All Together Now

    Unlike the pushup, or the familiar act of walking, jumping jacks are resistant to a romanticized treatment.  Flailing one’s arms and legs is just too juvenile—too third grade physical education class—to be recast as a plausible adult exercise.  And yet, my experience tells me otherwise.  Fifty jumping jacks, executed at a proper clip, raises the heart rate and taxes the arms and legs.  I’ve also witnessed otherwise decent youth athletes incapable of correctly doing even a few jumping jacks.  It’s a matter of coordination, I’ve noticed.  

    Even without that obnoxious word’s most common compound qualifier—hand-eye—many of us are sent reeling back to adolescent gym class upon hearing it, and, depending on our experiences while there, either delighted to be free of math and spelling or nauseated with terror.  Unlike later athletics, gym class was never a proving ground for real competition; it is instead a laboratory where natural facility is laid bare, and where the first glimpses of future ability are revealed.  Some children naturally move their appendages through space, finding fluidity and rhythm once a ball is introduced.  But it is here too that a less welcome discovery is made.  For every natural, three others struggle against the very framework of our reality.  Gravity becomes a demon, and space and time bedevil all effort.  Discouraged in youth, many have grown to adulthood quite happy to be free of the burden, and while enough coordination naturally manifests to get most of us through an ordinary day without calamity, I often wonder what a more developed sense of coordination could do for even the most two-left-footed amongst us.  Anyway, whoever said old dogs can’t learn new tricks?  

    Done correctly, jumping jacks require balance, timing, rhythm and effort—the sum of which is coordination.  The familiar movement is as follows:  Beginning with feet together and arms at the sides (also know as standing), jump.  While airborne, laterally open legs greater than shoulder width.  Simultaneously, and with minimal bending of elbows, raise arms from side in a sweeping arch above the head.  They should graze at the apex.  Land in this open position.  Jump once more, this time returning legs and arms to starting position.  Repeat.  

    What makes the movement challenging for some is timing.  An errant arm or a leg out of syncopation throws off balance in an instant, which, once  lost, is difficult to regain.  As the benefit of the exercise occurs only after fifty or so are done at a good pace, establishing a rhythm is essential.  This takes physical effort, but a surprising degree of concentration as well.  I’m not sure if jumping jacks sharpen the mind as well as they tone the calves, but effort no less.  I suppose if the advanced among us wish to increase the mental strain they might try counting in prime numbers (one through two hundred twenty-seven would be fifty).  

    Skeptics—which advocating jumping jacks always seems to attract—are usually mollified when challenged to do ten jumping jacks with one arm secured behind the back.  Actually this is an interesting variant for those who master the basic jumping jack as removing a limb from the equation requires additional balance and unusual effort from the trunk.  So unusual, in fact, I’d wager even polished athletes might be reminded of their less auspicious beginnings in third grade gym class.  For if there is one aspect unique to coordination, it is that it can always be sharpened.

In Stride

    Walking suffers precisely because it is pedestrian.  When it is necessary, like between mall entrance and some distant parking spot, it is loathed.  Walking for regular transportation can be good, unless one is late for something—then it becomes a frustrating slalom.  Walking for pleasure is fraught, most notably demonstrated by the classic long walk on the beach; few things murder romance like a forced shoreline march through hot sand and stinging salt.  Successful walks often have an ulterior aspect: dogs, farmer’s markets, window shopping—these diversions fill in the gaps when a walk’s pleasure might be conspicuously thin.  And then there is the least appreciated aspect of walking: exercise.

    Naturally, running gets all the exercise credit.  In fact, when walking is explicitly identified as exercise things quickly go awry; speed-walking, however challenging its practitioners claim, is as silly as slow-running.   Conversely, when left vague, as it was on an invitation to a charity walk I attended several years ago, walking is still misunderstood.  It was late autumn in a leafy suburb, and, for once, the weather was seasonably correct—cool, billowy white clouds, a crisp breeze.  I dressed as I would for a walk at home: whipcord trousers, shirt, lightweight knit.  I took along a tweed jacket as there was a lunch scheduled following the walk.  Well, I was way off.  Apparently, a charity walk is a near cousin to the charity run, and the expected costume is high-performance exercise gear.   The pace was my ordinary one, and the distance, three miles or so, not unusual.  I had to lend an underdressed girl my tweed as it clouded over and became chilly.  It  didn’t matter; the walk had the veneer of exercise, and that trumps common sense.

