Squeee!!

You see, dear milennial babies, there was a dark and silly time when old men in suits decreed that girlpeople could not lift heavy things at the Olympics, because lo, their uteruses would explode and all males present would spontaneously be emasculated. Or something. Who knows.

Anyway, the point is, despite the lifting of heavy things being an athletic pastime pretty much since humans had the opposable thumbs and bipedalism to do it, women’s weightlifting was only added as an Olympic sport in 2000.

And one of the strongwomen blasting down the doors was Cheryl Haworth. Barely graduated from girlhood herself at 17, she stormed the platform and brought home a bronze medal for the U.S. in weightlifting.

In case you're wondering, those are 25 kilo (55 lb) plates. BOOYEAH!!

It wasn’t just her performance that made the news, but also her youth, talent, and oh yeah — her size. It was one of the first times that a female superheavyweight strength athlete had been featured so prominently.

Media outlets were a-sputter, trying to deal with it.

Should they go for the teenage athlete prodigy angle? Should they go for the “It’s OK, because she’s still a Real Girl!” angle? Should they go for the “Holy crap, that’s an unbelievable amount of weight — how is that even possible?” angle?

Conventional pundits were utterly befuddled. I ripped Haworth-related articles out of magazines and filed them with both awe (for her) and a quiet, irritated sigh (for them).

It wasn’t until recently that filmmaker Julie Wyman was able to capture — respectfully and insightfully — the dignity, grace, and complexity of women’s weightlifting and female weightlifters, in her new film STRONG!

As the press release for STRONG! describes:

STRONG! chronicles an athlete’s struggle to defend her champion status as her lifetime weightlifting career inches towards its inevitable end.  Cheryl Haworth defies categories. A 12th generation patriotic American, a visual artist, and, since age 14, America’s top Olympic weightlifter, she is an elite at the international level.

A formidable figure in American weightlifting. Haworth is ranked well above all men and women on Team USA. But at 5 foot 8 inches and weighing over 300 pounds, she doesn’t easily fit into standard chairs, clothing sizes, or pre-conceptions. As the 2008 Beijing Olympics approach, Haworth struggles with injuries, the end of her career, and the difficult task of re-defining herself and building a sense of confidence that she can bring with her as she leaves the sport that has given her a sense of pride.

STRONG! explores the contradiction of a body that is at once celebrated within the confines of her sport and shunned by mainstream culture. Through Haworth’s journey of strength, vulnerability, loneliness, and individuation, we learn not only about the sport of lifting weight, but also the state of being weighty: the material, psychological, and social consequences and possibilities of a having a body that doesn’t fit.

Wyman deftly captures Haworth’s experiences and goes beyond the two-dimensional media image to show Haworth’s complexity as a lifter, artist, daughter, and young athlete grappling with the demands of an elite career.

For more, check out:

• Strong website
• Strong on Facebook

I caught up with Cheryl Haworth in the midst of a whirlwind of publicity around the film’s release in mid-July 2012. (P.S. Squeeee!)

Q. How did you come to be involved in this film? What kinds of questions was the filmmaker interested in exploring with you?

A. Well, it was a pretty simple scenario. I was competing in 2000, the inaugural year for women’s weightlifting in Sydney. Our US team was getting a lot of media attention, especially with me being 17.

Julie Wyman, the filmmaker, was a sports fan and found this really interesting — thought I was an interesting character. She kept it in the back of her mind, until in 2004 she gave me a call and asked if I’d be interested in filming something short, maybe a documentary. I readily agreed. She flew to Savannah and we met and hit it off. We became fast friends. Initially she was just a person who was really easy to talk to. Over time, the documentary grew legs and became something else entirely.

The way the film evolved was very organic. It’s so watchable. Julie had no preconceived notions about weightlifting, or what she thought the film should be, so she didn’t force it into anywhere it wasn’t going to fit, or where it didn’t belong.

She’s inquisitive, so she has a knack for asking questions, and had a real curiosity about weightlifting. And she asked the kinds of questions that other people are thinking about. She’s exploring everything, every nook and cranny.

So that translated nicely into a film that was a bit educational. People can watch this film and learn about weightlifting itself, how it’s different from other sports, the breakdown of the movements and how they’re choreographed.

The response has been amazing. Whether you’re an Olympic weightlifter or not, a lady or not, younger, older, it doesn’t matter. Everybody has been able to pull something from the film, whether it’s inspiring someone to get in the gym, or just having people realize that there’s an incredible level of grace and determination, and perseverance thru disappointment, in this sport.

For example, there was a screening at a men’s prison. There were many layers of security, which was intimidating, but these guys were my biggest fans. Some of the men were in tears, because they took the film as something they could use in their own lives, as inspiration to do what they need to do when they get out of jail.

We realized then that this movie was about so much more than picking up heavy things.

Q. In the film, there’s a theme of alone-ness and isolation. Weightlifting is a solitary sport — you’re all by yourself on the platform — but there’s also a sense of larger social isolation as a female heavyweight strength athlete. Can you talk about the role that being alone played in your experience?

A. Well, on the one hand, you are part of a team mentality, especially competing in an underdog sport that doesn’t get a lot of attention, where you have to shake things up and say “Look at me!”

And it never got too stressful for me to be the anchor. Everyone on the team was always crunching the numbers, everyone was always done before me, and then they’d just expect, “Oh, Cheryl’s going to come through and get the points for us.”

That was always my role. To finish things up strong. And fortunately, being a competitor, I always enjoyed that.

On the other hand, being a weightlifter and having so many people be completely oblivious or unaware of your sport and the fact that you’re dedicating your life to it can be frustrating. It’s interesting now, watching the Olympics, and being a spectator, and taking a look at what my fellow American is most interested in watching. I’ve seen so much swimming, and gymnastics, which are great sports, but there’s a lot of other things happening, and a lot of these sports are individual.

So there’s that struggle. And part of me feels like it’s an easier struggle if you’re in a sport that people want to watch. There’s being an individual competitor in a celebrated sport, and then there’s being an individual competitor in a sport that nobody watches.

Q. There’s a larger cultural fascination with athletic women’s bodies in our society. Women’s bodies are often seen as public property or a public spectacle. What’s your experience with the way that media have depicted your physicality as a heavyweight athlete?

A. It’s frustrating, because it’s like instead of “Oh, you’re the strongest woman in the history of the US”, it’s like “You’re big but you don’t sit on the couch and do nothing. How does that work?” They just don’t understand that bigger people can be elite athletes.

Although my sport is very specific and I use my size as an advantage, it shouldn’t be such an odd concept. That’s a big part of what Julie explores, and what she wants people to realize about weightlifting, that there are a lot of different competitors in different bodies.

When folks find out that I’m an artist as well — I paint, I draw, but I’m also an athlete — that’s odd. But instead of blaming people who ask those questions, I’m curious, as julie is too. Why do we ask those questions? Why does everyone think that’s odd, to be both an athlete and an artist?

Q. The film explores the way that weightlifting isn’t just about moving a heavy thing — it’s about understanding how your body works in relation to timing and momentum and inertia, and basically the physics of movement. Tell me about that.

A. The first time i saw Olympic weightlifting, I was captivated not only by the idea of human beings handling so much weight, but also by the speed and the agility and the grace with which these athletes were performing these maneuvers. Even at 13, when I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, I loved the way it looked. That’s how i got bitten by the bug.

I’m a strong person, obviously, physically. Yet compared to a lot of female weightlifters, even in this country, there are plenty of ladies who are pound for pound, or overall, even, stronger than I am. The only way I was successful was to really, really, really cultivate a technique that works for my body, and one that I was very disciplined in maintaining.

I’m not strong enough to make any mistakes. If my snatch is moving backward, I’m not that person that can force it into the postiion it has to be in.

People would comment on my weightlifting and say it looks so effortless. They’d say “Put more weight on the bar.” But if I did put more weight on, my technique would go, and I wouldn’t be able to lift it. If I didn’t get it perfect, then I couldn’t do it at all. It just wouldn’t happen.

It’s a movement that captivated me. It’s so interesting. But I had to adhere to it very strictly.

Q. Recently Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut, died. Newscasters talked about the kinds of questions she got asked in the 1980s, one of which was “Are you planning to wear a bra under your astronaut suit?” As a pioneer yourself, you must have been on the receiving end of a lot of dumb questions. Can you tell me some of those?

A. There were some humdingers. I get really annoyed, maybe it’s because i’ve heard it so much, when people worry about me dropping weights on my toes. My toes, gosh, no it’s not a problem. It’s fine.

Then there’s, “How much do you bench press?” God bless ‘em, American men especially, it’s the thing you do in the gym, y’know? As a dude, you go over and you bench press, it’s what you’re supposed to do. Everyone appears so crestfallen when I say I don’t bench press.

Q. Strength coach Charles Staley once said to me that if you’re NOT afraid of getting under a heavy weight, you are probably mentally ill. In the film you say it’s “easier to talk yourself out of it than into it”. What kind of courage and mindset is required in order to dive under a heavy weight?

A. When it comes to mindset, there were a couple different phases in my career.

At first, I had the carefree, happy go lucky, i’m never going to be injured in this sport, attitude. Like in 2000, winning my bronze medal, lah dee dah, going through the motions, I never felt afraid at all, ever.

Then there was the elbow injury [in which Cheryl tore two ligaments], and I was like “Oh yikes, that was pretty painful, how does one deal with that?”

Everyone has different approaches. For me, there’s a commitment to lifting the bar. Even when you know your joints could separate. I simply ask myself: “Do I want to be a weightlifter?”

Do I hesitate? “No, Cheryl, you can’t do that. You can’t lift the bar if you hesitate. Commit to every motion.”

Then there were times that were more stressful than others. Where I’d think too far ahead. In that case I’d trick myself. I’d think “OK, I’m at a competition, and all I have to do is snatch. Just snatch. That’s all. Then I’m done.”

Whatever the result of the snatch, I’d turn around and pretend I just got there. Then I’d say, “OK, all I have to do is clean and jerk. Just clean and jerk.” I’d compartmentalize the lifts. Compartmentalize the stress.

To be honest, I was always a competitor. I felt like I was wasting my time until I was on that platform in front of a group of folks watching me, until the moment was critical, and it felt like the most important lift of my career. I always loved those moments.

I always knew when I wasn’t going to make a lift. Sometimes, when you have doubts, you can talk yourself into something. You can shake it off and refocus. But if I doubted myself, that’s usually when I wouldn’t make the lift.

Q. In the film you draw a poignant comparison between your own body experiences and the requirements of the sport, and you say: “You begin to hate what you do because it’s keeping you trapped somewhere.” Can you talk about that?

A. There are moments where you find yourself in the middle of something, and you wonder how you got there, when things are falling apart, when you’re not feeling as good as you used to, and you’re wondering, “What am I doing?”

I had a few of those moments, and a lot of the time it had to do with size, and dealing with society, and shopping for clothes, and that kind of nonsense, and then going into the gym and being awesome. It was a really interesting catch-22 i found myself in. It’s a really bizarre feeling.

Q. What might people be surprised to know about weightlifters?

A. The casual viewer thinks that all weightlifters are like me. Really big people, really big muscles. But in reality we have 7 weight classes for women and 8 for men. Weightlifters come in all shapes and sizes. It’s not an army of superheavyweights.

