[I hope this isn’t viewed as me making fun of “old” people. After all, I’m old in the eyes of my kids, nieces and nephews. It is more of an observation on a particular set of people who happen to be older than I am.]
I went to the first day of Cardio Rehab yesterday. It’s a very nice facility, filled with fancy tread mills, stationary bikes, and steppers. In the middle of it all is a rack of small dumbbells and some fancy medical equipment. Plus, around the perimeter, there are screens showing the Today show or some other day time TV. In contrast with a real gym, it is fairly quiet. No Zumba classes; no blaring music. No voice over a microphone saying. “10 more…and 9, 8…”
Just off to the side, is a circle of chairs. It looks like a nice gym that surrounds an absentee kindergarten class.
The other difference is that the people at the gym average 83 years old.
Almost none of them are wearing gym clothes. And not a single one looks like they are sweating. In fact, I don’t think they look like they can sweat.
There is one man. He is wearing blue chinos, a checked flannel shirt, white undershirt and blindingly clean white sneakers. They look brand new. His hair is white, full and combed to the side as if he is taken a shower and gotten dressed to go out in the world, not the gym. The only tip-off is that he has the Nikes on his feet. And for some reason, they look like they weigh him down. They look huge and heavy. They are tennis shoes, not running shoes and they look like they are somehow too big and heavy for his frame.
He has a walker so when he goes from the stepper to the circle, it takes 5 interminable minutes. I had the urge to get of my machine and just carry him to the circle.
M, W, Th are heart days. On T and F, it is lung day. It’s Friday and these people all had some kind of lung surgery or treatment. I didn’t see any oxygen tanks. Lung issues are not good. I’ve concluded this from my unscientific observations both here and in the hospital.
My job today is to give my medical history and learn how to use the equipment. Therefore, I’m just getting a private tour in the middle of a normal class. I’ve been shown how to put on the heart rate monitor. It isn’t like the Polar- one strap around the chest. It is like the hospital: four individual leads and a fairly large (think older, heavy cell phone size) transponder. You put that in a neck holder that you wear. Each person has one and there are stations where they monitor your ECG the whole time you are there. At the stations, you can see a list of 10 different ECGs.
I’m riding a recumbent bike for 10 minutes. The level was 2. I pumped it up to 3 and the therapist yelled at me. Ok. This is going to be a slow progression. She also takes my blood pressure three times, beginning, middle, end. They want to be sure that you don’t pass out or have some other issue. This is all my “base line”.
I also do a three minute cool down, which is hard to distinguish from my workout. But they are just showing me how it is going to go each time. This follows a long conversation about my heart history. As usual, they expected a much worse case. That means, most cases they see of AVR are worse than me. They deal from experience. That means, even though I don’t feel it, I’m the lucky one. I didn’t need my valve replaced because of some other big problem, which is more typical. As a single case, I don’t know that.
During the 13 minutes I am on the bike, I mostly get to see the class do their strength training. It is soooo funny. One lady looks like Madea-meets-Hillary-Clinton. Her hair is nicely done up but looks a bit like a gray helmet. She has giant glasses. She’s short but healthy looking except for the glazed look on her face. She never stops smiling but is the face of someone who looks a tiny bit lost.
Most of the exercises are seated. The teacher is younger than me. She cajoles and has a very pleasant way of leading. But if I were to take away your view of the class, you’d swear she was talking to a pre-school. Everyone looks almost surprised to be there. No one looks like anyone you see at a real gym. No one is in charge of their workout. It looks more like field trip of unwitting participants who had no idea that their destination was the gym. They go through the motions pleasantly but as if they find it more amusing than anything else. “Look Martha. I’m making circles with my arms!”
I don’t know if they just don’t have any experience at a gym or doing exercise for some meaningful reason or what? As time passes, I begin to think they all look like marionettes. They aren’t in charge of their actions; it’s the people who are pulling the strings. And it’s all just a beat too slow. And there is a noticable lack of eye contact with anyone. They don’t look at the teacher or really each other. Eyes are down or looking out the window in bit of far-off stare.
I finish up and remove my monitor. I don’t know what my class is going to be like. It should, at least, be amusing.