    Why must walking be sped-up or accompanied by specialized equipment to count?  I’ll offer a shaky theory: walking doesn’t register as exercise when compared to the current fad for intense and extreme fitness.  I have friends who wake at dawn to execute punishing routines under the tutelage of former commandos.  Others are perpetually in training; for what it’s rarely clear.  Still others compete in gimmicky obstacle course events where mild electrocution is part of the fun.  I don’t begrudge this movement; obviously some of the appeal is in the spectacle.  But I do question the effectiveness of fitness that isn’t sustainable; for every friend who has taken up some intense new regimen, another, having abandoned his, asks me how I stay fit.  My answer always disappoints: moderation.

    Walking might be a moderate exercise, but some care is needed in doing it correctly.  Posture is crucial: pelvis, shoulders and head should be vertically aligned.  When posture is mentioned, the immediate reaction is to sweep the shoulders dramatically back and jut the chin forward.  That’s standing at attention, and not correct for walking.  Imagine, instead, a thin chain attached to the crown of the skull; if someone were to gently pull taught this chain the result would be good posture.  Two more mistakes lurk.  The natural tendency when walking with purpose is to lean forward, as if late for an appointment; when merely strolling, the tendency is to lean back, resting weight on the lower back.  Both should be avoided when walking for exercise; a neutral position with a moderate stride must be established and kept to for the duration.  I challenge those who remain skeptical of this sort of moderate exercise to concentrate on posture for a three mile walk.  

    Clothes are the final barrier for most.  Putting on workout gear must trigger something in the brain—a sort of mental preparation for battle with the elliptical.  But getting geared up for a good walk undermines moderation.  Choose, instead, clothes that take sport as a prefix—those durable odd trousers, jackets and pullovers traditionally intended for leisure.  Other suggestions…  Dressing in layers sounds sensible, but I always wonder what to do with the peeled articles.  Jackets that can be buttoned and unbuttoned or have other convertible features are ideal.  Shoes should be sturdy; loafers are for loafing, not walking.  I prefer a hat to an umbrella when raining as a good walk requires swinging of arms.  For the same reason gloves are essential in the cold; jamming frozen hands into the pockets upsets the rhythm and balance of a good walk.   The sum often looks like something I might wear for lunch at a casual restaurant.  Which is perfect, as serious walking works up an awful appetite.

A Thrashing

I wonder what the neighbors think.

    I believe in the malleable and evolving habit of trends.  I also believe real labor is excellent exercise.  If the former belief is applied to the latter, I reckon it won’t be too long before those fitness enthusiasts who have embraced activities like swinging sledge hammers and hauling masonry will take notice of my interest in beating rugs.  I realize the optics are more domestic than woodsman, but I challenge any who scoff at the practice to beat a large Persian.  I do all six of mine twice each year (Fall and Spring).  It takes a full Saturday and when finished, my hands are blistered and my shoulders, abdomen, legs and arms are spent.  The rugs, however, emerge refreshed.

    The chore begins with the removal of furniture.  Once clear, the rug must be rolled, folded and hauled outside.  I use a combination of deck railings and outdoor furniture to suspend the rugs, but the ideal is a very stout rope between sturdy trees.  A large rug will tear a clothes line from its moorings faster than you can say Turkmen.  I prefer to do one at a time; this approach mimics the sets from a traditional workout, and when combined with all the furniture moving, hauling, unfurling, beating and replacing, the procedure takes on the effect of a circuit.  Additionally, if you try to beat several rugs in a row, you will punch yourself out by the second rug.

Cushions also benefit from a beating.

    The actual beating needs a few words.  The perfect instrument for the task is a men’s lacrosse stick.  I once chaperoned a class of third-graders on a field trip to one of those colonial villages.  There a woman in a convincing costume gave a rug-beating demonstration with a delicate little wire racket.  This was obviously a prop; it wouldn’t have lasted half-a-dozen real swings.  The beater must have some heft, but also some sort of flared, racket-like end so as to maximize the impact area.  I have never converted on the idea, but I have always thought a cricket bat with several large holes drilled into it would be a good instrument for beating a rug.  You might have to get creative here; as it happens I no longer play much lacrosse, though my stick is still perfectly capable of clobbering things.  

    The dust that explodes in plumes with each strike is astounding.  For this reason, you might consider a disposable particulate mask.  You should wear unprecious work clothes and probably bathe shortly after finishing as the loosed wool fibers can irritate.  People with allergies should probably stick to pushups etc.  Consult the weather forecast; unexpected rain would be a disaster.  A cool, windy day will not only be comfortable, but will help manage the dust.  The rugs will also seem particularly fresh.