Most people think weightlifters are just enormous. The tiniest and the largest weightlifters make up a very small percentage of the competitors. Most of them fall into those middleweight classes.

Q. What are you most proud of? I don’t mean external rewards like medals, but rather moments of growth, or insight, or personal achievement that were really meaningful to you in your career?

A. One that i don’t really talk about too much happened in Beijing. I was so out of shape from the injury, and so forlorn, just really sad about having to compete when I knew the only thing that was going to happen was that I was going to embarrass myself.

You can’t pull a big lift out of your ass if you’re not in shape. You just can’t. Well, maybe you could rescue a baby under a car, or something.

But in competition, this lift wasn’t going to happen, and I knew it. For a little while, I was thinking of any way to get out of the competition. What can I do to not have to get on that stage? Maybe if i get hurt, maybe if something happens, just anything, to get me out of that. It’s a very human response; nobody wants to embarrass themselves in such a way.

But then I began to think about my parents flying across the world, and my best friend sitting at home who was the alternate, and there’s no way she could have gotten there in time. It wasn’t a sacrifice, obviously my duty is to go and perform, no matter what.

So, I was proud of myself for facing the music, even when I wanted to be somewhere else so badly. Never more so than in that moment there.

I took 6th and was complaining to a teammate of mine about not doing well. He’d bombed out earlier, didn’t even place. Here I am, griping about being 6th, and he said “Well, at least you totaled.” And I was like, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

As an athlete, you’re trained to think about yourself all the time. It’s so selfish, but you’re trained to do it. What you’re eating or not eating. Whether you’re recovering. Your performance. Whatever. That carries through. And that was the moment where I was like “Cheryl, shut up. Just shut up and turn straw into gold.” I ended up having a great time with my family.

But I think what’s hard for people to understand is that at this level, it’s not about just showing up, or getting to be there. It’s about going and knowing I’m going to be one of the strongest women in the world, because I am. I wanted to do well. And honestly, I still feel that silver medal should have been mine. It’s not anyone’s fault, because I was injured and couldn’t perform. But still.

That’s the athlete mentality. It’s a double edged sword: It keeps you working hard, but it also makes you a bit crazy!

Q. What are you up to these days?

A. I recruit for the Savannah College of Art and Design. It’s where I got my BFA. I’ve been travelling a lot. If i get a chance to work out, it’s a hotel gym. I love working out. I love training. I don’t get to do it as often as I want. I don’t have any muscles any more!

Q. What advice would you give to new women weightlifters?

A. To the folks that are completely new, like “I don’t know what Olympic weightlifting is, or what it’s all about, it’s really an amazing sport that’s so good for almost all that ails you. It’s a sport that all Olympic athletes do, whether they’re weightlifters or not. It’s so good for power. For women especially, the bone density factor is incredible. I don’t think women realize the health benefits associated with weight-bearing exercise. So women interested in learning weightlifting should at least explore the options they have locally, and learn that there are lots of possibilities.

For new competitors, it’s about confidence. That’s a simple answer to give, but when I think about my experience, there were moments when I had to talk myself into things. And that doesn’t mean you’re no good. Just because you have to convince yourself to do things doesn’t mean you’re beaten. It’s just part of being a competitor.

Don’t get too upset about training. I don’t remember any workout that I ever had where I sat down and I cried about it. Not once. And I’ve had my share of miserable workouts. So maintain a balance. Don’t get too caught up in it. Leave whatever happens in the gym.

That was one of the hardest things at the Olympic training centre. We’d sit around after we worked out, over lunch, and everyone would be talking about the next workout. And I was like, “I don’t care. I don’t want to know. I want to go in there with a clean slate.” I wanted to be very present.

Be present. Because you can’t think too far ahead. You’ll mess yourself up bigtime! Be present — that’s just great advice for life.

SP writes with painful juicy honesty about her “journey of imperfection” and resilience, and was the third-place winner of the Stumptuous Fitness Model contest. Like all of us, she’s had her ups and downs, and also like all of us, does a lot of… ahem… experiential learning in nutrition, health, fitness, and life in general.

Which is why she’s awesome. So, please: enjoy.

–Mistress K

A Couple Good Reasons (and One Bad One) to Drag Your Crippled Ass to the Gym

…Or to the park or the track or wherever you like to get physical – I’m a weight-room girl myself, but it doesn’t matter where you like to get active, just that you’re doing something fun and challenging, something you want to do.

Ah, but that’s the trick, isn’t it? Getting able-bodied people to want to is hard enough, but making physical activity appealing to us crippled folks can be an even bigger pain in the ass. We have concerns that are not adequately addressed by exhortations to exercise solely for the sake of health (a word that be pretty loaded), and we have a hard time finding images of folks like us in ads for gyms and workout gear.

It can start to feel like physical activity is just not something crippled folks should be pursuing, and I think that sucks.

I’m talking to you, crippled reader: I want to get your ass in the gym. So, I’m going to say a few things about WOWC (working out while crippled) that you may not have thought of, and hopefully they will encourage you and I will manage to be helpful and not just obnoxious.

For the record: I’m a 32 year old woman with multiple sclerosis. My experiences are, of course, bound by the particular quirks of my own crippled body and may not always be representative of yours – we are each of us God’s unique, crippled little snowflakes, and what works for me may not always work for you.

And for the record: I use words like “crippled” a lot – this bothers some people. If you’re one of those people, I’m sorry.

Also: CRIPPLED! CRIPPLED! CRIPPLED! CRIPPLED! CRIPPLED!

Ok, you ready? Good. Now, first of all:

You’re not that delicate, princess.

“Oh no,” a friend said of my blackened shin and raw-hamburger knee. “What the hell happened?”

“It’s nothing! I just fell!” I said, and her eyes got wet and wide.

“Oh honey,” she said, collapsing onto my chest for a hug. “I’m so sorry.”

“I think I’ll survive,” I said, baffled, and spit out a lock of her hair. An aside to whatever god made me: Why are all my female friends shorter than me? And why does their hair love to send tentacles into my mouth like horny octopi? Jeeze.

People can be very reluctant to encourage physical activity for the sick and crippled folks they love. It’s perfectly understandable – you’re already kinda broken, they don’t want you to break further – but it can be a hindrance for the crippled beginner who is already nervous about taking on new physical challenges.

It’s also perfectly understandable for you to be afraid to hurt yourself, and when your fear meets the fears others have for you, it tends to grow. If your loved ones see your health as so fragile, so easily shattered, it’s hard not to feel the same way, and that can stop you before you start.

Good thing that’s horseshit.

You are not a vase or Gutenberg Bible or a gimpy little veal – you do not need to be stowed away in a box for protection.

On the contrary, you probably endure, on a daily basis, a level of pain and difficulties that most folks don’t (and that many don’t even notice). Activities that able-bodied folks can perform without thinking (getting the mail, taking a shower) require the care and meticulous planning of a casino robbery. You bust your ass just to get through the day.

You’re tough, in other words, and you can take it. Be smart and be honest with yourself about what you can do, be thoughtful and careful, but don’t live in fear of damaging your tender self. Yep, getting active means you might hurt yourself, but I’m not being flip when I say that can be a gift.

Getting hurt and recovering reminds you of how resilient your body is, and how tough you are. These are good things to remember.

Another good thing:

Cripples and athletes are BFFs.

(and that title is not meant to imply any sort of division between cripple and athlete – there are scads of crippled athletes out there kicking ass every day – but to reassure the crippled beginner who is not yet comfortable identifying as an athlete)

I wouldn’t have thought so when I was getting started, but serious athletes (amateur and professional alike) tend to be far more understanding and supportive than the general public. I’ve had people honk and yell at me from their cars for taking too long to shuffle across the street (with cane at my side, no less), but when I was dragging my crippled ass through Warrior Dash a few weeks ago, not one person complained about me holding them up or being too slow to get past an obstacle.

A woman at a café once stage-whispered to a friend that watching me add cream to my coffee with trembling hands was “disgusting and sad” (why she was watching me doctor my coffee at all is a mystery – I usually don’t stare at people in public unless I think I’ve seen them in a porno, and even then, I have the good taste to be discreet).

But in the gym, men who could snap me in half like a Kit-Kat will approach me to offer their shy admiration of my overhead press. The camaraderie I’ve developed with able-bodied gym rats is as welcome as it is surprising.

Athletes know what it is to push one’s body hard, to fight through pain and weariness. They respect you for doing it – even if it looks weird, even if it’s slow or sloppy. That being said…

It’s not going to cure you.

Most anyone with a chronic illness has, at one point or another, benefitted from the stunning reservoir of cutting-edge medical knowledge that friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances, strangers, grocery store check-out clerks, fellow bus riders, beauty school dropouts, and recently paroled arsonists moving in to the apartment downstairs all seem to have at their fingertips.

“Just don’t eat dairy, and you’ll be fine,” says a woman you once had to dissuade from using a butter knife to dig a wad of gum out of an electrical outlet.

“You need to start drinking raw milk,” says a man you’ve met that day, whose name you’re still not sure of (was it Jerry or Gary? Terry? Oh jeeze, this is why I don’t go to parties) and whose cologne makes your eyes water.

“There’s a doctor in Bolivia who’s curing people with bee stings,” says the guy who delivers your paper, “but you have to believe, or it won’t work.” He then excuses himself to go to his second job: selling baggies of oregano to gullible kids down at the middle school.

The sheer volume of unsolicited advice sick people get (and the arrogant tone in which it’s often delivered, as if your illness developed from laziness or stupidity) can be overwhelming. That’s bad enough, but I’m speaking from personal experience when I say that such advice can also break your heart. Being sick can make you desperate, and desperate people are willing to believe and try some pretty crazy shit. When that crazy shit doesn’t work, it’s devastating.

That’s why it’s important for me to be clear about this: getting active is not going to cure you. It may help your illness or disability – it may help a lot – but it also may not, and you, my beloved crippled snowflake, need to understand that and accept it.

The gym is not going to cure you. So why even bother?

Because your body is just like everybody else’s.

It can be hard to remember because your illness or disability sometimes feels like your body’s defining characteristic, but remember that your body is, in the ways that matter, the same a everybody else’s. It wants to move, to act with purpose and focus and silliness and joy.

Your body does not care that it can’t do the same things other bodies can, or that it moves differently, or that other people might think it looks weird – it just wants to do what it can do, whatever that may be. What’s different about you is not nearly so important as what’s the same.

Your body, just like everybody else’s body, wants to be used. Use it.

The intrepid Neil goes forth and conquers.

First, check out his cameo in Gabriella Rogers’ Living With Parkinson’s. Neil is featured prominently as evidence of the power of heavy and consistent weight training as part of a Parkinson’s treatment plan. Yay Neil!!

april 2011

A missive from Neil, April 11.

My occasional pieces in Stumptuous are commentaries on my exercise habits. They are not recommendations but accounts of what I’ve found possible while living with Parkinson’s. No-one should commence a vigorous exercise routine without having been assured by a medical practitioner that it’s safe to do so.

[Krista's editorial comment: In this case, I recommend healthy skepticism about "doctors' advice", given that until recently, much of said advice has involved "Lie down in God's waiting room, read some old copies of Readers' Digest and await your termination; there's a good boy." Go kicking and screaming all the way, in my opinion.]

