of knowledge that I can use to safely and effectively train clients and to promote health and fitness.

I do hope to start doing some training in the near future, but that will require setting up a business structure, obtaining insurance and taking care of a few legal matters. I'll keep you posted on those developments, and I'd love to hear from any of you who already are personal trainers if you have any advice on getting started.

In the meantime, I plan to savor having completed that first step toward reaching my goal, and to continue learning. We must never stop learning, whatever our interests and passions are.

I take the responsibility of personal training very seriously. I want future clients to know that I will hold the trust you have placed in me with care, gratitude and respect. I look forward to meeting you and working with you, and sharing in the joy of your success.

Walking the walk

In honor of Labor Day, I thought I'd post this video showing the farmer's walk, which supposedly derives its name from the heavy buckets of milk that farmers used to lug around. The event has now become a staple of strongman competitions.




So remember, don't try this at home, kids! Well, unless you happen to be this kid.

It's time to think about skiing!

With that title, I'd better start boarding up the windows in our house to protect ourselves against the mob of brick-hurling summer-lovers who regard any mention of winter before Thanksgiving as a form of seasonal blasphemy.

Sorry, but now that there's a chill in the evening air in New England, I can't help myself. As you can see, I can get pretty excited about skiing. That's me in 2005 upon reaching one of my dream ski destinations: Lake Louise, in Alberta, Canada. Like so many things we might dream about and plan extensively for, reality didn't quite measure up to my expectations, but I'll save that story for another post.

Anyway, the point I was going to make is that if you're planning to go skiing this winter, NOW is the time to start preparing your body for it. There's an old saying in the sport: You have to get in shape to ski, you can't ski yourself into shape. I've always been a firm believer in that.

Skiing is a dynamic sport that uses a lot of muscles throughout the body. Many people make the mistake of regarding it as primarily a leg sport, but think about the effort it takes to pole and skate your way along a flat surface to get to the chairlift, before you even start to ski. If you haven't been preparing your entire body, you're going to feel that in your shoulders, arms and back the next day.

And not to be grim, but I think preparation for skiing demands to be taken a little more seriously than, say, golf or bowling. People do sometimes die skiing. Fortunately, it doesn't happen often, despite what my non-skiing friends seem to think, but with its speed and obstacles and weather-related challenges, it is a higher-risk sport than most in which the weekend athlete typically participates.

"You have to get in shape to ski, you can't ski yourself into shape."

I like to keep risk in perspective, and I've always considered driving to work on I-95 a far riskier activity than skiing. In the 25 years that I've been skiing, I've suffered only three injuries that required medical attention — a sprained thumb, a broken rib and a concussion (in my pre-helmet days). I think that's a pretty good record considering the many hundreds of times I've skied, including participation in recreational races and race leagues. I've always made a pre-season ski-specific workout a priority, and I think it has served me well.

Getting in shape beforehand — for any sport, really – will help you avoid injury.

Ski magazine has some excellent suggestions to help you get ready for the slopes this winter, which you can find here. In case you're tempted to not even touch that link because you think it's going to be another one of those grueling regimens involving lunges, plyometric jumps and wall-sits, think again. No, this is FUN stuff that you can do outdoors, while it's still warm and sunny, such as trail running and mountain biking.

I've always been partial to mountain biking to help me prepare for the skiing season, and for the sheer joy of it even when I'm not thinking about skiing. Mountain biking may be done on two in-line wheels instead of two parallel boards, but the similarities with skiing in movement, balance and mindset are amazing.

So there's no reason for you occasional skiers to be mad at me for mentioning winter so early (the hard-core skiers will completely understand). Get out there and play this fall, whether on a mountain bike or in your sneakers.

Trust me — you'll have fun, and without even knowing it, your body and mind will be ready when those first flakes start to fall.

The latest poll results are in

Congratulations — you readers once again passed one of my highly unscientific and perpetually flawed polls with flying colors!

With a massive turnout this time of 11 voters, you showed that you're a well-rounded group when it comes to your motivation for exercise. Six respondents, or 54 percent, said they exercise mainly to improve their overall health, and two, or 18 percent, said their chief motivation was to gain strength. The other three reasons, weighing in with one vote, or 9 percent, each were: to lose weight, to improve physique and to improve cardiovascular endurance.

You obviously recognize that exercise can play an important role in enhancing the overall quality of your life and your health. I sometimes get a little annoyed at the way exercise is sold to the public primarily as a weight-loss vehicle. Sure, maintaining a healthy body composition is a big part of overall health, but exercise has so many more benefits than just reducing body fat.

So keep up the good work, and maybe someday I'll get a poll response that's big enough to be meaningful. In the meantime, I'm having fun trying — and fun can go a long way toward improving one's overall health, too.

A bare-bones lesson on calcium

The other morning I came downstairs to find Marge stirring her liquid calcium supplement into her calcium-fortified orange juice that would accompany her bowl of calcium-rich Total cereal, which was, of course, swimming in milk.

"Whoa, hold on there, my little buckaroo," I said. Well, not really — I just thought that sounded kind of cute.

No, what I actually said was something more boring and harsh, like: "I hope you don't think you've just taken care of your day's calcium needs." Yes, the sad truth is that when it comes to calcium, a little at a time goes a long way, but a lot all at once goes pretty much nowhere.

I'm not a dietitian or nutritionist, but I've read enough to know that our bodies absorb calcium best when it is taken in amounts of 500 milligrams or less. The National Osteoporosis Foundation recommends that adults under age 50 get 1,000 milligrams of calcium a day and those over 50, 1,200 milligrams daily, in conjunction with appropriate amounts of vitamin D.

So if you're hoping to get the recommended amount of calcium but trying to do it all at once, whether through food or supplements, you've just wasted 500 to 700 milligrams of calcium, not to mention a lot of money over the course of a year in the case of supplements. Your body will better absorb calcium if it is consumed in smaller amounts spread throughout the day.

If you'd like to know more about the role of calcium and your health, the National Institutes of Health has a comprehensive fact sheet here.