Range of Motion

A couple of months before he died, my dear friend Marty said to me, “Getting old isn’t for sissies.” That was several years ago, but now I know how right Marty was. Simple movements I used to take for granted—stepping into my pants. tying my shoes—now take considerable time and planning. Getting up from a chair often requires a Herculean effort and maybe a handhold. I’m stiff or sore in places I didn’t even know I had; nothing bends or turns like it used to. What to do?

Fortunately, it’s now officially summer. That means the pool is open, so my wife and I can go to Range of Motion classes twice a week. Class begins at 9am and lasts an hour. We use pool noodles and Styrofoam dumbbells to restore old muscles and build new ones. We stretch our shoulders, necks, calves, and hamstrings; rotate our trunks, wrists, and ankle joints; flex our knees. We even throw in a few yoga breaths before saying “Namaste” to everyone at the conclusion of class. The pool’s buoyant environment enables us to move in ways we couldn’t on dry land, and the water’s resistance adds a dimension of strength training to all the stretching that is both tolerable and, particularly on these sweltering days, refreshing. The instructor counts out the repetitive motions, and I do my best to perform each and every exercise as instructed while keeping my eye on the clock. Every hour may contain exactly sixty minutes, but some hours are longer than others. Know what I mean?

In addition to moving our bodies in healthy ways, there are also some beneficial mental gymnastics in our Range of Motion class that help to build brain and memory “muscle.” Some of the stretches, exercises, and movements we do integrate more complex commands that involve balance, thought, and coordination. We’re exercising more than just our bodies; our brains are getting a workout, too. And guess what: you can’t fall and hurt yourself. If you do, you just get wetter.

But while I’m bouncing around in the pool, I must admit that my mind occasionally begins to wander. Here’s my secret thought: what if there were other ‘Range of Motion’ classes? What about a ‘Range of Emotion’ class where all of us could safely experience everything from utter despair to outright bliss without ever getting emotionally hurt or injured? Or what if there were a ‘Range of Commotion’ class where we indulged in every type of commotion from civil insurrection to biblical Rapture? I bounced my idea off a classmate, and she said, “Maybe we could have a ‘Range of Locomotion’ class where everybody just danced along with Little Eva and did the Locomotion.” I thought she might be on to something, so I started singing “It’s easier than learning your ABCs, so c’mon, c’mon and do the Locomotion with me,” but just at that moment, I noticed our drill instructor—I mean our instructor—eyeing me suspiciously so I piped down and got back on count with the rest of the gang in the pool.

It’s been three weeks now since my wife and I started our summer routine, and I think maybe I’m beginning to notice some real benefits of my enhanced range of motion. OK, so maybe I haven’t shed any excess pounds yet, but at least I can turn my head and look both ways when I cross the street, or actually reach down and pick up something I dropped on the floor, or even make it through an entire day without taking a nap. That’s progress isn’t it?

So, if it’s indeed true that “getting old isn’t for sissies,” isn’t enhancing our range of physical and mental motions a pretty darn good way to show Father Time we’re made of sterner stuff? We think so!

See the boy in the picture that accompanies this Musing? That’s one of our grandkids, and grandkids know everything there is to know about range of motion, or range of emotion or commotion, for that matter. But there he goes, sailing through the air, not worrying for one second about where he’s landing. Those were the days…

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.

His new novel, “The Tales of Bismuth; Dispatches from Palestine, 1945-1948” explores the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is available on Amazon.