Gym or Sofa? - Benefits of Retirement.

I think there can be a stereotypical image of someone who has retired. It is usually that of an overweight elderly gentleman slumped in his armchair near a roaring coal fire, with his eyes fixed on a newspaper during the day and transfixed at a TV set in the evenings. His wife can be seen shuffling into the living room holding a tray on which stand a piping hot cup of tea and a plate of biscuits. The only time he gets out of his armchair is during mealtimes when he makes his way into the dining room, or when he needs to go out for a round of golf or lawn bowling. And without a doubt, outside his front door, his car is parked, awaiting his next short trip. 

In reality, I have no idea what is the present percentage of the UK retired population, let alone of those who fit such a stereotype, but I think this sort of image of a retired couch potato might have arisen, if I remember well, from popular television soaps such as Coronation Street, or from the 1960s comedy such as Alf Garnet in Till Death Us Do Part, and that of Uncle Albert in the hilarious Only Fools and Horses.

Of course, it can be argued that these characters tell of more advanced years than my own age at present. Or perhaps such characters were meant to portray such a lifestyle of someone in their sixties, as with a popular song by the Beatles, When I'm Sixty-Four, released in 1967 on their album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - a perfect portrayal of such a stereotype: The narrator sees himself as a future veteran confined to his armchair while being fussed by his grandchildren. Even the name of their album suggests that it was aimed at the retired and the widowed.

Maybe in that era, all this might have been true. For someone to reach seventy, especially a male, would have been considered fortunate. For women in their seventies, this was more common. This could be an explanation on why elderly housewives are often stereotyped bringing in trays of tea from the kitchen to their chairbound husbands.

Therefore how happy I am that at 66, I don't fit the stereotype! I certainly can outperform the fictional narrator in the Beatles song and I'm now two years older. But much had to do with the advance in medicine. Actually, if it wasn't for advanced medicine and the skill of the surgical team, I may not be alive now, let along reaching my sixty-sixth birthday. For at the age of 61, I was diagnosed with heart failure by my GP, and a chest X-ray revealed an enlarged left ventricle caused by a regurgitating aortic valve, and apparently, I was living on borrowed time. Therefore a series of tests accompanied by regular doses of pills eventually led to the procedure - the replacing of my own faulty valve with that of a healthy pig's valve imported from the USA.

But after being reassured of the need for no more medicine, however, due to persisting symptoms of atrial fibrillation following the op, medicine for life remains a necessity, including anticoagulants, and drugs dealing directly with atrial fibrillation and also with the problem of water retention (diuretics). This, along with regular blood checks to ensure that the rate of coagulation remains confined to given limits. Indeed, praise God for the advancement of medicine now bringing treatments still widely unknown during the mid-sixties!

Then shortly before the end of the convalescence period, I was put on a course of rehabilitation at a riverside leisure centre in Windsor, involving a combined cycle and bus ride to Windsor from Bracknell town. Fortunately, this was for only two days a week. At the venue, most of us were middle-aged men, with a lone female instructor, and with myself looking to be one of the younger set. The session began with warm-up floor exercises, not too unlike that of dancing, before the "serious stuff" of what could be called "circuit training" got underway. 

The first exercise apparatus was the stationary cycle, on which, as at all the other workout stations, I was allowed just 2.5 minutes for each. Following this was the wall press-ups, the only exercise that was done without any equipment. Next was the rowing machine, the well-known Concept 2 Rower, followed by sit-ups using a chair to sit and stand in fairly rapid movements. Following this was the step-ups, and finally, the bicep-curl using 2x3kg hand weights. Then the whole circuit was repeated before the cool-down involving dance-like floor exercises, and finally a gentle ease-off. The whole session took an hour of our time.

I was fortunate enough for the rehabilitating course to end not long before my 63rd birthday. After consulting with one of our church Elders at a pub on the thought of early retirement, I was quite surprised when he gave his full approval on behalf of the whole church. Therefore, on my 63rd birthday, I ceased work permanently, two years before the legal age.

But it was at the start of retirement when my GP urged me to exercise. And so I went to our nearest gym, which is at the Bracknell Leisure Centre, and providing the GP would sign his approval, I was offered an induction. The induction was on how to use the equipment for maximum efficiency, with the introduction of two new cardiac exercises not practised at Windsor. Therefore, once settled in, what I did was to work on the rehab exercises plus the two extra workouts. But with some differences. Each workout became more intense or prolonged. For example, the universal 2.5 minutes at Windsor became ten minutes for the cycle, five minutes for the wall press-ups, seven minutes for the rowing, about ten minutes for both sit-ups and step-ups, and eight minutes for the bicep curl. Also, the 2x3kg weights for the upper-arm workout were raised to 2x4kg and eventually 2x6kg with the time extended to ten minutes.

