How I learnt to swim

Coming next Friday: The anatomy of a chase.

The Indian Experience

This background is necessary since, unlike here in the US where kids grow up swimming and take being in the water for granted, it wasn't exactly a sporting culture that I grew up in. If you have always had a fear of water, you should read this background.

The only bodies of water I saw during my childhood in Madurai, India were local waterholes that were more ponds than lakes and completely covered by green algae. Only buffaloes and little kids, there to watch over the buffaloes, with no thought for hygiene could be found cooling off in them. And there were always flies and mosquitoes buzzing about when it wasn't too hot. Us middle class kids stayed away. Sure, there were puddles of water and temporary little streams -- is there a fully working drainage system in India? -- by the roadside left behind by one of those tropical thunderstorms that came out of nowhere but I couldn't learn to swim in them. You would like to see that, would you now?

Scratch. Scratch. Not my photo.

One time a bunch of my friends bicycled out to the countryside slightly north west of the city almost a third of the way toward Alanganallur to just hang out and experience nature. After lunching from the little food we had brought with us in the stringy shade of a vineyard (okra?), we discovered a little canal that was used to irrigate the crops in the surrounding area. The water flowed slowly and came up to shin height and we cooled off and had great fun. We returned a couple more times for that experience.

The road to Alanganallur? Well, it looks close enough. Not my photo.

The only swimming pool was in the chamber of commerce's property across from the Gandhi Museum and, every time I bicycled past that place, I would stand up on the bike's pedals with scant regard for traffic and gaze with star-studded eyes over the compound wall at the pool until it disappeared from view. Nobody seemed to use that pool. Thankfully, that particular road never had heavy traffic either.

I have had four brushes with ocean swimming in India. The first was when my family bought a piece of land near the ocean in the Thondi area. A couple of employees who worked at a restaurant my Dad owned and who were from the Thondi area had recommended that purchase. The continental shelf extends quite a bit on the Coromandel coast and the waters especially around Thondi were very calm. As a result, it was an area that seemed to have a lot of tiny fishing hamlets. Easier to launch and dock small sail boats. And great for someone with zero swimming skills. I remember waddling around in the ocean with waters up to knee height for hours on end over several trips I took to the area, sometimes with family and sometimes with my Dad's employees' families who lived in a small, peaceful village nearby. The best part was always the bullock cart ride from their village to the always uninhabited beaches and back under moonlight on country roads.

Mahabalipuram, I think. Thondi was mostly villages and palm trees. Not my photo.

My second time in the ocean was during a high school class trip to Kerala. I don't much remember the details as our full attention was always on our female classmates, who refused to be lured into waters any deeper than ankle height. Sigh.

About a year before I came to the US, some of my friends took a little trip during summer holidays to Chennai, where we stayed in the house of a relative of one of my buddies. When you are in Chennai, you gravitate to the Marina beach sooner or later. This was my third brush with ocean swimming. The waves came in huge rolls and you could see adventurous kids being lifted and brought into shore. It was an exciting afternoon for a ride. As usual, most of the Indian people just waded in ankle or knee deep while remaining fully clothed. I went in with much gusto, was promptly lifted up by a wave and after several moments of sheer terror when my feet were completely off the floor, I somehow found myself back on the beach. I wouldn't go into the ocean again until years later in the United States.

During my second visit to India, seven or so years after I had emigrated to the US, most of our family from all over the country gathered in Madurai for the wedding of a cousin of mine. Some of us men decided to visit Rameshwaram before the wedding. One of my Uncles couldn't understand why I wouldn't go in the ocean there. He kept trying to push me to go in. Man didn't know when to give up. Finally, I relented, dipped a big toe in, did a 180 and sprinted back up the beach toward the temple area. I would sit there on a bench under the hot sun just content watching life move by on a busy historic street until the boys returned from the beach. My fourth brush with the ocean had been just that...a brush.

Ok, so that was some background material there, huh?! It was a good visit in time for me, actually. Anyway, after that third brush, I had developed a huge fear of water.