    I don’t know if it is possible to accurately calculate, but I wonder how many calories are really expended in several hours spent as described above.  Doing multiple large rugs is a grueling physical challenge.  Unlike splitting wood, however, there is no neatly stacked evidence of labor. You will have to draw a sense of accomplishment from all that dust carried away on the breeze.

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Highly technical muscle group legend.

    Why the youthful resistance to stretching?  I can clearly recall recoiling at a barked instruction to cross one leg over the other and touch my toes.  My first tendency is to roll my eyes when I imagine some crew-cutted coach twirling a lanyard, extolling the merits of proper stretching.  And yet as recent as last winter when I coached a high school wrestling team, with the minor exception of the crewcut, that was me!  Get a good stretch in, boys—believe me—you don’t want to pull a hammy!  What happened to all of our vim—our arrogance in the face of pulled muscles—that, with the exception of a tender groin here and there, proved itself one of the few victories over those officious authority figures of our teenage athletic lives?  

    I don’t know, and I don’t care: this creaking frame now needs stretching.  Several minutes of leaning, bending and tugging before anything more vigorous than pruning the hedges is compulsory.  I was ribbed for taking that long by my wrestlers until I instituted a similar daily requirement for them.  Out went the lethargic partner stretches that had ineffectively occupied fifteen minutes each day.  The replacement regimen took twelve minutes (kept on-pace by that obnoxious mainstay of the coaching trade—the stopwatch) and could be executed without holding hands with a teammate.  It’s a neck-down treatment that focuses on the vulnerable bits but flows efficiently.  The key is to avoid thinking in strict terms of named stretches, instead focusing on muscle groups.  Specifically, these twelve:

Neck: Roll head in controlled circles, both directions.  Gently tug head from side to side, front to back.

Shoulders: Rotate arms in controlled windmills, forward then back.  Pull each arm across chest using opposite forearm. 

Arms:  Grasping an elbow, gently pull bent arm behind head and down back, left then right.  Next grasp fingers of opposite hand; straighten both arms and pull fingers down, then back.  Repeat with other arm.  

Chest:  Facing a wall, plant one hand at head level, arm extended.  Rotate body away from wall.   Repeat with other side.  

Torso:  With legs shoulder width apart, bend torso to side, reaching one arm down a leg and the other over head.  Repeat other side.  Next roll torso in wide, controlled circles.  

Hamstrings: With legs more than shoulder width apart, bend at the waist and touch floor.  When comfortable, alternate reaching for left then right ankle.  

Quads:  Standing on one foot, grasp ankle and bring it up to rear.  Repeat with other leg.  

Calfs:  In a slightly bent-at-the-waist pushup stance, push one heel to the floor, using the other foot to brace or increase stretch.  Repeat with other leg.  

Groin: Squat with heels touching, balancing on toes.  Place hands on floor in front of feet and use elbows and body weight to gently push out knees.  

Glutes (arse):  Sit with legs straight in front.  Cross one leg over the other and bring knee and thigh to chest using arms.  Repeat with other leg.  

Back:  In the same position as above, rotate torso to the side of the bent leg.  Thread opposite arm between front of thigh and torso, gently increasing stretch.  

Ankles:  In a standing position, roll one ankle at a time over toes in controlled circles.  Repeat with other foot.  

    For the over thirty (and older) set, stretching is a sort of chicken-or-or-the-egg scenario.  I can’t stretch cold, and yet I need to stretch before warming up.  The solution, I’ve found, is to do both, a sort of jumping and bending and shaking of limbs one sees runners do before a race.  Once suitably unkinked, and marginally limber, stretch in earnest.  I have to emphasize the time limit, though.  This is not a yoga session, and stretching for much more than the one-minute-per-muscle-group regimen leaves me (literally) cold.  For those who prefer metaphorical images: whether the light brightens or dims on a tire-mounted dynamo is a question of momentum.

Heave and Cleave

An ideal splitting surface has a wide sturdy base and tightly packed grain.  

    When I was a boy, Robert Frost’s 1915 poem “The Wood Pile” inspired me to take up a splitting axe and go to work on a mouldering stack of logs behind my childhood home.  The poem itself doesn’t romanticize the chore; the speaker understands the labor required to split a cord and is puzzled that it should have been spent only to abandon the fruits in an untrammeled wood.  Fuel disappears in a fireplace at about the same pace it takes to split, haul and stack it. This is why the fellow with the tender shoulders and rough hands is least likely to complain of a dying fire and the cooling living room.  Splitting logs is damned hard work.  It’s also terrific exercise.  