Mandy has left a question on part 1 of my blog. Calls me a dude, and says it’s about time for an update. (Is being a “dude” complimentary or a putdown?) Mandy, you’re an impatient woman. I most recently reported in December 2010. But thanks heaps. It made my day to learn that someone’s interested in my situation.

Parkinson’s disease intrudes in nearly all I do.

The timing of daily chores is dictated by timing of my medication. Minor activities of daily life such as doing up the button at my collar and knotting a tie are reserved for when medication is likely to be functioning. Clients are seen when medication is most likely to be “on.” Sleep is fragmented; I’m usually awake between 3 am and 6 am before lying down for a final hour.

Respite is found in vigorous exercise during four sessions of around 55 minutes each week.

Monday night this week was bliss. The day had been dreadful. An unusually heavy workload in my daytime occupation plus concern regarding deadlines led to severe shaking. Arriving at the gym around 9 pm, a fellow member asked if I was O.K.

After 10 minutes cycling, 15 minutes rowing increasing pace to flat out, and 25 minutes lifting weights my body had become “normal.” What a feeling!

The impediments of PD drift away as I pick up pace. Dr Parkinson becomes briefly anonymous.

In indoor rowing, indoor cycling, and pushups/situps/unweighted squats competitions at the gym there’s no “PD” alongside my name on the printed results. My biggest handicap in the “55 years and over” events is being 65.

This Wednesday, I rowed for eight minutes, starting slowly then increasing pace to a 1 minute 44 seconds/500 metres rate in the final 30 seconds. On the decline bench, I started with 6 x 80 kgs and finished with 1 x 110 kgs (242 lbs).

Horizontal bench is being avoided until slight soreness in my right shoulder goes away. I’m told that my speeds on the bike and in the rower along with the weights I lift are unusual for a man of 65 years.

I was diagnosed with PD in 1998 and commenced gym activity in 2000, at age 54. Apart from possessing a set of 120 lbs weights and a weightlifting bar in my final year at school and occasionally attending the uni gym in my late teens and early twenties, I’d had no lifting experience.

My training regime differs from exercise undertaken by many with Parkinson’s in that it

• was commenced, and continues, for overall health and physical fitness rather than as therapy for Parkinson’s;
• is conducted in the company of the general public, not a specifically Parkinson’s group;
• follows targets and programs set by myself;
• demands close to maximum exertion;
• assumes that exercise = flexibility + aerobic “stressing” (pushing heart and lungs) + strength and “strength” means to maximum capability.

In January 2000 I was overweight and unfit and decided to do something about it.

I was met at my first gym session by a cheery but tough lady who pushed me hard in my first months. Sweat is my main recollection of 2000. By 2004 I’d realised that sweaty training sessions bring me temporary relief from tremor and rigidity.

“Bradykinesia,” slowness of movement, is one of three major symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Weakness is included by some as one of numerous other symptoms. (See link below to article by Falvo, Schilling and Earhart.)

What’s going on in my case? Can intense physical training from soon after diagnosis overwrite symptoms? To what degree do shortcomings in speed and strength of many living with PD simply reflect lack of fitness resulting from a lifestyle cocooned from physical activity?

My training follows six separate programs, one per session. There’s nothing magic about the number six. It simply ensures specific exercises aren’t repeated too soon.

I lift lower repetitions and “heavier” weights rather than higher reps and lower weights. Higher reps cause me soreness. I’ve not been injured unless a painfully stiff neck for a week around seven years ago could be rated an injury.

In February 2004 I read an article online in a gym equipment journal describing a training program for a gentleman with a terminal neurological condition. The author was Dr Krista Scott-Dixon.

I emailed Krista, complimenting her for what she was doing and recounting my own situation. Krista kindly suggested some exercises. Exchanges continued for several years before Krista asked whether I’d agree to my accumulated commentaries being transferred to her Stumptuous website. That’s how I come to be here.

What does a Google scan of the literature tell us? It tells us that professionals’ opinions have moved a long way since first coming to my attention around 2003. Mainstream advice told me then that, having Parkinson’s disease, I should not exert myself and not lift heavy weights. I was classified as a “patient.”

Times they are a changing!

Dr Lee Dibble in 2006 reported:

“Persons with mild to moderate PD can safely and feasibly participate in high-force eccentric resistance training.”

Drs Falvo, Schilling and Earhart in 2008 developed the case for a resistance component in Parkinson’s therapy.

They noted:

“…we…..question the rationale behind current exercise prescriptions. The absence of reports contraindicating resistive exercise, the potential for positive adaptation, and the noted benefits of resistance training in other populations may provide support for its inclusion into a treatment approach to PD.”

Dr Schilling went a little further in 2010 (click to download full text in PDF)

“Conclusions: Moderate volume, high-load weight training is effective for increasing lower-body strength in persons with PD.”

Researchers seem reluctant to investigate the benefits of upper body strength. Don’t people who topple over grab for something? Wouldn’t their chances be improved if their arms are strong enough to support them?

Rodrigues-de-Paula and Oliveira Lima, in summing up where physical therapy currently stands in relation to Parkinson’s disease, say this:

“Thus, it is possible that high-intensity exercises are most desirable to minimize the progressive dysfunction of PD. However, since individuals with PD have a lower physical fitness and are often unmotivated to practice physical activity, it is necessary to raise awareness about the use of high-intensity exercise in their treatment, since such exercise will require more physical effort which could lead to individuals’ fatigue.”

(Rodrigues-de-Paula F, Oliveira Lima L. 2011. Physical Therapy – Exercise and Parkinsons Disease. In: JH Stone, M Blouin, editors. International Encyclopedia of Rehabilitation.)

I fully agree. Has professional opinion caught up with what those who live with Parkinson’s disease and who exercise vigorously long realised?

Neil

Sydney, Australia

(I train at Aquafit Fitness and Leisure Centre, Campbelltown, NSW. Australia.)

june 2011

Neil is featured in a video created for Professor Bastiaan (Bas) Bloem, a world-leading neurologist in the field of movement disorders. In this video, Neil runs through some neurological tests and gym exercises, demonstrating some of the form that won him university freshman 100 m sprint champion in 1964.

At age 65, Neil bench presses, busts out some weighted dips, and scorches through some biking and rowing. Parkinson’s or no Parkinson’s, this man is in damn good shape.

october 2011

Dear Krista

The New York Times this week highlights Dr Jay Alberts’ research into intense exercise for people living with Parkinson’s disease.

Alberts is well-known for promoting “forced” exercise for people living with the condition. We who live with Parkinson’s haven’t been thought capable of pedalling a bike sufficiently quickly to reach the threshold of required intensity. We require “forcing”.

Dr Alberts now appears to concede that we may be able to reach the necessary speed. The critical factor is that we perform beyond our comfort zone. It needn’t be a bike. “(Try) cranking up the speed on your next treadmill session, until you are outside your normal running comfort zone.”

Dr Alberts has argued that people living with Parkinson’s can’t “normally” (i.e. “without being forced by a tandem rider or motorised assistance”) sustain for at least 40 minutes a pedal rpm beyond 60. Shaky man can do so. Further, in brief sprints he’s reached 140rpm. (See his second video.)

Why read NY Times? Stumptuous since 2005 has brought you shaky man’s observations of how intense exercise impacts his Parkinsonian symptoms. He’s been ahead of the pack.

Shaky man is near the end of ten weeks with an imaginative, demanding personal trainer.

Speed lifting weighted bars to his shoulders. Repetitions of shot put action, done explosively, with bands. Push-ups while holding Roman rings. Many step-ups on to a box while carrying dumb-bells. Boxing. Aerobic effort beyond what he thought possible and well beyond what he’s performed on his own terms.

This week, returning after a week spent with influenza, he was asked to ride a slow, general use bike (with TV set mounted on handle bar) flat out five reps of one kilometre with exactly one minute rest between each rep. He was told to keep a constant pace but, if variation, ensure the final ride was quicker than the first. Shaky man timed 1 min 40 secs, give or take a few secs, for each.

Then trainer took shaky man outside gym. What to do? To walk around perimeter of gym three times, running the final side of each circuit as hard as possible up a 150 metres road bordering the gym.

“Remarkable,” said the trainer.

Shaky man went home elated and temporarily free of Parkinson’s symptoms. He felt terrific!

All the best
Neil

november 2011

Dear Krista

Encouragement plays a huge part in lifting my spirits and performance.

The three main motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are slowness, tremor, and rigidity. A fourth is postural instability. There are many other symptoms. Weakness is frequently listed. See the Swedish Parkinson’s Association’s YouTube for non-motor symptoms. (Shaky man’s blog, December 2010.)

Its cause is unknown. There is no cure. No medication slows its progression. Why not give up when diagnosed? What’s the point of training?

Several months ago my training was in a rut. My programs had changed little for several years. A video from June 2011 shows me shaking near uncontrollably, largely from fear of not reaching expectations.

Fitness instructor Danielle urged me to higher rowing and cycling speeds in the video than I’d thought possible on the day. Her confidence lifted mine.

Determined to rise from the rut, I engaged a personal trainer for ten sessions. Tony was demanding but, given his care in preparing my routines, the least I could do was give one hundred per cent when he called for it.

When asked to run 3 x 150 metres, I did so despite having bid farewell to running about two years ago.

“Remarkable for your age,” said Tony. Enthused, a few nights later I drove to a local rugby field and sprinted… no, “sprint” may be fanciful… five or six times between try lines. From try line to try line is 100 metres. Only a sudden pull in my right hamstring stopped me.

My strength is on the up after declining in the first half of this year. I hoisted 100 kg (220 lb) off the horizontal bench recently. The young gym member who spotted denied he touched the bar although I have my doubts. A day or two later the same fellow agreed to increase plates from 90 kg to 95 kg on the decline bench but instead raised them to 105 ks and watched me battle to heave them upward.

Recently I failed at my second last task of four rounds of strength and aerobic exercises. The task was to press a 25 kgs dumb-bell 10 times on each arm while lying on the horizontal bench. The fitness instructor on duty dragged them off me.

Exhausted, I moved to the rower for my fourth and final round of rowing 300 metres flat out. I propelled it with all remaining energy.

“Machine!” (my nickname with the young people) called the fitness instructor, urging me on. Finished! Average pace 1 min 40 secs/500m. My quickest round! Very fast for a man of nearly 66 years of age.

How did I manage that? Someone special had pushed me beyond what I would have accepted on my own.

As a person with Parkinson’s, I’m unable to sit up when lying on my back. Many times as I’ve struggled to get off a bench, a hand has given my back a shove and rendered me upright. Such random acts of kindness are frequent.

The great majority of those around me in the gym are in their teens and twenties. “Awesome” is typical of their vocabulary. “Moderation” and “Don’t overdo it” is the vocabulary of members closer to my age.

Some in the Parkinson’s community have told me that my physical capability thirteen years after diagnosis is due to “luck” or my brief involvement, long ago, in athletics. It’s nothing of the sort. It comes from:

• not complying with others’ expectations of how a person with Parkinson’s should exercise;
• accepting personal control. I seek out and benefit from the knowledge of others, but what to take on board is up to me;
• hard training;
• unyielding friendship and encouragement of those with whom I associate. Krista, you and those who’ve responded to my jottings in Stumptuous are at the top.

I wanted you to know.

Neil

may 2012

Dear Krista

An article in the Washington Post of 12 January 2012 has caught my eye.