The American experience

After several embarrassing attempts at swimming at the pool during my college days at UMASS, Boston, I gave up. Shortly after, I paid a kid I found on Craigslist to teach me to swim in a suburban apartment complex pool in Stoughton. A couple of classes got us nowhere. It was spring and the water was cold. And I wouldn't put my head under water. Plus there was a good looking brunette around my age who hung around the pool in shorts and t-shirts and we kept catching each other's eye. Caretaker, maybe. But she was distracting and I was very self-conscious. Next up was a visit a few years later -- and just before that second trip to India I mentioned above -- to Stowe, Vermont with a bunch of friends during spring. We stayed at a motel-resort with a heated outdoor pool. Here I learned to swim with the guidance of a friend and had worked up the courage to swim up to the deep water mark on a single breath and always with my head above water when our trip ended and we had to return to Boston. As a matter of fact, I was up in that area for a couple of days just this week but I couldn't get a room in that resort (ski season).

Morrisville-Stowe State Airport in Northern Vermont. Not my photo.

My fourth attempt at learning to swim happened sometime in the late 2000s. Again, my friend, who was Indian by the way, agreed to coach me at the pool at the Marriott in Quincy. The Marriott then allowed non-guests access to its pool through a membership program. Anyway, I finally learnt to swim. Here is how it went down:

The first thing you need is the right attitude. Fear of failure will hold you back. By this time, I was sick of myself from chickening out and I was driven to succeed. I had had similar troubles with learning to snowboard and I eventually mastered that after a couple of seasons of trying. I took the attitude that I had developed on the slopes and simply transferred it to the pool. To put this in cold-blooded terms, I saw my body as a vehicle that needed to go from point A to point B. And I asked myself a question: What do I need to do to get there? Then I applied. Just applied. There were other visualizations that helped. I imagined all those beautiful women and all those beach boys having fun in the water while I sat bereft on the shore watching them. Alone. I didn't want to be on the outside anymore. I thought of Dara Torres' comeback. Next thing I knew I had my head under the water during my first session at the pool.

Then I came out of the water deliberately slowly. It started of as one single breast stroke. Then I landed on my feet and took several breaths. One more stroke. Stand on my feet. Repeat. Now I was a third of the way into the lane. I decided to turn back. One more stroke. Stand on my feet. Repeat. The temptation was there to do multiple strokes. And I am quite sure some of you would have done just that especially if you didn't have fear of water. Well, kudos to you. But I decided I wasn't going to give in to pressure because a bunch of kids and their mothers were (may be) watching me. I had a plan. I was going to apply it. I was fucking applying it. Don't ruin it now.

All this time, my friend diligently swam with me and continued encouraging me. Then the next session, I did the same thing. But I would stay under water a little more and get used to that world enveloping my senses. I would revel in it. I would move my eyes left and right while keeping my head still like Charlie Chaplin would. I was toying with destiny. Or so, I told myself. In his book HMS Ulysses, Alistair MacLean describes the travails of British sailors in WWII whose Destroyer gets torpedoed in the cold waters of the northern Atlantic and they find themselves in the water in a burning oil slick...oil from their own ship. Eventually, the skipper of another British ship in the convoy decides to relieve those burning men of their suffering and orders his crew to run over them. He couldn't stop to rescue them as then his own vessel would be a sitting duck. And the men in the water understand and are grateful as the hull bears down on them. I kept that scene in mind during every session. This was a 4 feet deep pool I was in, for crying out aloud! I think it was six weeks later, at the rate of around two to three sessions a week, that I swam end to end and while breathing properly. I remember that moment, after that first full lap, when I put my head against the wall of the pool, away from it all, and just stood there with my arms hanging limply by my side. Yet another piece of sh*t I had had to figure out by myself. Felt good though. My friend and I went to get a drink at the hotel bar after. I drove back into Boston and he went south to Weymouth.

6' 0". Gulp. Not my photo.

