Living

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Melanie Munk, Features Editor munk@heraldnet.com   Published: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 Fitness gives us reason to cheer By Linda Bryant Smith, Herald columnist Exercise is as routine an activity as eating and sleeping for Genie Faulkner, who celebrated her 75th birthday last month. Three mornings a week she spends two hours line dancing. Two nights a week she's doing vigorous swim aerobics in a class that includes more than a dozen women who are 65 or older. Audrey Elefson, 68, will be on the ski slopes at Stevens Pass this week and for several weeks to come as part of a group of senior skiers. She loves to walk and works outside in her yard and garden most of the year. In the 40 years we've been friends, these two have always preferred physical activity while I was, frankly, more inclined to take an occasional walk, swim whenever I got a chance and call it good. What we all know today is that we have to exercise regularly to keep these old bods of ours functioning and our brains sharp. More and more scientific studies of the elderly have this common finding: Simple physical exercise does as much good for the brain as it does the body. A group of 72-year-olds who walked three times a week as part of a recent experiment on aging showed significant improvement in memory. The study included sophisticated brain scans that showed their brains' activity patterns started resembling those of younger people as their exercise regime moved forward. However, putting a solid exercise regime into practice isn't as easy as discussing it with friends over a friendly game of cards. So while Genie was pushing me to exercise more, I was content to spend three mornings a week in a swim aerobics program until I developed a pain in the butt caused by a pinched sciatic nerve. Those shooting pains from my hip to ankle are the direct result of extra weight and poor abdominal muscles impacting my lower spine. Physical therapist Julie ­Loudon put me through a series of exercises to strengthen these core muscles and stretch supporting muscles in my legs. All are now part of my daily routine. "How long do I have to keep doing these? I asked hopefully. "Forever," she replied. "You should have been doing them long before this. Probably after your children were born if not sooner." And then, that forty-something hit the exercise mat and did a series of crunches right along with me. "I haven't done mine yet today," she said. "Might as well get them in now." So there we were in a therapy center with every whiz-bang new contraption for exercise and physical rehabilitation you can imagine, on the floor doing partial sit-ups. In the end, no machine was necessary to do what I could do myself. When I was her age, an entrepreneur opened a "health spa" in Stanwood with a group of machines that purportedly did the work for you. Clients reclined on what, as I recall, looked somewhat like a massage therapist's table. Various parts of the table then moved under the body as well as lifted arms and legs to "exercise" the client. I remember discussing this option with Genie, Audrey and others in our bridge club. None of them were buying into the notion that staying in good shape was as easy as reclining and letting a machine do the work. Of course, it wasn't true then and it isn't now. No more than the recent e-mail spam I received suggesting I could dump 15 to 20 excess pounds from the contents of my colon with a few pills was a good weight-loss plan. After I killed that spam, I noticed a headline on Yahoo touting "the latest in workouts" using my grandchildren's favorite Christmas gift, the Nintendo Wii video game. Since I'd been relatively successful during family bowling night, I was intrigued. According to CanWest News Service, Studio 55, a fitness club in Vancouver, B.C., has installed the video game console in its circuit training. The club's owner says one session of Wii boxing, tennis or bowling provides the athletic equivalent of a brisk walk, burning 75 to 125 calories, the news service reported. If this is true, then between cheering and bowling, our family could have worked off at least 20 percent of the calories we consumed in ice cream following the game. Or not. Naturally, the video game manufacturer has not ignored the potential of Wii as a fitness accessory. Nintendo is due to release Wii Fit in the U.S. this spring. (It's already a big hit in Japan). It incorporates everything from aerobics to yoga and allows users to track their body mass index. Since I can see my body mass without the Wii Fit index, I think we'll probably let this fitness trend pass us by. What we need to do to stay fit doesn't require equipment, just discipline and determination. For us, and for all our peers, "use it or lose it," isn't just a slogan, it's a fact for the rest of our lives. Linda Bryant Smith writes about life as a senior citizen and the issues that concern, annoy and often irritate the heck out of her now that she lives in a world where nothing is ever truly fixed but her income. You can e-mail her at ljbryantsmith@yahoo.com.

1. Man blackmailed ex-girlfriend with nude pictures, police say 2. Snohomish motorcyclist dies in collision with pickup 3. Police looking for man who held up Everett pharmacy 4. Friends plan auction, hope to save woman's home 5. Sheriff warns of Camano Island burglar 6. Arlington private school principal charged with child rape 7. 400 open houses across the county this weekend 8. Man guilty for posing as trooper 9. Cama Beach cabins a quiet, cozy delight 10. LITTLE LEAGUE: Mill Creek reaches state semifinals 2 - Top 10 Stories Most Talked about 3 - Top 10 Stories Most Emailed

• A Seattle SuperSonics' original: Henry Akin • A matter of faith • Late rally, trick play get Vikings victory • Mill Creek advance to finals Team rallies to beat Bainbridge Island 4-3 • Try for Olympics highlights Games' debut • Proper ball position important to set up • Sports Briefs • Richmond Little League at state majors tournament • Fewer sports fields could go into Hamlin Park • Arlington Fly-In marks 40th anniversary this year • Melody Biringer a wide-ranging entrepreneur • County home market offers low rates, lower prices, wide variety of prope ... • Good investments may be boring but profitable • Fryelands industrial park growing in Monroe • Out of the Blue Aviation expands flight training • Paul Allen’s rare Flying Heritage Collection becomes latest aviation att ... • Warbird's history keeper