Chuck Linderman, a 64 year old American diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease undertakes sweaty exercise with weights, rower and bike. This fellow’s regimen is so close to mine I checked to ensure that Chuck wasn’t plagiarised from the pages of Stumptuous.

Chuck has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s for six years compared with my thirteen and a half years. Unlike me, he has a rowing background. My indoor rowing commenced in 2009. Unlike me, Chuck has retired from the work force. I’m 66 years old.

How goes my gym regime? What have I learnt in the past six months?

1. The goal itself may become the impediment.

For several months until recently my training had been driven by a goal of beating 1 minute 40 seconds for indoor rowing 500 metres. Last time I looked, only one Australian of 65 years and older had achieved this so far in 2011 – 2012. My average pace after one minute was well under that required to row 500 metres below one min 40 seconds.

Yet I broke down when trying to hold the pace an extra 38 seconds. It’s not lack of stamina. A chest physician assessed my lung capacity as above normal. Computer software assessed my “cardio age” as in my twenties (after I’d stepped up and down off a box for some minutes.)

Recently, I rowed while chatting to a friend about my trip in April to San Francisco. Feeling sinful for chatting while training, I told my friend, “I’d better increase the pace now.” The instrument panel indicated that, while being sinful, I’d rowed for over 17 minutes at medium pace. My mind had been elsewhere, not consumed by a goal.

2. Pursue little targets.

Many little improvements lead to big gains. Think little, achieve big.

3. Lessen stress, as much as possible.

Stress exacerbates symptoms of Parkinson’s. It even overrides the benefits of medication. Not reaching an important goal generates stress. Stress negatively impacts performance.

4. It might be the medication.

An American exercise scientist, a new-found friend, has sent me a link to Neurology Now from which a blinding flash hit me similar to that which hit Paul on the road to Damascus. It came from an item about Rich Clifford, the U.S. astronaut who walked in space despite his Parkinson’s disease. The piece noted that “one medicine made him particularly compulsive, mostly in wanting to finish tasks”.

Could the medication I’ve been taking for about two years be the source of my impatience? We don’t just battle the medical condition; we sometimes battle the medicine given to repel the condition.

5. Strengthen the body first; speed follows.

Weightlifting has regained its primacy in my program. My bench press has been down. The spotter let me think I hoisted 100 kgs in February, denying that he’d given the bar a little assistance off my chest. Let’s say I lifted 97.5 kgs. Rather than a bar with plates, I sometimes substitute up to thirty push-ups with a 20 kg plate on my shoulder blades. Six dips with 20 kgs hanging off my belt is another showpiece.

6. Some days are poor, some days are good. Concentrate on the good.

Some days will be poorer than others. It’s pointless beating myself up. These are appropriate occasions to look at my training pattern and make adjustments.

7. With Parkinson’s, some days are terrible, but show up anyway.

The above line says it all. There are occasions when I look terrible, shaking alarmingly. Staff hold my security tab against the sensor at the gym entry gate, letting me come in.

Even when shaky, I can build up to good speeds in the rower or on the bike or even when sprinting. As new gym members are thinking “That poor old man”, surprise them. Ask one if he’d mind placing a 20 kg plate on your shoulder blades while you “get into the feel of things with 25 pushups.” (Look at my video of June 2011 if you disbelieve how bad I can appear.)

Myths

“Take it easy, don’t tire yourself, don’t lift heavy weights” is still advocated by some professionals for people with Parkinson’s. We are considered slow, weak and easily fatigued. That’s certainly how people diagnosed with Parkinson’s will become if they allow these descriptors to define their capabilities.

Don’t permit Parkinson’s (or anyone) to define your life. The most damnable thing is to let Parkinson’s constrain us without first testing if the limitation need be true.

Mistress Krista will say yea to the next bit. Bradykinesia (slowness) is one of three fundamental symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The others are rigidity and tremor. A person with Parkinson’s disease will have at least two of the three. Dr Fabian David and others have recently studied the relationship between strength and bradykinesia in people with Parkinson’s. (Link to article)

“Given the wide array of neural changes that accompany PRE (progressive resistance exercise) summarized in this paper, the potential to slow the rate of the progression of the symptoms of PD, the improvement in strength and function, and the positive effects on nonmotor symptoms of PD, there is a strong rationale for the use of PRE (progressive resistance exercise) as an adjunct treatment in PD.”

Amen.

While everyone with Parkinson’s is different, I think it highly unlikely that my capacity to lift weights and to propel myself at speed is rare. I believe it more likely that people in early to mid-stage Parkinson’s accept that they are physically the lesser and are encouraged to feel this way by many professionals.

My experience has been that with hard training, with commitment, and with the support of others, a person with this horrible condition can lift his or her physical performance significantly above those of the general community.

Best wishes
Neil

(Huge thanks to Mistress Krista for providing this otherwise aloof Australian with an amplifier.)

She’s lost (and maintained) a total of about 55 pounds to date (~15 more to go). She started doing athletic stuff about 5 years ago, and started lifting two years ago. She’s now handcycling, swimming and racing regularly. She did her first 10K as a wheelchair racer in May 2010 (in the Bolder Boulder, one of the biggest 10Ks on the continent — the wheelchair racing contingent was very intimidating, she says), and her first sprint triathlon in June.

Here’s her story.

Starting out

As a child and young woman, I was pretty much full of self-loathing.

I was overweight (although not as overweight as I thought I was) from my early teenage years on. I worked hard to disassociate my body, my physical self, from my essential self.

My husband, on the other hand, defined himself almost exclusively as an athlete. He ran marathons and did triathlons, he watched what he ate, and he treated his body as a valuable resource that needed to be taken care of. Out of love for me, he begged me to start doing something, anything, physical, but I wasn’t buying it.

Then, in 1994, I was diagnosed with MS.

I was 34 years old, I had 3 young children (ages 8, 6 and 4) and I was in graduate school, working on my master’s degree in Computer Science. To top it off, at just about the same time, my father-in-law had a severe stroke resulting in a move for him into a nursing home, so the entire family was focused on dealing with that change.

At the beginning, I concentrated on not letting MS get in the way of anything else: “Oh, yes, I have MS, but look! Over there! A butterfly!”

And the early years of MS can be very deceptive—between attacks you may feel fine much of the time, which can lead to all sorts of mind games about whether you really have the disease or not. When I was having symptoms, I lied about it a lot: “I twisted my ankle,” or “I fell down the stairs.” The few times I tried to talk to anyone else about it were confusing and frustrating; I was all over the map about how I felt about it, and I’m sure I telegraphed my bewilderment to everyone else.

When I was diagnosed, the prevailing medical wisdom was that exertion was bad for people with MS.

There’s some basis in fact for this—people with MS, even if they are asymptomatic, generally fatigue more quickly than people without MS. For many people with MS, fatigue is a primary and very real symptom. Many people with MS are very sensitive to small rises in core body temperature; increased body temperature can cause an alarming (although temporary) increase in symptoms. My doctor at the time told me to rest as much as possible, and as a dedicated couch potato, I had no trouble following that advice.

I think it’s different for newly diagnosed MS patients now. When I was diagnosed, there were no disease modifying drugs (DMDs) in common use. Today neurologists try to get all patients started on treatment right away, and most of the current DMDs are injected. It’s hard to forget that you have a chronic neurological illness when you’re injecting yourself every day (or every other day, or every week). That’s got its drawbacks, too, of course.

Deciding to change

After several years of “resting as much as possible” I was even more deconditioned than I had been before.

My weight had already ballooned with each pregnancy, and now I was well into “obese” territory. I can’t tell you whether my physical deterioration was due to MS, overweight, or lack of exercise, but I can’t believe that being overweight and sedentary helped.

And I was deteriorating, by fits and starts. Just after Christmas one year I was standing in the kitchen, and I turned to stir something on the stove, and I just slid to the floor. My husband and son had to pick me up and carry me to bed, and I couldn’t get up by myself for a couple of weeks. And I thought, “Someday someone is going to have to lift me in and out of bed every day, and weighing over 200 pounds isn’t going to make that any easier.”

So I lost weight. (Wow, doesn’t that sound easy?) It took two years, several nutritionists, and logging every bite I put in my mouth to lose 45 pounds. No exercise. But — with 20% of my body weight gone, I could walk around a block with a cane instead of crutches. My legs didn’t swell up by noon every day. Was it because I lost weight, or because my MS was remitting? Does it matter?

My MS progression didn’t stop, though. I was already using a wheelchair at work, and within the next couple of years I was using it almost full time. Using a wheelchair, even when I could still walk short distances, conserved my energy to do other things besides get from point A to point B.

About six years ago I bought a handcycle, which is an arm-powered tricycle with wheels. I didn’t have any training, or anyone to talk to—I just rode the handcycle a little further each time, when I could, and did the same in my wheelchair. I discovered that I was proud to push further today than I had pushed last week.

Now, even though I still can’t walk, I think of myself as an athlete, which is something I never thought I would be. I’m proud of my abilities, and I want to push to be able to do more.

Learning what I need

There’s really very little information in the way of scientific or clinical studies on the effects of exercise on people with MS. I decided to not worry about that, and go with how I felt.

When I started lifting weights, I would go home and go to bed for the rest of the day. It was months before I could both lift weights and do something else the same day (like get up for lunch). I decided that that was ok—that it was going to take me longer to adjust to lifting than it took able-bodied people, and I would just go with that.

Time and energy were both huge barriers, and I didn’t start working out effectively until I stopped working full time (I work three days a week). Even now, I don’t see how I could have done what I’m doing had I still been working full time; I just don’t have enough energy for both, thanks to MS. So switching to part time work means that I’m prioritizing my body, my health and my strength over money and the satisfaction I get from working. Not everyone can even afford to do that.

On a practical level, people with disabling chronic illnesses may need all kinds of support they may not have in order for exercise to be practical—mobility equipment, accessibility of facilities, transportation options, the acceptance and understanding of family and friends.

I wish I understood whatever switch flipped in my head to move me from all the reasons I believed I couldn’t work out to where I am now, but I don’t.

My activity now

Now, I lift weights at a city gym with a trainer. When we started, my trainer didn’t particularly know anything about MS, but he’s willing to learn, and (luckily for me) he seems to have an innate understanding of how far I should push myself. He’s good at recognizing, even before I do, when I need to scale back or take it easy. He’s creative about adapting exercises to what I can do.

I use free weights almost exclusively. I don’t know how much of a badass I am at weights – I can bench press 70 pounds 20 times. I love lifting weights, hate to miss a session, and really like having muscles I can see :-).

I handcycle. I want to be able to tour, with able-bodied cyclists (i.e., my husband and friends), but the hard reality is that I’m never going to be able to go as fast as even the slow cyclists. Mentally, that’s difficult for me to accept.

I race. This is my first season wheelchair racing, and I really enjoy it. I need to get more mileage and more hills in, and enter more races. How badass am I? Well, out of 15 wheelchair racers in my first (and so far only) 10K, I came in last. But I was really pleased with my time.

I swim. I started swimming last fall, and it’s one of the few sports where I actually can go as fast as (some) able-bodied people.

Participating in adaptive sports is interesting. There are so few of us, and our abilities and disabilities are so different, that it’s hard to figure out where you stand, badass-ness-wise. If you’re a 45 year old woman running 10Ks, you can find thousands of other people to compare yourself with. If you’re a 50 year old woman with MS doing 10Ks in a racing chair, actual competitors are few and far between.