The biggest issue I had was with breathing. Up until my first successful lap, I was actually doing full laps for a couple of sessions but always on a single breath. I was just afraid to breathe normally. So I analyzed the issue and decided to apply a different tack. I went back to what I did in my first session: One stroke. Stand up. Repeat. Except as I stood up slowly, I would exhale just before my head broke the surface. The idea was to get used to how it felt to be exhaling under water. Then it happened. I did two strokes in succession and I breathed! It happened this way. As I stood up after the first stroke, I exhaled, my head broke the surface, I inhaled and deliberately let my legs fold underneath me. After that, it was easy. My words can only be so fluid. You have to try it to experience that.

Lessons learned

1. It doesn't matter what you eat as a solid meal before swimming but by the time you get to the pool, your stomach should be empty. I would much rather go in a little hungry than with a little food still in my stomach. You need mental clarity to stay focused and food in the stomach means blood is where it shouldn't be. After many years swimming, I find that this is the tip that makes the biggest difference in the quality of my swim sessions.
2. The first stroke you likely will get good at is the breast stroke. Fight the temptation to learn all the strokes right away. Get good at doing laps with your first stroke style. Then try to learn the others.
3. You might have to go through two or three masks before you find the right one. Anticipate this happening. When you are prepared, you won't get frustrated with your learning experience.
4. Spend minimal time at Sports Authority or reading about perfecting swim technique from the champions. Instead try to hit the pool as often as you can. While you should get your swim gear right, don't fret about it too much or about what the pros are doing. Otherwise, you might never learn to swim.
5. If your gym has a hot tub or steam room, use it after the swim. Somehow, a hot tub is much sweeter after a hard swim. It will be your reward for your dedication. But don't spend time looking for a gym with a pool and a hot tub. Just find one with a pool and start paddling.
6. See if you can rope in someone -- a friend, colleague, family member -- to swim with you. My friend made it clear that I could take advantage of his time at the pool. You will then be forced to show up at the pool because you know that someone else would be waiting for you.
7. Finally, bring attitude to your sessions. Put all other aspects of your life -- career, girlfriend, car problems, etc. --- aside and get into swim mode even before you get to the locker room. Like me, think of one or two people or events that can motivate you to conquer fear and concentrate on analysis and application. I would start doing this visualization as soon as I parked my car and shut off the engine. And it greatly helped reset my mind for the swim session ahead.

In conclusion

I have always been confident sunbathing at the beaches in New England ever since I arrived in these here parts. But that was largely because I had worked hard to build a fantastic physique. However, I rarely went in the water. But trust me: when you learn to swim, it opens up another entirely new world to you. You become much less self-conscious about appearing in a swimsuit. There is a certain confidence that will start projecting in your bearing. And this confidence will allow you to assimilate with people that you might normally have found standoffish. You and they suddenly become more approachable to each other. I am not going to elaborate on this. But once you learn to swim, you will realize right away what I am talking about here.

Big winter storm of 2012/2013

In New England, people get nervous. When a big storm is predicted, everybody rushes to the nearest shopping place to stock up on supplies. I suspect this may be the case elsewhere in the world as well. Having neither kith nor kin to worry about, I take more of a hunter's approach without the gatherer part. The big winter storm began on a Friday afternoon and blew itself over later in the day the following day. So the first thing I did late Friday afternoon was amble down to the Waterfront cafe for my usual:

Steak tips medium rare.

My street just after the storm ended Saturday afternoon. My last meal was almost 24 hours ago at this point. I had slept and read for the most part. I was ravenous. Maybe I will stock up next time.

The snow was so deep that a few minutes of trudging had my calves pumped. It's tricky trying to figure out the best places to cross a street. As you are crossing, a vehicle may be sliding down the already narrow streets of the North End and you have to make a quick decision: Continue crossing and get to the other side before the vehicle gets to you? Backtrack to where you where before you started crossing? Just freeze (no pun intended) and hope the vehicle will stall? So you quickly rush over to the other side of the street and even jump over a mound only to see the vehicle turn into a side street before it gets to where you were. It's like playing Pac-Man or Dig Dug. It will probably take me a couple of days to figure out and avoid the really tricky parts while getting to my usual destinations.

