Question:

Thanks, Lara, this is a good story, if you read to the end the truth is there. Roxan

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – By Art Carey, fitness columnist: It was a dark and stormy night. I was riding my bike home from work, savoring the cold rain, fretting about how late I’d be for a social event. As I coasted around a parked car – bam! – I collided head-on with a car that had just turned into the street. It happened so fast there was no time to react. One moment I was wondering whether I had anything nice to wear that night, the next I was flying through the air. No, my life didn’t flash before my eyes. In the milliseconds before I hit the hood and then the pavement, I had two thoughts: Poor car. This is going to make a nasty dent. So this is how it’s going to end. What a fitting, high-impact finale. The accident happened on a Friday night this January. Luckily, I wasn’t badly hurt. When the cops and the ambulance arrived, I refused a trip to the hospital. Because of a sore foot and bruised hip, I limped for a couple of days. But no bones were broken and my head was unscathed (yes, I was wearing a helmet). In the days afterward, I kept replaying the event in my mind and brooding about its significance. That life is unpredictable is hardly a revelation. Yet in our daily pursuits we delude ourselves with the happy conceit that we can plot our future, that we have some control. Then fate intervenes and mocks our arrogance. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about death, for several reasons. The latest is the early demise of James "Dr. Jim" Corea, the popular radio talk-show host and iron-pumping fitness advocate who died March 3 of a heart attack. He was only 63. His death brings to mind other seeming paragons of health who departed sooner than expected: running proselytizer Jim Fixx, who died while jogging at age 52; former Philadelphia city councilman and Olympic rower Jack Kelly, who died while jogging at age 57; as well as such other Olympic stars as Florence Griffith Joyner, who died at 38, and ice skater Sergei Grinkov, who died at 28. Their deaths shock us because they contradict the gospel – that exercise offers immunity from such scourges as heart disease and cancer, that people who work out regularly are purchasing a kind of life insurance that guarantees a biblical allotment (three score years and 10) and then some. There are no guarantees, of course. Had the physics of my January accident been a little different, I might be working out today in God’s Gym, and all the marathons and hours spent lifting weights would have mattered not a jot. Characteristically, Dr. Jim was bracingly fatalistic about this. "Treat your body as a temple," he used to say, "but remember, there are two rules in life: "1) When it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go. "2) You can’t change Rule 1." He was right; the Grim Reaper wields a sharp scythe. But sometimes you can better your odds. In my case, being strong and muscular, athletic and agile, having quick reflexes and a heightened sense of where my body is in space (proprioceptive awareness) may be why I was able to get hit and thrown and to land, instinctively, without serious injury. I’m always amused by studies that say such and such a virtuous group has a lower death rate. The implication is that smokers, for instance, will perish, while vegetarian joggers will live forever. News flash: All of us are breaking down and dying. The mortality rate is the same as it has always been: 100 percent. None of us is getting out of here alive. Actuarially speaking, exercise is a losing proposition. Studies show that those who engage in moderate exercise may extend their lives by a couple of years or so. On average, I exercise about two hours a day, formally (running or weightlifting) and informally (biking to work, chopping wood, etc.). I’ve been doing it since I was 13. All told, that’s 27,740 hours, or 1,155 days, or three years and two months. In other words, for a theoretical gain of two years of life when I’m 80 or so, I’ve already, at age 50, invested three years of life plus. Some deal. Furthermore, exercise isn’t an unalloyed good. It’s a form of stress. Up to a certain point, that stress makes you stronger, more durable. But consider the startling finding of the famous study of Harvard alumni: "Death rates declined steadily as energy expended on walking, stair-climbing and sports increased from less than 500 calories to 3,500 calories per week, beyond which death rates increased slightly." Aerobics prophet Ken Cooper argues that excessive exercise can weaken the immune system, making you more vulnerable to disease. Declares Cooper: "If you’re running more than 15 miles a week, you’re running for some other reason than cardiovascular health." So why bother? Let me mount my soapbox. The purpose of exercise is not so much to look good but to feel good, not so much to live longer but to live better. It’s about quality, not quantity. I like the way John Street, no slouch when it comes to exercise, once put it: The goal of fitness is "not to add more years to your life but to add more life to your years." Ideally, it’s a Zen thing. The bliss comes not from the destination but from the journey, not from the result but from the doing. That’s why I encourage people to build their fitness program around an activity they enjoy. The medical journal Lancet once proclaimed: "The ‘positiveness’ of health does not lie in the state, but in the struggle – the effort to reach a goal which in its perfection is unattainable." Truth is, life is out of control (or out of our control). But while we can’t control how long we live, we can control how we live. For Jim Corea, that meant pumping iron, being big, strong and muscular, exulting in his exuberant masculinity, teaching, helping and inspiring others. His life may have been short, but it was sweet.