But this same phenomenon works the other way, too — if you’re a 42 year old cyclist, you’re unlikely to find yourself in the same race (much less the same heat) as Lance Armstrong. But I’ve raced on the same track with Paralympic gold medalists (which is really daunting, by the way – talk about being dropped in a heartbeat!).

Really the only way to approach it (and stay sane) is to recognize that you’re competing with yourself, with your own previous performance.

I want to get better at racing and handcycling, and enter more races and triathlons.

Advice to others

What advice would I give to other folks learning to manage a chronic illness or disability?

Accept the fact that you may not be able to do whatever it is you want to do the same way you would have done it if you weren’t disabled, or if you didn’t have a chronic illness.

Once you’ve got the acceptance part down (and you’ll probably have to do that over and over again), find another way to do it!

Find the other people in your situation who are doing the things you want to do and learn from them.

The most pervasive myth was the one I bought into for so many years, that people with MS can’t (or shouldn’t) exercise. The dumbest things I heard, in fact, were the things I was telling myself—that there’s no way to do this, or that it’s unacceptable to compromise in order to do it. I’m still wrestling with the myth of independence and the belief that I should be able to do all this stuff without any assistance from others.

Once I started exercising, I experienced nothing but support and encouragement from the able-bodied (and otherwise) athletes around me. Sometimes this support can veer dangerously close to the “you’re so inspiring” trope, but even then, people’s hearts are in the right place.

I’m having a good time and I feel like a new person. Your website has helped validate my decisions to do this stuff.

july 2009

Neil has an article about PD and exercise (PDF) published on the Parkinson’s NSW website.

october 2009

Dear Krista

Look at this, from the Fall 2009 Newsletter of the venerable Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.

http://www.pdf.org/en/fall09_exercise_parkinsons

Yes, it’s the intensity that is critical.

This is the opposite to the “take it easy and don’t tire yourself” adage that remains the conventional message put out by professionals to those living with Parkinson’s disease.

While reading Dr Petzinger’s article I had a brain flash back to a lecture theatre at Sydney University in the 1960s when a professor of Australian History remarked, “Although we say that So-and-So were the first to ‘discover’ such-and-such place, it was often the case that So-and-So were the official party dispatched by the authorities. When they’d arrive at such-and-such place, they’d often find that common people had long discovered the place and had settled there.”

november 2009

Mistress Krista

I need to row an extra 10 metres, 574 metres to 584 metres, in two minutes to recapture the lead (Men’s 55yrs – 64yrs) in the Two Minute Rowing Challenge at the gym I attend.

Neil tackling the rowing

The event is a time trial held between Monday 2 Nov and Saturday 14 Nov.

I had my first and so far only attempt last Monday 9 Nov, rowing 574 metres and displacing another competitor on 571 metres. Other men were a long way behind.

Tonight (Wednesday 11 Nov), a fellow who I see training mainly on the treadmill at a steep incline achieved 583 metres. (He’s 58 years old.) With his aerobic capacity, he’d probably stroke faster over the rear end of the race than I do. My rate seemed to start out at 38/min, fading to 34/min at the end. Resistance was at max.

Contestants may have as many attempts as they wish between 2 and 14 Nov.

I feel lured to give it another go.

Have to improve my distance by 1.57% to tie.

Another way of looking at it is that I’ll need to be about 1.9 seconds ahead of where I reached at 2 minutes on Monday.

In terms of strokes, it seems I only need to increase the number of strokes by between 1 and 2 across the entire event.

I usually have gym sessions on Mon, Wed, Fri. nights and Sat or Sun afternoon for around 55 minutes a session. Am tempted to have another go tomorrow, Thurs night, leaving an opportunity to try again on Sat.

We old fellas are pretty fierce competitors. Our distances and times stand up well against the mainstream of men in the younger categories.

There’s also an event in which contestants have to perform as many rounds of (7 pushups, 7 situps, 7 squats) in five minutes. I had a go to-night. My main difficulty is standing up. Also am very slow in rolling over from pushup to situp. (Was allowed to place my toes under a treadmill when doing situps; people with PD usually cannot sit up.) My score was poor. Thankfully no-one else in the 55yrs – 64 yrs men’s slot has contested this event so far.

One good idea in preparing for another attempt at the rower would be to increase my sleep. It’s now 12.45am, not unusual for me. Sometimes I’m back in the office around 4am.

Pics of my rowing last Monday and of competitors’ names/performances on the white board as at Monday are attached. (I asked that surnames be covered.) Others have competed; there’s only space for the leading four.

Scoreboard

I have a hard row to hoe!

Best wishes

Neil

Nov 22

Dear Krista,

Over the past fortnight I’ve competed in Aquafit gym’s 2 minutes rowing challenge. Also competed in a pushup/situp/squat event in which competitors had to perform as many “rounds” as possible within 5 minutes. Each round comprised 7 pushups, 7 situps, and 7 squats.

Unfortunately I was the only competitor in the latter in the Men’s 55 years – 64 years category. My performance was relatively dreadful; my problem wasn’t in speed of pushup, situp or squat, but in standing up. Only completed 7 rounds.

Movements that are simple, perhaps automatic, to most people become projects for those with Parkinson’s.

No excuses in the case of the rowing challenge. The top three competitors were a long way ahead of the rest. I was pipped into second place by a younger and fitter man. He rowed 583 metres in 2 minutes; I rowed 577 metres at my third attempt. (My first attempt was 574 metres.) In a second attempt, my backside slipped out of the seat around one minute into the row when ahead of my first attempt. By the third attempt I felt tired and lethargic. It surprised me that it was my best performance.

Competing gives purpose to my training and allows comparison of my efforts with those of other men. It’s also a relief not to be typecast by Parkinson’s. There’s no “PD” placed after my name on the whiteboard in the list of competitors. There’s no-one telling me to “rest if you feel tired.”

Times or distances achieved in gym events are screwed tighter and become new short to medium term targets.

My exercise goals range from broad statements:

• Retain good general health, especially in relation to heart, blood pressure, and blood chemistry;
• Develop and maintain a strong musculature to assist in retaining normal posture;
• Continue improving: to short-term and medium-term measurable targets.

The first two broad statements, about retaining good general health and maintaining a strong musculature, have stood since I set them in 2000.

Program sheets set out specific exercises and sets, reps, time or weight to be achieved at each gym visit. They are shaped by the short to medium term targets.

It seems that I can’t peak in aerobic and strength components at the same time. My lifting performances have fallen while preparing for the rowing challenge, so regaining that loss is my first task.

Bring on a weightlifting competition.

The vigour of my exercise regime would be regarded as lunacy by many in the Parkinson’s community but there’s a hint of change.

Petzinger and others at the University of Southern California have concluded that exercise benefits for those living with Parkinson’s are positively related to intensity of that exercise. (Stumptuous could have told them that.)

As medication wanes, my tremor becomes conspicuous. Shoppers last week asked if I needed help. While stretching at the gym, a concerned fellow member enquired if I was O.K. At the railway station the ticket seller became alarmed I was having a fit and followed me on to the platform, offering a glass of water. An hour and a half after medication such awful signs dissipate.

I don’t feel an impact of Parkinson’s on bike or rower but it certainly affects my running. Maybe walking/running are more complex movements than we think. In weightlifting, Parkinson’s detracts significantly from my “explosive” capacity such as in snapping a weighted bar to my shoulders. That still leaves many lifts with minimal “explosive” component.

My personal experience has been that someone with Parkinson’s disease, through hard training, can far exceed the aerobic and strength performance of the average Joe or Sally. I’d reject any notion of having superior athletic talents. My current aerobic and weightlifting output is the consequence of around 1,600 gym sessions during almost all of which I’ve close to busted my guts.

Professional advice, generally applied, to people with Parkinson’s along the lines of “don’t tire yourself and don’t lift heavy weights” in my opinion is both wrong and potentially harmful if Parkinson’s is the only reason for such a remark. Naturally, those embarking on hard aerobic training should be sure they have no other health problems.

If hard training has harmed me then I’m yet to detect it. It brings temporary relief from tremor and rigidity and sleep comes more readily. Maybe I’m unique. Maybe others have had detrimental effects from vigorous exercise. I’ve not read the evidence.

At least I don’t suffer a common fourth symptom of Parkinson’s disease, toppling over. Physiotherapists at Sydney University are considering this tendency and its relation to leg strength. They will be further assessing me in the coming week, having already placed within a group unlikely to fall.

Many of my peers, on diagnosis with Parkinson’s, hasten to gain a disabled car parking sticker enabling use of car parking spaces close to shops, railway stations, and the like. Some join exercise groups specifically designed for those with a disability.

Doing so may be the right approach for them. I’ll take the contrary approach. If reduced stamina threatens, I’ll increase the strain of my aerobic routine. If reduced strength threatens, I’ll put more plates on the bar.

When commencing my exercise regime in 2000 I speculated that maintaining a strong body might delay the stooped posture typical of Parkinson’s. So far so good. Neither do I experience freezing of movement experienced by many of my peers. Nor do I have a shuffling gait although its whispers are apparent on the treadmill or when walking up a steep slope.

Eventually, Parkinson’s disease will probably win. Movement will be close to impossible, I may no longer be able to eat, no longer able to speak, I may be confined to a wheel chair.

But I’m not keen to be there.

Best wishes

Neil

january 2010

An excerpt from an article that Neil sent me:

After controlling for several potential confounders, lower extremity muscle weakness accounted for 10% of the variability on a standardized test of BMD [bone mineral density]. This is noteworthy, since muscle strengthening or exercise are not interventions clinicians would consider when treating a patient with Parkinson’s disease (PD). In fact, early practice guidelines on physiotherapy (PT) for PD overlooked muscle as a potential target for exercise intervention, targeting instead the cardinal signs and symptoms of the disease with therapies that were often not supported by published research.

This practice continues today in many clinical settings. [Research that] showed a clear association between upper and lower body muscle weakness and hemi-Parkinson’s disease in 1987 and stated that “muscle weakness appears to be a primary symptom of Parkinson’s disease which may relate to disturbed motor programming due to basal ganglia dysfunction”… was largely ignored by the clinical community, perhaps because [this] statement challenged conventional thought or because it was thought that declines in muscle strength were a part of the normal ageing process.

Increasing muscle strength through resistance training might improve BMD, mobility and reduce the occurrence of falls and hip fractures. In order to increase strength, the intensity of exercise would, presumably, have to be suitably high…

Current thoughts on PD rehabilitation reflect a much more dynamic interplay between the rehabilitation environment, behavior, brain and rehabilitative outcomes in people with PD. Indeed, high intensity, task complexity, saliency, novelty and other factors may be necessary to promote struttural and metabolic plasticity in the brain and musculoskeletal systems of persons with PD; however, to date, studies are still forthcoming and no agreed exercise guidelines exist.

Until recently, intense exercise was feared to worsen the symptoms of PD by perhaps increasing the underlying muscle tone, and so, for these individuals, high intensity exercise was to be avoided. These beliefs still dominate PD rehabilitation research and clinical practice today. Few dare to challenge these “truths”, current leading texts on management of PD with exercise still reinforce the notion that high-intensity resistance training has “minimal effects on the symptoms” such as postural reflex impairment, and, as a result, relatively little progress has been made in the treatment of these patients.