    What would Frost think of the current taste for mimicking labor for the purpose of exercise?  Some of these gyms have duffle bags full of stones; paying clients haul them around in punishing routines.  It brings to mind another Frost poem “Mending Wall”

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
​To each the boulders that have fallen to each. (13-16).

Frost is aware of the futility of repairing a stone wall that each year tumbles, but at least there is a wall to point to (or a tradition to uphold).  What about mimicking splitting wood, a task with neither?  In a gym, this is safely executed by pounding a tractor tire with a sledgehammer.  I don’t doubt the exercise is effective; I just prefer having a wood pile to admire when finished.  

    Of course wood-splitting isn't possible without a few arrangements.  Space—say a clearing with a five-yard diameter.  Some shock-absorbing surface is best—wood chips or grass—to help deaden the flight of the errant log.  The best splitting surface is a heavy and squat log—some unsplittable cross section taken from the base of a tree with the beginnings of a root structure that will act as a stabilizing flange.  The axe must be a splitting axe, or maul, with a wedged head not lighter than seven pounds and a sturdy handle with a reenforced neck.  Goggles and gloves are supposed to be worn.  

    The technique is rudimentary, engrained even.  Stance is shoulder width.  Dominant hand grasps the neck, the other firmly above the pommel.  Take aim at the cut end of a vertical log, drawing the axe back on the dominant side before bringing it up and over the head.  On the down-stroke, slide the dominant hand down the handle, driving the axe head into the center of the log.  The poetry, and I suspect the physical benefit, is in the rhythm that develops.  If you wish to last more than a few logs, a measured pace must be established.  Don’t forget that retrieving and stacking the spits is half the work.  Aim for duration rather than volume.  Learn to cleave in one blow.  If (and when) the maul gets jammed, put the log on the ground, step on it and rock the handle back and forth until released.  If that doesn’t work, lift the jammed log to the swinging position and execute a controlled stroke, striking with the sledge end of the axe.  The log will split itself over the upturned blade.  

    What about safety?  I know I have split safely when, the day following a session, my torso and shoulders are sore.  But a sore back portends injury.  A back becomes sore when it is put in charge of the stroke—a mistake as the back lacks control.  And the arms are merely the cables holding the axe; control comes from the front and sides of the midsection—the muscles facing the action.  I wonder, though, if the same exertion occurs when the danger is removed—say when pounding an immobilized rubber tire with a sledge hammer?  I think Frost would agree: the difference between a sisyphean task and a fruitful one is purpose: “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out” (“Mending Wall” 32-33). 

The fruit.

Short Circuit

I bet bronze helmets chaffed, especially while dancing.  

When I was actively playing sports in high school, weight training was as leaden and uninspiring as the 45 pound discs we all hoped to rack up on the barbell.  One particular strength coach, his thick neck roped with arteries, suggested the following routine: one muscle group, worked to absolute failure, each day of the week.  For instance, on the day we were to train our chests (everyone’s favorite as the desire for full pectorals is deeply coded into the brains of boys) this guy had us line up next to the bench.  One by one we would each do a set of as many repetitions we could muster at whatever the heaviest weight manageable was.  The goal was to fail around the tenth repetition.   And that was it!  Hit the showers, boys.  Of course he had a huge neck, so we all assumed his was the path to similar, collar-busting glory.  I’m not sure anybody even broke a sweat.  I did develop a persistent pain in my lower back, though.  

    Thankfully, straining beneath huge weight once per day has fallen from favor.  Instead circuit training has become massively popular under the guise of countless branded programs.  I chuckle each time I see a new one advertised; circuit training is as old as Jack Lallane.  No—older: Spartan boys training in the brutal Agoge camps performed the Pyrrhiche, a repetitive dance routine of explosive lunges, thrusts, pivots and jumps—all while wielding bronze shield and javelin.  The idea hasn’t changed much: a circuit of similar, weighted exercises executed with vigor and according to a strict clock is an ideal, if grueling, way to boost performance. 

    All that is required is a set of modest weights, perhaps a cinderblock (or the slightly less rudimentary kettle bell) and a clear space.  From lunges to cleans, squats to rows, the variety of exercises is vast: choose five, executing each without rest during the transitions and repeat three or four times.  But circuit training scales down very well—right down to training for nothing more romantic than general physical fitness.  And the only requirements for that noble goal are a few memorized floor exercises, a scant fifteen minutes and some degree of persistence.