Old gym in Bracknell, where the Concept 2 rowers are seen.

As with rehab, the session consisted of 2x8-station circuits, making the entire workout up to 150 minutes long. I became so keen on the programme that I upped my gym attendance from twice a week to three times a week. But the snag with that was I became subject to injury, which bade me look over the whole schedule and adjust accordingly. The resulting reschedule meant that the two circuits were reduced to just one circuit (that is, eight workouts instead of the original sixteen. In Windsor there were twelve altogether). But it was in the rowing where real differences began to be experienced.

The change from a bi-circuit session to a single circuit had allowed the rowing to progress faster than the other seven workouts, enduring to thirty minutes by progressive steps. However, on one occasion, a leaking roof skylight caused part of the gym to shut down, the upstairs section where the rowers and the cycles were located. This gave me the opportunity to have a try at the Elliptical - and picked up a painful foot injury which, having turned inflammatory, not only kept me away from the gym for several weeks but also called for the need to buy and use crutches, making me look and feel like an old man.

It seems so ironic, doesn't it? Exercise workouts to keep myself fit - and here am I, walking on crutches! However, because of their incompatibility with the bicycle, I had to keep those leg supports at home whenever I had to go out. At least, even with an injured foot, which required a hospital visit, I could still pedal efficiently.

Therefore I felt that a massive rescheduling was necessary. The gym visit was reduced to just one visit a week, and the eight different workouts were reduced to just one - the rowing. Therefore I extended the time from a thirty-minute workout to forty minutes, and eventually to a full hour. According to the Concept 2 calculator, set on resistance level 8, I rowed over 10,000 metres (6 miles) and burned between 300-350 calories. This once-a-week workout continues every Friday to this day, along with lane swimming on Mondays (75-80 minutes), the Long Walk through the woods on Tuesdays (90 minutes) and cycling on Sundays (to church and back - approximately 8-8.5 miles). I have always enjoyed a sauna straight after the gym workout.

Crutches - made me look and feel old!

Now with a brand new gym opened at the same leisure centre. This meant getting used to a different brand of the rowing machine. The Techno-Gym version looks more modern than the Concept 2, with a wider range of resistance and a better monitor. I admit that Level 8 is now too difficult on the Techno-Gym for long endurance rowing. Okay for a five or ten-minute burn-up, perhaps. Instead, I have discovered that Level 5 is the closest match to the resistance generated by the previous Concept 2, with one full hour of non-stop rowing also covering close to 10,000 metres with around 280-300 kcal burned.

I guess it's all about staying fit and remaining healthy whilst fulfilling my role as a carer for my partially-disabled wife. But there is another benefit in exercise, a positive feeling of wellbeing and retaining sharper mental abilities. Furthermore, when God initially created us, he gave us bodies which need to be looked after and cared for. Yet according to Paul the apostle, physical exercise is commended, yet still held beneath spiritual godliness in importance (1 Timothy 4:8), as one day I will die, but my spirit remains eternal. That's why I ask, why not both? My retirement is far from idle. Each morning I cannot do without a daily reading of the Bible, normally a whole chapter of either the Old or New Testament, and going through the whole book or letter in daily readings. Then it's off to engage in some physical activity, depending on the day of the week.

And that awful battle: Weight loss. Over and over again I'm bombarded with BBC programmes and glossy TV magazines about diet and nutrition, calorie-counting and the avoidance of the tastiest foods. Now with this lark of - er - Veganuary, this idea of going vegan has absolutely no appeal to us (Alex and myself). Give me a slice of succulent beef, a chicken thigh or a slab of pork any time! At least these make life worth living. Even scientists have seemed to assert that vegans are less happy in general than omnivores, according to the Press.

But since the operation in 2015, I couldn't help notice a definite shortening of my neck, as if the procedure itself was the cause of it. Whether it is by natural ageing, or an anatomical alteration as a direct result of the op, or a combination of both, one thing is sure, that keeping my weight down is becoming an increasingly difficult battle.

Therefore, I can give thanks and praise to God, my Creator and Life Sustainer, for my ability to exercise vigorously when by now I could be pushing up the daisies from six feet under.