Some of the sidewalk had already been cleared. Pity. That's the lady from the earlier picture. As she skied past me, I said, "Nice shoes". She smiled.

My chiropractor. Guess I had to make an adjustment to my schedule, huh?

My brother sent me this photo. I would have removed the netting, of course.

I shopped at the Golden Goose and later made french-style chicken in red wine. It was delicious!

Anatomy of a scene

This is a version of events that ended in a three day camping/hiking trip outside Yuma in the Kofa national wildlife refuge area a few years ago in October. The starry skies I eventually gazed at for hours at night were...well..out of this world.

Technically, I was stuck in a ravine. The engine had overheated and I found myself pulled over, a rare occurrence that must be in an age of liquid cooling. But it was a rental and this was the southwest. In a way, I was happy for the break. I got out of the car and stretched. Something creaked. I figured I was getting old. I took a deep breath of the tepid desert air and squinted up at the sky. The sun looked like it was painfully making its way through another day. I stood still and cocked an ear. The silence of the desert was deafening. Everything was ancient around here. Brrr.

Not my photo.

It was an unremarkable road, the one I was stranded on. I hadn't seen traffic in a good hour. Dark grayish, the road stretched bare before disappearing around hills a short distance off to either side of where I was standing. As the invisible tendrils of a slight breeze worked its way over me, I consulted a map and realized that I was in the middle of a stretch of road shaped like a lazy lightning bolt. I pondered that for a moment. Was a lighting bolt ever lazy?

It was a clear day. I looked back the way I had come, over and beyond the first hill in the entrance to that ravine, and thought I could barely make out the Sierre Madre hanging in the distance as a single hazy, purple blotch. But the Sierre Madre were in far off Mexico and well beyond Yuma. Maybe it was just some strange effect particular to the desert. I pursed my lips and looked around furtively. No, there were no skeletons, human or animal, lying about.

The hills, for it would be too generous to call them mountains, in my ravine -- my ravine, was it? -- loomed up on either side of the road. They appeared barren and devoid of life. The hillsides glinted here and there. Were those a result of nature's eroding effect on rock, perhaps shale? Was one of those glints an old arrowhead? Or maybe a bullet from the civil war a 150 years ago? There were a few stunted trees sprinkled near the top of the hills. Gnarled and leafless, they looked like they might have been humans strung up on poles to culminate in a soundless and grotesque death. A few of those trees had the odd bird circling over them. The birds seemed motionless in the air. Were they buzzards? I looked around nervously. Time to get movin'.

I got in the car and turned the ignition. The engine started on the first try. Thanking my lucky stars -- and it would be a few more hours before those came out -- I gingerly eased the car out of the narrow shoulder, onto the road and out of serene no man's land.

Four brief movie reviews

Since I happen to have quite a bit of time on my hands these days, I have gotten back to an old habit of going to the movies. Matinees mostly.

Trouble with the Curve

Clint Eastwood's movies are always absorbing and this one isn't any different. I thought that the father-daughter relationship story line might prove to be a bit on the heavy side. There are a couple of heavy moments but the overall tone of the movie is light and breezy. Both Eastwood and Amy Adams are experienced actors and these roles do not stretch their talent. The baseball recruiting process stays on the sidelines. There is an obligatory love interest for the daughter which does not detract from the father-daughter relationship either. The rest of the casting is solid if unremarkable. I don't remember the background music. Remember what happens every time A League of their Own or The Sandlot is shown on cable? You usually watch it. Trouble with the Curve looks to be one of those movies.