    A modest circuit might begin with fifty jumping jacks, followed by fifty lunges, twenty-five  pushups and twenty-five sit-ups.  This might sound too modest to some.  I must pause here to relate a brief story about just that.  A few years ago I was asked to help out with my old high school wrestling team.  For one reason or another I was put in charge of conditioning.  In advance of the first practice, I put together a relatively modest circuit, similar to the one above.  The other coaches thought it far too lenient.  I persisted, as I wanted to gain a sense of general fitness in the room.  We were all dismayed, though, to learn that virtually no one could get through three circuits without real strain and, toward the end, sloppiness.  And therein lies the secret of the circuit; most people can get through one, but will subsequent rounds be all flailing arms and jellied legs?  

    Happily, by the end of the season, I had the team conditioned to a more suitable standard.  That modest circuit expanded from four simple exercises to seven challenging ones.  Three circuits could be crisply executed.  These particular exercises were tailored to the needs of those wrestlers, which is to say explosive strength in the legs, an iron trunk and arms that would not fail.  I’ve reproduced the original circuit below, but unless you are training for a spot in the varsity lineup (or to be a Spartan warrior) a simpler series of four or five familiar or favorite floor exercises should suffice.  Performed quickly and honestly, a more efficient workout just doesn’t exist, and at absolutely no risk of popping the buttons from your collars.

If readers unfamiliar with the exotic exercises listed here are interested, drop a note and I will put together some colorful descriptions into a post.

Ascension Day

    Behind one of the dormitories on my boarding school campus, a steep earth mound rose, perhaps three stories high.  It appeared like an angry boil from the surrounding woods, its red clay almost free of scrub.  A furrowed, foot-worn path split the mound, and from the crest the head master’s house could be seen.  I never found out why it was there—I’m not sure anyone knew.  I remember it in detail though because we trained hard on that modest hill.

    Propelling yourself against gravity saps energy like few other activities.  The steeper the incline generally, the more challenging, although too steep and not enough purchase will be available to gain any real momentum.  That mound had the perfect grade—somewhere around 30 to 35 degrees if I had to say.  As it happens, a similar grade is fairly standard for stairs.  As I no longer have an earth mound, yet am surrounded by endless flights of stairs, the transition from the former to the latter has been easy.  The same won’t be said of the workout: running stairs is grueling.  

    My stair regimen looks something like this.  I walk down a dozen flights, limbering as I go.  From there I sprint up six flights at full tilt.  At the half-way mark, I drop to the landing and do pushups, using the stairs for incline or decline as I see fit.  The remaining half dozen flights I take with a good clip, though not at full speed.  The heart rate should come back down as you descend for the next set.  Three or four sets should do it.  

    This is an easy scenario for those living in the city.  High rises are always equipped with emergency stairwells and even smaller buildings are required a set of stairs somewhere.  Suburbanites might need to get creative.  The office is one solution, and as it’s quite acceptable to exercise during lunch breaks these days, why not take advantage of the stairs?  The other option is to run up and down your own staircase.  I had a friend whose house had a main staircase with a second staircase at the end of the hallway.  He would open doors and clear a path, running one continuous circuit—up one flight, down the next and so on.  I’m sure his wife thought him odd, but he was awfully fit.  

    Speaking of looking odd, you might be concerned of discovery, all panting and wobbly, in your building’s stairwell by a nosy neighbor.  Fear not; as long as the elevators are working, the only people I have ever encountered are fellow stair-runners.  In smaller or older buildings the stairs might be exterior.  As long as they don’t hang outside a neighbor’s bathroom, you should go unnoticed running up and down them on occasion.  As for the stairs in your own house—well isn’t suburbia all about observing the odd habits of your neighbors?  

    Unless you are truly in training for something rigorous, this is not an everyday workout.  That’s what skipping rope is for.  Running stairs is for those days where energy is high but time short.  Those Wednesday evenings after kids are in bed but dinner for two is on the stove, or Friday mornings before anyone else is even up.  Fifteen minutes is all the time that is needed; you’ll need to dig deeper than that to get through it though.

Bobbing About

Early morning is the best time for a furtive swim--so early that this swimmer was still wearing his evening shirt.

    I no longer have easy access to a swimming pool, so when on holiday and one is suddenly available at all hours, I take full advantage.  A hard swim raises the heart rate and taxes the muscles, but, unlike running or skipping rope, I never emerge in desperate search of a shower.   I know of no other exercise that is so rigorous and so refreshing.  I disappear several times each vacation day, before meals and between engagements, returning a little out of breath but otherwise ready for whatever is scheduled.  

