My Fitness Story

Crisis—Recognizing the Need

In July 2004, wildfire swept through the mountain community in which I live. We had a couple of days to prepare, so we spent portions of them creating “defensible space” around our house. In short, this amounts to weed whacking, mowing, getting rid of the things that could give the fire an easy path to the house.

It wasn’t particularly heavy or high-speed work, but I found myself feeling physically ragged after only each couple of hours of work.

I had been aware for some time that I was badly overweight and out of shape. But when the work I did made me feel so wiped out, I recognized that I had better get busy getting better fit.

An Accidental Discovery

After the fire blew through, I set out to install the drip irrigation system that I’d been planning since before the fire. It was extensive; we have seven gardens (three rose gardens, an herb garden, an asparagus patch, and two separate vegetable gardens) and eleven fruit trees. The fruit trees are all nicely lined up, but the gardens aren’t.

I engineered the systems and started installing. Have you ever installed a drip system? Up, down, up, down, up, down—by the time I was done installing and adjusting drip line, fittings and drippers, I calculate I must have done nearly a thousand deep squats, walked many miles, and who knows how many other exercises.

I also discovered that I had lost at least ten pounds and my pants were falling off of me if I didn’t tighten up the belt!

Most surprising, but delightful, was that my knees had stopped hurting every time I kept them bent for any amount of time. It was as if the squats had lubed ’em up.

Orthopedists generally will tell you not to do deep squats, but what I’ve found is that there is a right way to do them so that you don’t have the worries about the miniscus (this is their concern), and that they are one of the most robust exercises for getting cardio, improving balance and, yup, fixing the knees.

Working up to a regular workout

Ironically, after that experience, I still didn’t trust my own observations. I had heard that deep squats were bad for the knees, and so was afraid to push it. So I worked up a workout, based on workouts I’d had in Judo and Karate classes, wrestling, and cycling as a youth.

Some of the exercises were far too intense to do. I was afraid I’d fall on my face if I tried “Judo pushups” and wrench my back if I pushed hard on regular pushups or even tried serious leg-lifts. I couldn’t do even one V-up, one full-out situp, or more than a dozen crunches. It was bad.

So I started with what I knew I could do. Every morning, I’d warm up a little, do stretches for fifteen minutes or more, do as many crunches as I could stand, some modified leg lifts that I designed for myself to reduce lower back strain, a low-level back bridge, and work up as best I could to the other exercises I’d been afraid of.

The short-term goal was to get to where I could do the more aggressive exercises, and then go from there.

I was just arriving at that point when I discovered Matt Furey and his “Combat Conditioning” regimen. Sure enough, he advocates deep squats of a special kind, Judo pushups (he calls them Hindu pushups because, he alleges, they originated with Hindu wrestling, and came to martial arts and yoga from there), and a back bridge, but much more extreme than the one I’d been working with. He also likes V-ups and other things I’d learned about in martial arts and wrestling.

So, without even buying his books—just going from what he said in his newsletter—I went with it. At that time, I had lost about another ten pounds.

Over the next month, I lost another 20 pounds. But a funny thing was happening. It was peeling off a lot slower. What I discovered was that I wasn’t only losing weight; I was gaining it back as muscle, and starting to look really—well, ...ok... as hunky as I can look...

And in January 2005, when we had flash floods throughout our neighborhood, I could work long and hard, and not fall onto the couch feeling done when I stopped for a while.

Over the next months, people started telling me I was losing too much weight (haha on them), but what was happening is that my jowels had turned back into decent jaws, my shirts fit better, and pants that fit my forever non-existent butt now also fit my waist and legs. I no longer had to buy pants that fit my waist and thighs and sagged in the butt.

It can be done

The reason for this page is to convey that if you’re wondering if you can ever be fit again, yes, probably you can do it. You may need to start slow and easy; you may have to tailor exercises to your special needs, but you can almost certainly do something to improve your fitness level and physical sense of well-being.

Furey has a “Take No Prisoners” styled newsletter (Sign-up here. There IS a popup, but nothing obnoxious) that I recommend. He puts across such an energy that it’s a good read to get you going. And lots of worthwhile tips are fitted in among a lot of marketing. Furey is a fitness phenomenon, but more than that, he’s a marketing phenomenon.

Let me remind: I’m not a physician and I’m not even a physical trainer. You follow my example at your own risk—so use your head, consult other resources—Furey’s books aren’t terribly expensive, so maybe you would want to buy one just to hear it from someone else, and maybe even talk to a doctor. Especially if you’re in poor health, you should check in with your doctor anyway, before you change your activity level very much.

All the best in your endeavors. Fitness is a way of living well for the here and now, and a way of preparing for the possibility of disaster or other survival situations. If you are strong, fast and flexible, your chances are a lot better than if not!

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