Premium Rush

The extent of my city bicycle riding is relegated to those few times when I used to hang out with some bicycle people. I have sorry memories of lagging far behind the other riders. Of course, I was riding a hybrid while they were using cruisers. These days I keep my riding to park trails well outside Boston. Premium Rush is about bicycle messengers in the Big Apple. A baddie cop really wants a packet that is to be delivered by one of the bicycle riders (Note: this isn't giving away anything. We sense that that cop is a bad apple right from the first scene when he is shown). So a chase begins with the cop driving a car and our hero messenger on a bicycle through the busy streets of NYC. The foot chase in the first Bourne movie was exciting. But this one is filmed better. No handheld cam type shooting, for instance. That makes for a much better viewing experience. The other characters are obligatory. This movie is about the baddie cop and the goodie messenger. The baddie cop, who I thought was pretty good (in his performance), also provides some good humor. The director's sense of visual style is very appealing. I don't remember the background music. I might probably watch this one now and then on cable.

Zero Dark Thirty

If you liked Syriana, you will like this one really well. Same totally absorbing tone. Not as much background music. And equally as long. And unlike Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which starts very slow, this movie starts briskly and maintains an even pacing through to the end with several adrenaline rushes thrown in here and there. I was out with a date last night who raved about Django Unchained. I told her not to drink any fluids if she decided to watch Zero Dark Thirty. She needed to stay in her seat for this ride. As for the plot, we know Usama Bin Laden will be killed toward the end. So the movie is all about the buildup to that well known end. Most of the casting is really good. I thought the navy seals would come across as cocky and gung-ho. But they are shown as nervous and calm types who wait around and then eventually execute their orders in a workmanlike way. The lead actress playing the CIA analyst was steady with her performance. Will I watch this one again? Probably. But the three hour running time means I likely won't watch it as often as I would have liked to.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (IMAX 3D)

While my friends complained the movie was long, I had made a point of not drinking any fluids during the last hour before the movie started and this might have been my saving grace. It struck me as well-made and absorbing enough. The opening scene with its very partial showing of the dragon is tantalizing and amazing and made more so by the IMAX 3D viewing. But...too many monsters throughout the movie. They are really laying it thick on the CGI these days, aren't they? The goblin battle came across as a bit tacky and there were way too many goblins. I certainly hope the 2nd and 3rd movies use some superior editing before being unleashed on the audience. To me, the highlights of the movie were the opening scene, the conference between Gandalf, Galadriel (Cate Blanchett...yum), Saruman and the other dude Elrond, the encounter between Bilbao and Gollum as well as the encounter with the cave trolls. And they all speak English, huh? The acting is steady and I don't foresee any Oscars here. The background music and the wonderful portrayal of the scenic shire take you back to the first Lord of the Rings movie in 2001.

New Year Resolutions - 2013

It just happens that the new year arrived at a time when I have decided to make a few minor changes. Quite a coincidence. But these are typical year round changes and adjustments based on "what works, what doesn't" and is really an ongoing process.

1) Stop reading/listening to news. If it is worth knowing, someone will tell me about it anyway. This will also allow people to talk and me to listen.

2) Read more books on Kindle. This is cheaper, easier to carry around and also reduces clutter in my small apartment.

3) Replace vacuum cleaner with a stick, wireless vacuum cleaner. The current vacuum cleaner takes up valuable space for a major part of the month, is not used as much as it should be and is ungainly to use around my small apartment. "Wireless" should be the wired word around my place.

4) Call women rather than texting them. Texting/emailing can wait until after something comes out of getting a number. I am at a stage where I can quickly start applying a change like this. Well, it has already started to happen.

5) Stop using smileys and exclamation marks in text and email messages. Good English is sufficient and faster.

6) Throw more Sunday brunches. That's more practical for my apartment than dinner parties. Don't over think parties. Just do it.

7) Post on Facebook only if I have something interesting to share.

8) At work, talk much less. Listen fully before retorting. Keep wisecracking to outside office.

9) Go out more. Don't wonder about asking others to participate. Just do your thing. Once out, deal with "things" as they happen. Don't anticipate.

10) Then go out some more.

Simple changes. No "reduce body fat down to 10%" stuff. Those are good. But these are such minor changes that can happen overnight but can make an immediate impact in one's lifestyle.