It will be interesting to see if future studies reinforce the stereotype that people with so-called chronic neurodegenerative conditions such as PD cannot improve under any circumstances or if it is we who cannot advance our own beliefs.

Hirsch, Mark. Muscle Strength in Parkinson’s Disease: Commentary on Pang and Mak. J Rehabil Med 2009; 41: 291–292

As Neil writes, “In summary, despite evidence as far back as the 1980s that weight-bearing exercise and intensity of exercise are positively related to relief of the symptoms of PD, medical professionals have chosen to ignore such evidence and have continued to promote unfounded “truths” that people living with PD should avoid strenuous activity. (Probably the main reason doctors don’t prescribe non-pharmacological treatment is their lack of training in same.)

The promising sign is that there’s a tiny cluster of professionals exploring intense exercise and announcing their findings.”

june 2010

Fans of Shaky Man will enjoy his latest adventure: his first film! He speaks about his diagnosis and the role of vigorous exercise — including weight training.

What an incredible, brave man. Neil keeps it real.

By the way, that “105″ bench press he mentions… Neil is talking about kilos.

october 2010

Dear Krista,

Lines written spontaneously on arriving home from a rowing challenge.

“Bradykinesia means slowness of movement and is one of the cardinal manifestations of Parkinson’s disease.”So say Beradelli et al in that great bedtime read, Pathophysiology of bradykinesia in Parkinson’s disease

Well, Beradelli old sport. You’d best rethink bradykinesia. Cos I’m just home from the gym, having competed in the two minute rowing challenge against a cluster of aged warriors recalling their glorious past and battling with a fierce determination threatening heart attack.

And I’m coming second in the 55yrs – 64yrs category. A young lad of 55 years (I’m 64yrs) rowed 596m compared with my 570m. Another youngster is tied with me on 570m but I take precedence by age.

And I was diagnosed with the shaky condition over twelve years ago.

Chris, a real rower (on the water), eloquently summed up my effort “All grunt. Shithouse* technique.” (Sorry, mum. I shouldn’t have even repeated such coarse language.)

Competitors have a few days left to post a better distance. The fellow tied with me will surely try. So will I.

My distance to-night was 7 metres less than my performance twelve months ago. But given my difficulties sleeping recently, I’m satisfied to have finished. Maybe I’ll improve on Sunday. And there’s still the pushups/situps/squats event in which to line up.

Best wishes

Neil

* Spell check says “consider revising.”

december 2010

Dear Krista

What’s changed in the life of Shakyman during 2010?

1. My “on” periods (periods during which my medication is effective) have reduced. Appointment times at which I meet clients (yes…am still working) are dictated by when medication is most likely to be functioning. Whether my medication is on or off has never influenced training times.
2. Erratic sleep has become “normal” and surely must impact on at least the aerobic component of my training regime. I’m guilty here; during 2010 my neurologist has recommended a 9pm medication dosage but, more often than not, I don’t take it. I don’t excuse this and am attempting to be more disciplined.
3. Maximum lifts have declined.
4. I hadn’t considered until recently the negative impact of some medication on physical performance. Let me tell you.

Until late November 2010 I’d been mystified as to why my heart rate had been peaking around mid 130s this year rather than 150s as in previous years. (My usual at rest bpm = around 60). Laziness or fatigue was suspected but I felt as much exertion was being put in as previously.

I mentioned my lower peak heart bpm to my pharmacist. “That’s the XXX” replied the pharmacist, naming a medication I’ve been taking since May this year.

“It subdues heart rate and is on the banned list for sports such as shooting. It wouldn’t help in your case, of course.” (He was referring to my rowing and bike riding in which my body wants as much oxygen as possible.) My neurologist confirmed that the medication is “exercise intolerant”.

This news put my recent fourth place in an indoor rowing competition into a new light.

I’d been despondent about coming fourth in the 55 years and over category, even though only seven metres separated 2nd to 4th in an event testing how far we could row in 2 minutes. My distance was 570 metres, compared with 577 metres in the same event twelve months ago. I felt exhausted after the first minute and battled to keep going.

This, my worst effort, may have been my best. I was dragging a dirty great pharmaceutical anchor.

Lesson learnt? Take into account impact of medication. With my neurologist’s concurrence, XXX has been ditched. A few nights ago my heart rate reached 152 bpm after a burst of three minutes at 35 kms/hr during interval training on the bike.

Relief from Parkinson’s symptoms, physical and mental, comes for me with sweaty, gut-busting exercise sessions, each of around fifty-five minutes, four times a week. Sessions comprise stretching, around fifteen minutes of interval training on stationary bike or indoor rower, and around thirty minutes of weight lifting.

Parkinson’s is called a movement disorder but I’m most free of the condition when moving at max. There are many other symptoms that don’t take a holiday. You’ll gain a picture of what it’s like to live Parkinson’s by viewing the following YouTube produced for the Swedish Parkinson’s Association.

My training isn’t sculpted by Parkinson’s. It’s always been directed at my general health.

Shortcomings in individual exercises that may be Parkinson’s–related are addressed but, as a whole, I work out for my total wellbeing.

Parkinson’s appears to have little impact on my capacity for intense physical activity.

As I increase intensity the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease dissipate. In my home and office, I’m significantly impaired by tremor and rigidity. (See my YouTube of June 2010.) At slow speed on the bike, my riding is rough. As the pace increases, movement becomes more fluent.

I compete at a large gym in bike and rower contests with “normal,” physically fit men. Parkinson’s is briefly left behind.

Automaton-type movements such as pedalling or pulling oars feel unimpeded compared with walking, which seems a more complicated movement. I enter rowing and cycling contests but wouldn’t enter a running contest.

In 2008 I competed in an Iron Man event. No problems with the 2 km ride nor the 500 m row nor the 20 x 3 push-ups nor the 20 x 3 sit-ups nor the 20 x 3 unweighted squats. But the 500 m run was a matter of survival.

Weightlifting is where my training most starkly diverges from conventional advice. When strengthening is mentioned on websites concerning exercise for people with Parkinson’s, advice is most commonly along the following lines.

National Center on Physical Activity and Disability

Better Health PD and Exercise

For me, Exercise = Flexibility + Aerobic + Strength.

I lift “heavy” weights (i.e. near 1 rep maximum) without harm. I’ve not been injured in almost eleven years of gym activity.

There’ve been episodes of soreness, particularly in my right (Parkinson’s side) deltoid and shoulder. The remedy is obvious: Ease off on lifts that cause soreness until the soreness has gone. My experience has been that soreness is more likely to follow high repetitions of low weights than vice versa.

My lifting routine is simple.

• Try to work every area of my body at each session.
• Never repeat the same lifts at the next session.
• Give priority to lifts that stress the most muscles.
• Keep sets of any one lift to 1 and reps to maximum of 6.
• Usually lift to 90% of maximum.

The specifics can be read in my previous postings in Stumptuous.

Parkinson’s disease is apparent in my lack of explosive strength. I believe the correct label for this is “power”, being strength x velocity. Slowness in initiating movement is a symptom of Parkinson’s and is obvious in me when trying to snap a bar to my shoulders.

An oddity is that even though my “snappy” strength is greatly affected, my top speed is probably little, if at all, affected. In a previous Stumptuous posting I mentioned hitting a pedalling top rpm of 140. My competition results would indicate that, compared with other men of my age, speed isn’t lacking although initiating speed may be compromised.

Research by physiotherapists at Sydney University appears to reflect my experience.

Summarising. My exercise regime is:

1. For general health rather than being tailored as Parkinson’s therapy.
2. Comprised of three components flexibility, aerobic, strength
3. Performed at close to my maximum exertion.
4. Focused at performance targets which, when achieved, are extended a little further. Performances are measured.
5. Controlled by me. (I respect and consider other’s opinions but I’m in charge.)

I describe but don’t advocate my exercise routine. What others do is for them to determine. Anyone contemplating intense physical activity should firstly have medical confirmation that it’s safe to do so.

My creed remains that my exercise regime will be the same as that of anyone else working out for general health. It will be performed to my hardest. If Parkinson’s brings impediments, then I’ll work around them. It won’t dictate how I train.

In my November 2009 Stumptuous commentary I cited research revealing the benefits of intense exercise for people living with Parkinson’s. Dr Becky Farley, who was associated with the USC research mentioned by me, initiated exercise programs in 2009 for those living with Parkinson’s. Forcing participants beyond their comfort zone appears to be a fundamental element.

pwrgym.org

On 11 January 2011 I’ll click over to 65 years of age. My height is 179cms (5ft 10.5 inches) Weight is 87kgs (192lbs). I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1998. My training occurs at Aquafit Fitness and Leisure Centre, Campbelltown. NSW Australia.

Best wishes

And Happy Christmas

Neil

If you’re inspired by Neil’s story, as I was, consider making a donation to the Unity Walk NSW 2009 for Parkinson’s NSW (Neil’s page — with a gym photo!), or a donation to the Parkinson’s foundation of your choice, such as:

• The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research
• Parkinson Research Foundation
• Michael Stern Parkinson’s Research Foundation
• National Parkinson Foundation

march 2005

Dear Krista,

You encouraged me to try pushups. Included them in my routine until late September when I had my gall bladder removed. Pushups then slipped for no good reason from my exercises until I tried them again a couple of

nights back. Did 20 with a 15kg plate on my shoulder blades. Will try for 25 in next 2 weeks. Then…15 with a 20kg plate???

Am aged 59 yrs and weigh 84-85kgs. Was diagnosed with PD in 1998. I get pissed off by advice telling me to exercise in moderation and to only lift light weights. I’m no strength champion but am doing closed grip pulldowns of 200lbs, cable row seated on floor pulling sets of 6 at 80kgs, triceps pushdowns of 40kgs, bench presses of 95kgs (have gone to 102.5kgs but not recently.)

Am impeded on the treadmill when I run… only manage 3 minutes running now due to rigidity down my right side accompanied by shaking of my right arm. I do walk for around 10-15 minutes on treadmill. Found the other day that

I can increase the cardio stress by lifting the machine to a 10 degree incline.

I feel free from Parkinson’s on the bike. I crouch over in Tour de France style and go for it. Start with a resistance of 4 (resistance scale of 1 to 16… 16 is like riding up a sand hill) working up to an rpm of 80. Then I jam the resistance up to 10 for 90 seconds at an rpm at least in the 70s, then fall back to R4 for 90 secs, then R8 for 90 secs, then R4… then R6… then R4… In a session this past week I increased the 90 secs to 2 mins. I use several bike routines, all based on easy/hard, easy/hard, as in the example above.

I’m the only Parkinson’s person of whom I’m aware who lifts heavy weights. If you are aware of anyone else then I’d be most grateful to

hear of him/her. I reckon it helps my posture and certainly helps my self-esteem. People who see me shopping sometimes offer to carry my bags. There’s an assumption that because a person has PD then he’ll be weak.

Best wishes and thank for your tips last year.

Regards,

Neil

may 2005

Shaky fella with Parkinson’s disease in Sydney, Australia, has reached 20 pushups with 20kg plate on shoulders. Aim for 21 next week.

This stresses gym staff: “Neil. The plate could slide on to your neck. I’d rather you didn’t do that.”

Recently discovered an oddity. For around 30 seconds to a minute after pulling cable row I can perform situps despite being unable to sit up for over a year. (When on my back, I’m as useless as a turtle on its back.)