    Maybe my definition of swimming for exercise differs from most.  I often see other swimmers plodding away, rhythmically putting length after length behind them.  I have neither the patience (nor, likely, that sort of endurance) to spend an hour in the pool.  So I sprint.  Down-and-back, rest, down-and-back, rest and so on.  I’m not opposed to slower, longer swims; I just prefer the thrill and efficiency of half-a dozen sprints.  

    The crawl is the classic fast swim.  It works the shoulders, torso and back, but I always find it lacking for the legs.  Strangely, the breast stroke, which is slower and more methodical, is a greater challenge when executed at speed.  I think this has something to do with drag; the crawl forces a long, elegant line through the water, whereas the body is square during a breast stroke, ploughing through the chop like a slow but capable tug boat.  

    A brisk breast stroke also seems to work the chest in a different way to the pushup.  It’s a spreading versus a pressing motion, and the muscle fibers quickly make themselves known by a deep and unfamiliar ache.  The same is true for the legs; squats might strengthen the thighs, but the frog kick required during the breast stroke forces a pulling and pushing that becomes apparent by sprint number two.  And whether it is realized or not, none of these motions are possible without tightening the abdomen.  The chest, thighs, abdomen—these areas are precisely what a man should keep an eye on as he ages if he wishes to fill his jackets and avoid letting out his trousers.  

    Like my other preferred forms of fitness, no gear is necessary.  I see others with goggles and noseclips, earplugs and swim caps.  I’m sure they provide benefits for the dedicated, but I find sauntering into the pool area, cranking out a dozen sprints before cooling off in the shallow end is about as efficient and carefree as exercise gets.  One minor word of caution though: as you become faster in the water, and the waist inevitably slims, you will be tempted to vault yourself from the water at the pool's edge.  Do make sure your trunks have a good drawstring.

Ready, steady, swim... (followed immediately by cocktail hour).  

Surefooted

It's the rope, dope: twenty minutes with one of these each day will lead to trim calves, a strong heart, able feet and, ultimately, grace in motion.   Not a bad deal.  

    My middle school wrestling team was a motley collection of budding athletes and what might, if I’m being generous, be termed filler.   The coaching staff was superb though, making proper competitors out of many of us.  Strangely, it is the assistant coach I recall best.  He was a compact man—perhaps 5’5” and, though judging these things can be difficult, I imagine he weighed no more than 130 pounds.  He had angular features, which suited the way he moved: silently and often before you realized he had.  He was preternaturally quick, a quality valued more than strength in most combat sports, and could make mincemeat of men twice his size.  

    The memory of this person has remained all these years because he inspired me to take up skipping rope.  He was a master, the rope a whirring forcefield, his feet moving in strange and beautiful rhythm.  He seemed to levitate within, barely out of breath.  I wanted to be a good wrestler; I wanted much more to skip rope with similar grace. 

    Form is crucial.  You must skip with good posture—shoulders back, spine straight, belly drawn taught.  The temptation is to look at the floor; resist in favor of a point on the horizon.  This will ensure your neck remains unbent and will aid in balance.  Minimize arm movement, turning the rope with your wrists rather than flailing arms.  This too will help your balance.  Don’t focus on jumping over the rope.  Like shooting clay pigeons, you must visualize where your target will be rather than where it is.  Imagine you are trying to strike the space between your feet and the floor with the rope.  A rhythm, however slowly, will develop.  

    Once one does, and you feel you can skip without a tangle for several minutes at a time, increase the speed of the rope. You may also consider footwork at this point.  Begin with shifting your weight from one foot to the other until you can jog in place alternating the jumping foot.  Next try tapping the toes of your non-jumping foot between jumps, then add heel taps.  Impressive patterns will emerge; so too will sculpted calves.  

    The list of practical advantages to skipping rope is long.  If you have difficult joints or a problematic back skipping rope is a savior, providing rigorous cardiovascular exercise at a fraction of all the pounding that accompanies running.  There is the low-tech aspect to consider too.  I am not a fitness gadget person, preferring the classic and elemental.  I use a leather rope that I’ve had for years because of its weight and speed, but virtually any cording will work—from plastic-coated electrical wire to hemp mooring rope.  If you wish to avoid the nasty welts from the former and the calluses from the latter, a quality jumprope travels easily enough.  I have skipped rope in plenty of hotel rooms; it’s particularly satisfying to channel Ali by wearing one of the terry-cloth robes provided.