Up in the clouds

This was a particularly great Sunday in late August in 2012. I had scheduled a flight lesson at 8 AM. My first one after becoming an American citizen. I was up by 6. No alcohol the previous night. I felt fantastic. An hour and 15 minutes later, I was humming down 93. Cape traffic had not yet started backing up on route 3. The drive down to Marshfield was steady and brisk.

A nice, sunny morning. A few clouds here and there. Perfect.

Not my photo.

Once I arrive and park at the airport, I tend to sit in my car for a few minutes pretending to be in an aircraft taking off, landing, etc. It helps reset my mind somewhat before I walk into the terminal building and start my wisecracking.

F*cking Indian guy.

Ok, I am just kidding. They really like me down there.

On the tarmac, as I pre-flighted, I observed a light, steady crosswind. The top of the trees that covered the airport's perimeter were swaying imperceptibly. Nice. There were a few birds hopping about on the grass between the taxiway and runway. As long as the buggers didn't get in my way...

Several other small aircraft took off. Lazy like. It was a day for flying and everyone wanted to be up there with ole blue. A body could already start to feel the day's heat creep up on him.

Before I turned the engine on, I had to warn anyone near the aircraft through a tiny window set in the window on my side by shouting....

"CLEAR!"

My god. What an accent. Pervert.

The takeoff was smooth. As soon as I lined up on the center line,  I opened up the throttle and the Piper responded instantly. Not bad for a 30 year old bird. At 40 knots, I pulled the stick back slightly and held it. At a tad over 60 knots, the aircraft rotated and started a gentle climb. I applied a touch of right rudder. Mmm. Very professional.

One hour later...

We were flying back to home base from Norwood. Norwood had been my first flight to a towered airport. Very insthructhive, Misther Bhondh.

Oh, boy. Clouds.

To port, a few miles away at 2000 feet below, Marshfield airport peeped between the clouds. The glare from man made objects and moving vehicle traffic in the town center right below us hurt my eyes a bit.

Big, billowing clouds. They were moving steadily to the north-west. We were heading south-east. I loved it.

It was a strange experience being in the clouds. I had flown through clouds before but not while I was in the driver's seat. We would be in one cloud and I would start looking at my instruments. There was nothing else to look at. I would flex my quads and see them ripple through my jeans. Interesting. Then we will be out of the cloud. I would then look outside to check where I was in relation to the airport. Then we would be in another cloud.

I made a descending turn to port to start the descent toward the airport's traffic pattern. There were two other aircraft near Marshfield. And the radio snapped, crackled and popped non-stop. It was a busy day. A fascinating day.

The landing was right on the numbers. As I tethered the aircraft, my instructor took off to the terminal building...gangnam style (he had been nursing one of those American sized iced coffees before the flight). I stood for a while observing the scene around me. Very nice. I made a mental note to book two classes back to back for my next lesson.

As always, I stopped at a Starbucks in Marshfield on my drive back to Boston. As the beaming, perfectly toothed smile glared at me from behind the counter, I briefly panicked. I wasn't sure if I had enough on my prepaid Starbucks card. Screw the grande mocha. I will get something real cheap.

"Tall bold, please".

"There you go. Would you like to know the balance on your card, sir?"

You could have just told me.

"No, thanks".

"You have a great day now".

I already did, pumpkin.

Injury Management

Let's cut to the chase, shall we? Here is my list of injuries over the years:

Later 2003 - Left lower back strain while squatting. First ever visit to a chiropractor revealed two subluxations in neck, one in upper back and one in lower back. More on these later.

Summer 2005 - Significant lateral meniscus tear in right knee from playing Tennis on a hard court while wearing worn out sneakers.

Fall 2006 - Forced subluxation in upper back when barbell slipped during heavy isometric squat hold. This in turn started pangs of pain in left shoulder that has recurred a few times a year since.

Early 2009 - Left elbow tendinitis (Tennis elbow).

Spring/Summer 2010 - Right elbow tendinitis (Golfer's elbow) first instigated by a lapse in concentration while chinning during spring 2010 and later worsened by heavy farmer's walks that summer.