Goal for short to medium term is to bench press 105kgs. I go for long periods without bench pressing…there are plenty of other things to do. “Lay people” only know of the bench press so how much you can press becomes an assessment of how strong you are. They wouldn’t care a rat’s that I can

do closed grip pulldowns of 200lbs.

I think the figure of 100kgs has become a psychological barrier for me. If the plates for the bench were in lbs maybe I’d press 230lbs and not think a great deal about it despite pushing the equivalent of 103kgs. I’ve bench pressed 100kgs on various occasions since 2002 but have not reached 105kgs. (Nor have I tried.) Pressing the bar those first few inches up from my chest is the challenge. (My vital stats are that I’m 59 years old and weigh

86kgs-87kgs. Have been attending the gym since 2000 after a layoff of close to 30 years. Was, once upon a time, a sprinter and lifted weights to assist my running.)

Regards,

Neil

Krista,

On Wednesday 25 May at Uni of Western Sydney gym this shaky old bastard did 25 pushups with 20kgs plate on shoulders.

Photos were taken last year by physio lecturer who seemed interested in my exercise regime. I’d been part of a group of Parkinson’s people who had to walk as far as they could in 6 minutes after physios had performed various tests. I walked a helluva long way. Senior lecturer visited my gym to find out what I was up to and to photograph me for a presentation she was to give on Exercise and Parkinson’s

Disease.

Regards,

Neil

Dear Krista,

The local Sydney press a few days ago carried news that research at Concord Hospital “found that 330 minutes of exercise a week, supervised by doctors, reduced blood pressure and cholesterol levels to normal levels in sufferers (of type 2 diabetes)… It

also achieved blood glucose control equivalent to starting insulin therapy… Their medication was cut by an average of half with some patients stopping insulin therapy and other medications altogether.”

Concord Hospital is a teaching hospital of Sydney University. I wrote to the research leader, Dr Nic Kormas, and said I suspected that the benefits of strenuous exercise extended more widely than his field.

Now for the photos. These aren’t pushups and do include a bench press which, when you see it, might have you catch fire through spontaneous combustion. The physio probably shot my very worst effort. It was my starting weight at 80kgs. (As a weak attempt at an excuse, I find it difficult to straighten my right arm.)

Best wishes,

Neil

july 2005

Am just back from the gym where I benched 105.5kgs. 21% above my body weight. In case I felt smart about this, the spotter asked “Are you only lifting one?”

Have not bench pressed often and have felt an underachiever on this exercise. To-night I thought there might have been another 2.5kgs in me. Next big goal is 110kgs.

Have noticed a couple of oddities.

1 The side more afflicted by PD is stronger than the other.

2 Can’t normally sit up when lying on my back, but after pulling the cable row cable (say 6 x 85kgs) I can sit up without difficulty until I stop for more than 30 seconds. Can comfortably do 10 sit-ups after pulling on the cable row. I have no idea why this occurs.

Regards,

Neil

october 2005

Krista,

Just looked at news on your website and noticed the article regarding PD. As a person with PD I’d go berserk with joy if there was a breakthrough giving confidence that PD could be forestalled in the near future. While what I’m going to mention isn’t quite so optimistic, it’s BIG news.

Researchers here in Sydney have determined that inflammation in brains of PD people is a precursor to, not a consequence of, the death of dopamine-producing brain cells. This leads to the view that if a means can be found of early diagnosis of PD, then anti-inflammatories may do the trick.

At this stage, there’s no blood/urine/MRI, (etc), method of early diagnosis. Diagnosis depends on clinical observation. By this time, a person may have lost 75% of dopamine-producing cells. The announcement was made around three weeks ago. The Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute is also working toward a means of early diagnosis.

Am still exercising hard. Did something damn silly a couple of weeks ago. Tried deadlifting. Then tried continuing to lift the weight up to my ribs. Not clever for a person who’s had surgery on his lower back. Hope I haven’t done damage.

Regards,

Neil

february 2006

From Sydney, good tidings to the sisters and brothers of Toronto and lands beyond.

Still flogging myself in the gym, and still reading via Google how people living with Parkinson’s disease “of course” shouldn’t lift heavy weights.

Since my previous report, I’ve begun experiencing “on/off” phases with Parkinson’s medication. An “off” phase occurs when the replacement chemical supplied to the brain by the medication becomes insufficient. My tremor significantly increases. Around Christmas I felt pretty despondent about gym performances. Speed on the treadmill and elliptical fell spectacularly, my bike performance fell less so. Weights achieved fell by about 10%. Soreness after lifting increased. A physio I admire (a PhD in neurophysiotherapy) informed me that physical performance during off phases could fall dramatically.

Now the good news! Have adjusted the timing, but not the level, of my dosage. Gym results are again on the up.

Those chinups you perform without grimace on your website… My paltry few are accompanied by facial contortion, swearing, self-abuse (“You big fairy!”) and shaking. Manage three sets of six. OK, three sets of five and three quarters. These are done with palms toward me. Then conclude with two sets of six, using a closed grip (palms facing each other). The bar fell off on my most recent attempt at these, landing on my head just as I finished.

Tried the bridge exercise you suggested. Aimed for artistic elegance, body forming an arch supported on the top of my head and the balls of my feet. Then came two weeks with a sore neck.

I have six different exercise routines. One per session. Attend gym three sessions per week, sometimes four, each visit being around an hour. Pushups are in one of my routines Have reached 18 with a 25kg plate on my shoulder blades. Aiming for 20. Have also tried decline bench presses but am limited by dizziness when lying with my head lower than the rest of me. Have lifted one only at 100kg without much stress, except for dizziness.

I attend a university gym as a community member. Most of my gym peers are young. They probably think me a grey-haired, shaky lunatic.

Am still working full time. Switched in 2002 from writing right handed to writing left handed because doing anything right handed requiring fine skill is beyond me. When doing up buttons I’m like a three year old.

On 11 January I clicked over to 60 years of age. Am now “old”.

Being now old, I requested a mechanical overhaul. Everything good or normal, except for Parkinson’s disease. Pd was diagnosed in 1998. Started gym activity in 2000. If it hadn’t have been for PD, it’s unlikely that I’d have inserted strenuous exercise into my sedentary lifestyle.

Have done little about strengthening my legs. Can’t touch my shoulders due to rigidity so can’t hold a bar behind my head and do a conventional squat. Recently tried lying back in a contraption called a leg press machine, then pushing my feet against a plate carrying weights. Must not have had my back properly supported because gained a sore back in the days following. Have tried calf raises, although I have trouble squatting low enough for the weights I could raise. S’pose I could do calf raises with light weights and

do more in a set. Bike riding at higher resistances must help my legs a bit.

march 2006

I’d done a little research through Google and discovered that a hard-exercising Aussie genius neuro researcher with

Parkinson’s disease. On looking through the website of Parkinson’s Victoria (www.parkinsons-vic.org.au) I came across her again. At around page 7 of 12 of its newsletter there’s reference to a talk given by Nikki O’Brien. Nikki is bringing out a book, Pushups in High Heels. She apparently trains fiercely. Was in a wheelchair; now she’s not. Nikki’s photo accompanies the article. (Look at the lean arms.)

Will catch up again soon. Have become more rigid and I tremor more. Effect of my medication wears off after around four to five hours. Still train as hard as I can. Thought I’d significantly lost strength until I put some plates on the bar the other night and benched twice. Then noticed that the weight was 100 kgs. Lifted from a bench that’s too close to the floor… my legs weren’t at right angles at the knees. Lift more on a higher bench. Am not overly proud of 100kgs because I know you could tell me of some 95 year old grandmother in Toronto who does sets of 100 kgs to loosen up. Nonetheless, am doing better than some.

Every week or so I try those damn chinups. Do them hands under. Tried them hands over recently and achieved zilch. Did 16 pushups with 27.5 kgs on my back last week. Will try 16 next week, followed by 10, followed by 5.

october 2006

Lately have felt a bit down about my gym progress. Am up to 9 chin-ups. Have recently curled 52.5kgs on the E-Z bar with only a small cheating jerk of the back. Will shift to doing these seated rather than standing. Reckon my forearms are relatively weak; seated curls will put a greater test on this part of me. Have reached 17 pushups with 30kgs on my shoulder blades. To-night I noticed a horizontal bench in the Smith machine so tried some bench presses. Reached 110kgs with the spotter giving the bar a little tap

as I pushed it up. Now for a fair dinkum (sorry, that Aussie lingo) 110kgs bench outside the Smith machine.

This year my “off” periods ( when the medication is no longer having an effect) have lengthened. I haven’t figured out to what degree an off period impacts on my gym performance. Am probably in excellent physical condition except for Parkinson’s disease. And my seething anger at the mongrel of a neurologist who told me in 1998 that I’d be in a wheel chair by around 2003 is mellowing. I no longer yell out “you bastard” when hitting 100kgs on the bench.

december 2006

I’m still exercising vigorously and breaking “rules” such as the one about not lifting weights above 10lbs.

Have just read a book about Lance Armstrong, so tonight in the gym I set the resistance high on the bike and rode my guts out.

My Parkinson’s has advanced this year in that my “on” periods have decreased in duration and my tremor has increased. “On” periods are those times when the medication is suppressing tremor. On the positive side I remain at my 2003 medication dosage. Further, I’m fortunate to be on only one type of medication whereas other people with Parkinson’s tend to be on three, four, or five. Unlike many, my posture is normal and my gait looks normal.

Still work full time. Click over to 61 years of age on 11 January. My body weight remains around 88kgs (194lbs).

In September I was referred to a neurologist, a member of a team in Sydney performing deep brain stimulation in which an electrode is positioned in the brain and connected to batteries in the chest. Eighty five per cent of those undergoing the operation are improved but some of the other fifteen per cent have catastrophic results including stroke and death. The neurologist’s opinion was “You appear to be coping reasonably well. This surgery involves risk and you take a gamble. Why not lift the medication before you consider the operation?” I didn’t argue.

Recently gave a talk on Parkinson’s disease and exercise to men with PD. It mightn’t have gone down well with some professionals. Rather than “find a gentle exercise like Tai Chi and take it easy” my message was “do what you like and do it hard.”

I frequently refer to your website for exercise tips despite being built nothing like a female. I keep updated with the “what’s new” section. (Hope you’re not affronted by this Aussie bloke peeping into your woman’s domain.)

Have included chin ups in my routines this year, at your suggestion. I do a set of 10 with palms toward me, followed by 6, then another 6, and another 6. Dips have been added to my list in 2006. With dips I do 10, 6, 6, and if possible another 6. Have continued doing pushups with plates on my shoulders. Am up to 35kgs on my shoulders, but reps at this weight are down to 13.

Incline benches done as they should be rather than in the Smith machine are a further new inclusion. Am a little impeded by rigidity from PD. Can’t lift my arms beyond the angle of a Hitler salute. Am up to sets of 5 at 62.5kgs at an angle around 25 degrees back from 90 degrees.

Have also increased the number of dumbbell exercises although with my tremor, I can bang my head with the dumbbell as it’s lowered.

The other night I failed at 105kgs (231lbs) on the horizontal bench. Have pushed this up in the past. To be fair, my right shoulder has been sore for a few weeks. May need to reduce dumbbell presses and pushups with 35kgs until the soreness goes.

Added leg presses to the list this year. (Can’t get my hands up to my shoulders so can’t do squats.) Have reached 5 x 220kgs, although I’m not drawing my knees into my stomach at this weight.