    I like to do intervals of five minutes or so punctuated by sets of pushups and sit-ups.  Besides the cardiovascular benefits, learning to skip well seems to improve relations between your feet and your brain.  I don’t know if I have achieved even half of my old coach’s ability with the rope.  The discipline clicked for me, though, when I realized his confident footwork wasn’t what made his skipping so good; rather, the considerable time he spent spinning that rope is what gave him his grace.

The Building Blocks of Fitness

The standard block below; an 18-pounder on top.  Both are taped to preserve your manicure.  

    For two summers during high school I worked a construction job for a family friend.  My older brother had done the same, and while I wouldn’t say it was a right of passage, choosing instead an internship (as current high schoolers seem to prefer) might have been regretted.  The second year, after my job had ended and before heading off to college, I visited some friends in the South of France.  I arrived with calluses, a badly blackened thumbnail, and, I am not ashamed to admit, muscles.  Not the grotesque, rippling sort popular today, just the burnished leanness one acquires from proper labor.

    As I’ve mentioned in the past, I have a firmly rooted distrust of fitness gadgets.  If pressed, I can make a few concessions though.  One would be a ledge of some description or, better still, a sturdy tree branch.  Pulling oneself up, like pushing oneself up, engages complex muscle groups and is efficient and portable.  Besides the floor (for push-ups) and branches (for pull-ups) I can recommend another excellent fitness tool: the cinder block.  

    In the last few years a vogue has developed for fitness regimes involving all manner of junk--chains, tires, rock-filled duffle bags.  The idea--a good one, I think--is to motivate the user who may have fallen into a rut by introducing unconventional routines and objects.  In basic terms, one looks and feels impressive doing pushups with heavy-gauge chains wrapped about the torso.  Of course it seems silly to pay a club or a trainer to gain access to these things.  A better approach is to identify a poorly guarded construction site and pilfer a cinder block.  

    Cinder blocks exist in various shapes and sizes, but the standard is the 8X8X16, which is the iconic double-chambered block one thinks of when asked to picture one.  This type of block has a number of advantages beyond its wide availability though.  It is around 30 pounds, give or take, which, for the average male, is an ideal weight to hoist about.  The shape is important too; the central chambers and the ledges at the ends allow multiple ways of grasping the block.  The material itself--coal ashes mixed with cement--provides excellent grip, even when wet.  One might choose to file any burrs, or even tape the edges, but in its original state, the standard cinder block should be ready to use.  You’ll notice no batteries, chargers, long-term contracts or unhinged personal trainers are necessary.   

    Perhaps the thread that ties these low-tech exercises I’m fond of together is their relationship to momentum.   For years momentum was thought to be the very thing that should be eliminated from exercise, and this remains the case today for the bench press, the dead lift and  a list of others.  But momentum isn’t universally unwanted.  The key is in understanding when momentum is making an exercise easier or dangerous (bad) and when it is providing the challenge (good).  Effective exercises either resist or use momentum as a way of engaging many more muscles than the obvious ones, especially those in the torso. Done repeatedly a cardiovascular workout is inevitable; it’s simply impossible to execute repetitions of complex movements without raising the heart rate.  One might consider shoveling snow or loading hay bales on to the back of a truck as examples.  

    But why exercise like this in the first place?  Why hoist building materials when air conditioned gyms lined with pristine, neoprene-swathed equipment exist?  To answer that we must briefly return to the South of France.  The friends with whom I stayed that summer had access to hotels and beach clubs, each with sparkling gyms, and while I spent the majority of my time swimming, nightclubbing and eating, fear of losing the definition I had developed in the weeks prior compelled me to spend an hour each day exercising.  I would curl and bench and squat and, worst of all, use an elliptical, which was considered tres chouette at the time.  Perhaps it was the uncommonly good food, or the countless aperitifs, but despite all the effort I noticed I was losing, if only to my eyes, some of my brick-lugging physique.  Actual labor, I now understand, requires serious expenditure over a period of time rather than the short bursts of energy used to create beach muscles, and short of securing work as a part-time laborer, exercising with a cinder block achieves the same efficiency and effectiveness.  Portability is another matter.

For the skeptics, here are a few moves to try with your cinder block.  Run through two dozen repetitions of each exercise and at least two circuits of the routine.  Follow liberally with Pastis.