Early Summer 2011 - Right thumb inflammation (DeQuervain's Tendonitis?) from moving up in my overhead pressing weight quickly. I was also military pressing six days a week. I eventually pressed 165 lbs (the equivalent of my bodyweight) but it came at a price.

Summer 2012: Right thumb inflammation recurred after a particularly intense set of seated dips; right extensor muscle strain from a particularly intense set of reverse barbell curls (this put a complete stop to all my lifting).

The subluxations discovered in 2003 were fixed after a few months of weekly chiropractic visits. The lower back subluxation had led to one of my legs being "longer" than the other, which, in turn, resulted in the lower back strain while squatting. Between monthly chiropractic visits and several sessions of back extensions a week, I have not experienced a lower back strain since.

The meniscus tear lives. Smooth, straight-line activities like sprints and squats don't bother it. Snowboarding and other high impact activities do. Surprisingly, the breast stroke doesn't bother it either but then I don't "whip" my legs during the kicking phase (I squat horizontally through the water). My ortho had suggested surgery back then and I am glad I decided against it. Eventually, I will need it.

The upper back subluxation has recurred in a rather severe manner twice, once during an isometric squat hold and once as I turned my head while front squatting 265 lbs, and both times caused my neck to really stiffen up for a couple of weeks at a time. Now I am very aware of this particular nuisance and seem to have it under control.

The right elbow tendinitis never healed fully and I still experience soreness there today. The soreness became deeper after the extensor muscle strain this summer. That strain itself was caused because I got to holding the barbell "gingerly" when doing reverse curls because I didn't want to worsen the "residual effect" I was still experiencing from the right thumb inflammation (from the previous summer).

Lessons learned

1) Pause and take stock if any discomfort is experienced anywhere. I am not a professional athlete and it would be idiotic to injure myself because I wanted to be hardcore. It is better to come back another day and train with full intensity.

2) Accept that an injury may still occur. If so, stop the activity that caused the injury. Icing and workarounds are fine but I have found that there is absolutely no substitute for complete rest.

3) Chiropractic care has been valuable, if only to serve as a calibration tool.

4) Seek active recuperation. Don't wait for an injury to happen. Monthly deep tissue massages and weekly steam baths have proved beneficial. Myofascial release and acupuncture do not seem to have had an impact. On a side note, I did ask my acupuncturist out and was pleasantly rejected.

5) Extend the warm up. There should be no clear line between when the warm up ends and the actual workout begins. As Dan John put it once, the warm up becomes the workout.

6) Do not use barbells for all my lifts. The barbell puts my wrists, elbows and shoulders in an unforgiving position. Dumbbells allow much freer movement of those joints while also forcing each side of my body to work hard (that is, prevent one side from overpowering the other).

7) Mix up my set/rep scheme. Most of my injuries occurred during a phase when I was lifting heavy weights for low reps in every workout. While I packed on muscle, absolute strength and my metabolism skyrocketed, I also experienced the most amount of injuries. Going forward, think in terms of mobility, energy systems and strength. This means doing both heavy weight, low rep and lower weight, moderate rep training. I like high reps for only core, calf and grip work.

Next few months

I hate cardio. Other than the occasional brisk swim or all-out sprints, I don't see myself doing slow, steady-state cardio anytime soon. Just the way I like my sex: hard and fast. I love hiking weekly in the blue hills and am looking forward to snowshoeing this winter. I have no idea when I will get back into rock climbing as my elbows still don't feel 100%. But I am literally twitching thinking about putting on my snowshoes, my legs pumping to the heavy stillness of a surrounding, black forest and feeling a frosty breeze on my face. As for weight training, it is still numero uno in my book. The squat has been a faithful standby, keeping me sane during all this time as it was about the only lift I could do with any intensity. It has helped retain lightness in my feet and kept my heart and lungs in decent shape and (gulp) I am very grateful to it. I am back in regular training now. Three days a week, one heavy barbell exercise (usually the squat) followed by several light to moderately heavy dumbbell exercises should not only do the trick for now but also lend structure to an otherwise dreary week.