Response:

By Art Carey, fitness columnist: It was a dark and stormy night. I was riding my bike home from work, savoring the cold rain, fretting about how late I’d be for a social event. As I coasted around a parked car – bam! – I collided head-on with a car that had just turned into the street. It happened so fast there was no time to react. One moment I was wondering whether I had anything nice to wear that night, the next I was flying through the air. No, my life didn’t flash before my eyes. In the milliseconds before I hit the hood and then the pavement, I had two thoughts: Poor car. This is going to make a nasty dent. So this is how it’s going to end. What a fitting, high-impact finale. The accident happened on a Friday night this January. Luckily, I wasn’t badly hurt. When the cops and the ambulance arrived, I refused a trip to the hospital. Because of a sore foot and bruised hip, I limped for a couple of days. But no bones were broken and my head was unscathed (yes, I was wearing a helmet). In the days afterward, I kept replaying the event in my mind and brooding about its significance. That life is unpredictable is hardly a revelation. Yet in our daily pursuits we delude ourselves with the happy conceit that we can plot our future, that we have some control. Then fate intervenes and mocks our arrogance. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about death, for several reasons. The latest is the early demise of James "Dr. Jim" Corea, the popular radio talk-show host and iron-pumping fitness advocate who died March 3 of a heart attack. He was only 63. His death brings to mind other seeming paragons of health who departed sooner than expected: running proselytizer Jim Fixx, who died while jogging at age 52; former Philadelphia city councilman and Olympic rower Jack Kelly, who died while jogging at age 57; as well as such other Olympic stars as Florence Griffith Joyner, who died at 38, and ice skater Sergei Grinkov, who died at 28. Their deaths shock us because they contradict the gospel – that exercise offers immunity from such scourges as heart disease and cancer, that people who work out regularly are purchasing a kind of life insurance that guarantees a biblical allotment (three score years and 10) and then some. There are no guarantees, of course. Had the physics of my January accident been a little different, I might be working out today in God’s Gym, and all the marathons and hours spent lifting weights would have mattered not a jot. Characteristically, Dr. Jim was bracingly fatalistic about this. "Treat your body as a temple," he used to say, "but remember, there are two rules in life: "1) When it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go. "2) You can’t change Rule 1." He was right; the Grim Reaper wields a sharp scythe. But sometimes you can better your odds. In my case, being strong and muscular, athletic and agile, having quick reflexes and a heightened sense of where my body is in space (proprioceptive awareness) may be why I was able to get hit and thrown and to land, instinctively, without serious injury. I’m always amused by studies that say such and such a virtuous group has a lower death rate. The implication is that smokers, for instance, will perish, while vegetarian joggers will live forever. News flash: All of us are breaking down and dying. The mortality rate is the same as it has always been: 100 percent. None of us is getting out of here alive. Actuarially speaking, exercise is a losing proposition. Studies show that those who engage in moderate exercise may extend their lives by a couple of years or so. On average, I exercise about two hours a day, formally (running or weightlifting) and informally (biking to work, chopping wood, etc.). I’ve been doing it since I was 13. All told, that’s 27,740 hours, or 1,155 days, or three years and two months. In other words, for a theoretical gain of two years of life when I’m 80 or so, I’ve already, at age 50, invested three years of life plus. Some deal. Furthermore, exercise isn’t an unalloyed good. It’s a form of stress. Up to a certain point, that stress makes you stronger, more durable. But consider the startling finding of the famous study of Harvard alumni: "Death rates declined steadily as energy expended on walking, stair-climbing and sports increased from less than 500 calories to 3,500 calories per week, beyond which death rates increased slightly." Aerobics prophet Ken Cooper argues that excessive exercise can weaken the immune system, making you more vulnerable to disease. Declares Cooper: "If you’re running more than 15 miles a week, you’re running for some other reason than cardiovascular health." So why bother? Let me mount my soapbox. The purpose of exercise is not so much to look good but to feel good, not so much to live longer but to live better. It’s about quality, not quantity. I like the way John Street, no slouch when it comes to exercise, once put it: The goal of fitness is "not to add more years to your life but to add more life to your years." Ideally, it’s a Zen thing. The bliss comes not from the destination but from the journey, not from the result but from the doing. That’s why I encourage people to build their fitness program around an activity they enjoy. The medical journal Lancet once proclaimed: "The ‘positiveness’ of health does not lie in the state, but in the struggle – the effort to reach a goal which in its perfection is unattainable." Truth is, life is out of control (or out of our control). But while we can’t control how long we live, we can control how we live. For Jim Corea, that meant pumping iron, being big, strong and muscular, exulting in his exuberant masculinity, teaching, helping and inspiring others. His life may have been short, but it was sweet.

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