The Twelve-O’clock Block

With the block on the floor in front of you, form a stance over it allowing your feet to be more than shoulder width apart.  Grip the block how you see fit--the most sensible way being lengthwise by the protruding ledges of each side.  Starting with your legs (and with a straight back) lift the block, permitting momentum to assist your arms in carrying it up and over your head.   Hold for a beat, and then return to starting position.  The block should go from a 6 o’clock starting position to a 12 o’clock extended position and then back to the 6 o’clock.  The movement should be explosive but smooth.

The Faux-Hay-Bale

Begin by grasping the block as above, this time permitting the block to hang from your fully extended arms somewhere by your pelvis.  Feet should be shoulder-width apart.  Lower the block to your right side, twisting and bending your torso as you do.  Once the block is as low as your knees, power it back up in a diagonal sweep to your left above shoulder level.  Imagine you are picking something heavy from low on your right and putting on a shelf high up to your left.  Or loading hay bales.  Do the same but to the other side.  

The Semaphore Shuffle

Permit the block to hang from your fully extended arms in front, as above.  Feet should be shoulder width apart with plenty of bend in the knee.  Hoist the block up in front of you, arm extended as far as comfortable, and straight over your head.  Slowly lower the block down behind your head by bending at the elbow.  Return the block to the starting position by doing the above in reverse.  Use the spring in your legs to help your arms, and tighten the abdominals to steady the movement.  You should resemble a semaphore operator guiding an airliner from the runway.  Do be careful not to scalp yourself on the approach.  

For the truly dedicated.  Max Steiner Design, Brooklyn.

A Pressing Matter

A young Sean Connery demonstrating good form, fitness manual close at hand.  Credit: ipernity.com

    A friend of mine recently started wearing a Nike FuelBand, a $150-plus device that measures the wearer's caloric output among other kinetic metrics.  It bleeps furiously when he stands still, inadvertently dropping below some acronymical goal.  He is poor company during cocktail hour.  It made me think: how many products must come and go for us to collectively realize that we needn’t first purchase some gadget in order to improve or maintain fitness?  There are no doubt useful fitness tools for the advanced enthusiast, but they are not required, and more often than not, find a way of failing us.  Either literally failing because the thing has been cheaply manufactured, or on some metaphysical level where the object itself becomes a symbol of broken promises, and because the sight of it inspires guilt, is condemned to sit heavily at the back of a closet.

    Perhaps because I value my closets, I have loyally relied upon a simpler technology for the basic maintenance of fitness.  The measured advance and retreat of the floor has been my constant companion.  I speak, of course, of the push-up.  One might say it is a classic, but with that label comes the suggestion that it has retired from active service.  That is nonsense; militaries around the world still break new recruits with the humble pushup.  It is the push-up, not the bench-press, which is the great equalizer of men.  Show me a muscle-bound and swollen-bellied bodybuilder that can do more than a handful.  Strength, I have learned, is not correctly measured by girth or weight; the ability, or inability, to effectively move through three-dimensional space is a truer test. 

    But the pushup’s real merit is its long list of practical advantages.  Is there another rigorous exercise as portable?  Not really.  Or as impressive to young children (who almost always want to see if you can still do pushups while they sit on your back)?  No; children are never interested in yoga routines.  Perhaps the most practical aspect of the push-up, though, is that it is endlessly variable.  One can do them quickly, or slowly; smoothly or plyometrically; with two hands or one; on knuckles or fingertips; with a swoop, a hop or a clap.   I have been doing pushups all my life; I am certain I have discovered only a fraction of the rich variety.  

    One must start with the basics though.  Executed correctly, the push-up is a thrilling full-body movement, one-part Pilates and two-parts circus strongman.  Rigidity is important; honesty more so.  Your body must be stiff like a plank so as not to sap resistance.  Your mind too must stay taught, not permitting anything less than a full advance and retreat to count.  I’d rather see two honest pushups than a dozen head-bobs with sagging hips and static arms.  If the movement is not challenging, you are cheating.

This is how a standard pushup is done.  

1: Choose a level surface.  

2: Arrange yourself in a tripod made up of two arms, shoulder width apart, and both feet, together.  Your chest should be approximately parallel to the floor.   

3:  Tighten your stomach, back and chest so your body is stiff and still.  

4:  Articulating first your elbows, then your shoulders, lower your chest to the ground until it barely touches.  Remain stiff.

5:  Do the reverse of step 4, this time using your pectorals, deltoids and triceps to push yourself back to the starting position (step 2), again remaining stiff.  

6:  Repeat (for a lifetime).