My gym activity has persisted since January 2000, so allow me to blow a prolonged raspberry at the neurologist who, in 1998, told me I’d need a carer within 3 years (“You won’t be able to do up your buttons.”) and that I’d be in a wheel chair a couple of years later.

january 2008

Dear Krista

Best wishes for 2008.

As ’07 finishes I’m still working out hard and saying “bullcrap” to experts who urge people with Parkinson’s not to lift heavy weights.

2008 will mark 10 years since being diagnosed with PD. On 11 January I’ll have been training vigorously for 8 years. I’ve broken just about every “rule.”

• I lift weights to my maximum. (“Don’t lift weights heavier than 5 pounds in each hand” says at least one prominent expert. Other articles urge us to “lift light weights only.”)
• I run on the treadmill, swinging my arms normally until fatigue sets in. (“When on the treadmill, hold on or use a body harness.”)
• Push myself such that my T-shirt becomes saturated with sweat. (“Take it easy. Don’t overtire yourself.”)
• I take a low to medium dose of one medication only and never adjust its timing to fit my exercise routine. (“Exercise during on phases, not off phases, of your medication.”)
• I train between 9pm and 10pm. (“Don’t exercise within several hours of bedtime.”)

It was my good fortune on rolling up to the gym that first night in 2000 to run into a gym manager who probably knew nothing about PD but knew lots about working hard. She was Australian women’s shot put champion, though I didn’t become aware of this for a long time. Michelle pushed me. I enjoyed it. When targets were met, they were nudged a little higher. “Get into it” was one of Michelle’s frequent sayings. Regrettably, Michelle moved on after a few years.

My next mentor was someone in North America, a Krista. I’d Google searched on Parkinson’s Disease exercise and had come across an article Krista had written about an exercise routine she had designed for a gentleman with multiple systems atrophy, a neurological condition more horrible than mine. Krista generously emailed me tips to include in my program. From the photos on her website, Krista didn’t just think about exercise, she could do what she described.

During 2007 a new current in thinking has emerged. You alerted me to a finding of researchers at the University of Southern California that mice, induced with symptoms of PD, appear to benefit from some degree of neuroprotection when forced into vigorous exercise. Across the U.S., at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr Jay Alberts is interested by the temporary relief in symptoms experienced by people with PD who took part in an annual bike ride across Iowa. Each person with PD was forced into riding at a higher cadence than he or she would usually achieve, riding tandem with an elite partner.

My local Parkinson’s support group heard in November from Professor Glenda Halliday about recent research findings into PD. Prof Halliday referred to developments in medication and surgery and to “at least four” research projects into what appears to be neuroprotection arising from exercise.

If these researchers had read Stumptuous, they would have been alerted to the positive attributes of vigorous exercise through the experience of Shaky Man.

Currently I utilise five gym programs, one per session. The logic in undertaking a different routine each session is to prevent overuse of the rigid muscles on my right side. Program content has been designed by me with assistance from gym staff and Stumptuous. My routines are revised every couple of months. I’ve just redrafted them. New routines are fine-tuned in their first application.

My overall goals are stated on the front cover of my training folder. They can be summarised as retaining good health with a strong musculature. I believe that a strong musculature may override the tendency to stoop, a frequent characteristic of those with PD.

Relative shortcomings are stated as rigidity, weakness in forearms compared with shoulders and chest, and “whatever muscles are used in chinups with hands over bar. Same applies to lateral pulldowns.”

Gym 2 program (of Gym 1 to Gym 5) is:

• Stretching.
• Pushups. 37, 25, 20 with 1 minute rest between each.
• Bent over rows. Sets to 65kgs (143lbs) x 5.
• Dips. 13, 9, 7.
• Dumb bell curls. Sets up to 15kgs (33lbs) x 6, then 17.5kgs

  (38.5lbs) x 3?

• Dumb bell hammers. As for DB curls.
• Front laterals. Explore; have never done.
• Side laterals. As for front laterals.
• Bike. 2 minutes @ 80 – 85 rpm @ resistance 8 on scale 1 – 20, 2 mins@ 90 rpm @ resistance 8, 1 min @ 85 rpm @ resistance 10, 5 mins @ 80rpm@resistance 12, 2 mins @ 75rpm @ resistance 14, 1 min @ 80 rpm @ resistance 8.

There is usually a diminution in PD tremor and rigidity following a rigorous bike ride. Furthermore, I fall asleep more readily and the sleep tends to be undisturbed.

A couple of months back I became mad at myself for failing to reach 50 pushups in the one set. I continued with sets of 25 – 30 pushups throughout the one session until reaching 250.

Thank-you for your encouragement.

Happy New Year.

Neil

december 2008

Close to a year has passed since I regaled you on my shaky exertions.

Firstly, let me reassert that Parkinson’s disease is a humiliating, bloody mongrel bastard of a condition in which one’s frequent wish is to hide. I go to a meeting carrying a note pad and some briefing papers. I drop them in the car park. My notes blow away. I shout friends a drink at the club and sound like the percussion section of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra while carrying a tray with glasses and a bottle of wine back to our table. People stare. They move aside, leaving a path for my jangling progress. Some offer to help.

We with PD wake up of a morning in the knowledge that, not only isn’t there a cure, but the trigger for the cascading death of our brain cells has yet to be uncovered.

The gym is my place of relief. It’s my territory. It’s a time for personal reassurance that PD hasn’t rendered me physically inferior.

After close to nine years of working out I’m still discovering peculiarities in my performances. In mid 2008 I tried snapping to my shoulders a bar modestly loaded with plates. I knew I couldn’t push the bar above my head due to frozen shoulders. I was surprised on finding it impossible to “snap” (lift explosively) much more than the bar itself! At first this mystified me. Then I found an academic abstract noting the impact of PD upon “force.” The abstract was couched in technical verbiage but appeared to support my discovery of highly depleted “snappiness” in people with PD.

A more positive revelation in 2008 is that I can build up to significant leg speeds on the bike. “Bradykinesia” (slowness of movement) is one of the four main symptoms of PD, yet I’ve hit 128 rpm in short bursts at low resistances on the Cybex gym bike. I’ll start out at 70rpm at a resistance of 8 (scale of 1-20), retain this for 1 minute, increase to 80rpm for 2 minutes, then flat out for 1 minute, back to 80rpm for 2 minutes, flat out for 1 minute, back to 80 rpm for 2 minutes, flat out for one minute, followed by wind down for 1-2 minutes. This is certain to get your T-shirt sweaty. Anyone who tries it without being confident of a sound heart is an idiot.

Previously my bike routines had involved alternating resistance levels at the same rpm. Now I’m including alternating rpm at the same resistance levels.

Treadmill is awful, with a dragging right leg and a rigid right arm. I’m not punishing myself to improve; my heart and lungs are pushed hard enough on the bike.

My upper body strength has not markedly diminished over the past three years. It may have declined by around 3% since 2005. I’ve varied the width of my grip when training bench press. For example, with hands placed next to the vertical supports I can hoist 5 x 85kgs. (Are you Canadians metric? Surely the French Canadians would be. Napoleon invented the system, didn’t he?) I rarely attempt a one repetition max on the bench. Recently I pushed 100kgs upward but the spotter touched the bar as I heaved it off my chest. My body weight remains around 86kgs – 87kgs.

Driven by the photo of you performing dips on Stumptuous I’m doing dips while carrying a 20kg plate plus 2.5kgs plate on a belt. Am only up to a set of 6, followed by 4, then another set of 4.

I’ve increased my dumbbell work. Until recently, a spotter has guided my arms when doing horizontal dumbbell presses. With my right arm so shaky there’s a possibility of knocking my head with a dumbbell on lowering the thing. What’s the point of a stronger deltoid but being unconscious?

My forearm strength needs to improve as does my incline bench press. And I still haven’t achieved one pullup with palms facing out.

Krista, when we began our exchanges, my level of activity was regarded by many professionals as of dubious merit for someone with PD. Others described it as harmful. We with PD were urged to take it easy, never lift “heavy” weights, never exercise within two hours of bed time. By 2005 there were hints of change in professional opinion on physical activity and PD. More perceptive souls had started to say “Hmmmmm. Mice and monkeys, induced with symptoms of PD, do better if they are forced to exercise vigorously. Wonder if this applies to humans.” See the National Parkinson’s Foundation article.

A year or two later we find a more radical notion effusing out of respectably framed research. Lifting weights may be beneficial, not harmful, for those living with Parkinson’s disease.

Stumptuous has been in the Vanguard.

I don’t seek to advise people but merely describe what’s possible for me despite PD. Strength may have helped me retain a normal posture rather than the stooped alignment typical of the condition. Neither do I topple over as many do with PD.

Of this I’m sure: Within an hour of a vigorous gym session, my tremor usually subsides and rigidity greatly eases. Sleep comes more readily. The relief is temporary. But relief following medication to which I adhere is also temporary. My departure from orthodoxy has not been on medication but on the vigour of my physical regime. If it’s harmed me then I’d be intrigued to learn how.

There’s a reply for anyone who watches me in the gym and says I’m unusually strong. “Mate, this is around my one thousand, three hundred and fiftieth trip to the gym. Just try to improve little by little, and you’ll surprise yourself. Try your best. It’s as good as anyone else’s best.”

Training occurs at the Aquafit gym in Campbelltown, Sydney. It’s a bit flash but the people are friendly and always helpful.

All best wishes for Christmas

Neil

february 2009

Just back from gym.

Just about (I felt spotter give bar a bit of a nudge off my chest) hoisted 110kgs on the horizontal bench to-night.

Did so by mistake. After hoisting 100kgs I asked spotter for plates to 105kgs.

When putting the plates away I realised the extra plates were 2 x 5 kgs, not 2 x 2.5kgs, so I recalled the spotter and asked if he’d identify which plates he’d chosen. “Oh yeah. They’re fives. You lifted 110kgs (242.5 lbs).”

There must be psychology tied up in this method of hitting new heights but I’m too tired to articulate it.

My lift was observed by fitness instructor James who gave a “thumbs up” from the other side of the gym then came over to congratulate me.

Where? Aquafit gym, Campbelltown, NSW, Australia. When? 2 February 2009.

My body weight is 86kgs so the lift was 27.9% above my own weight. Age = 63 years. Medical conditions = none other than Parkinson’s disease.

When diagnosed? 1998. Gym activity commenced 11 January 2000, my 54th birthday.

Hit an rpm of 129 on the bike last week (rpm read and called by fitness instructor Danielle because I was in crouch) but unsure if resistance was at 8 or 9 on a scale of 1 – 20. Recently hit 128 rpm at resistance 9. (Cybex stationary bike.)

Next target = rpm 130 @ R10.

My Presbyterian childhood now has me fearing being smitten during the night ’cause I’ve boasted.

All the best

Neil

april 2009

Krista

Learnt last Monday night that my gym (1,000+ members) was holding a Birthday 500 metres Rowing Challenge.

(Aquafit gym turned 5 years of age on 1 April, a day we celebrate as April Fools Day. Sydney zoo staff has to put up with numerous phone calls from individuals whose friends have given them a phone number for a “Mr Lyons.” Friends think this to be side-slapping fun.)

Rowing has never been on my program through embarrassment at needing assistance strapping in my feet. Previous row was in February 2008 in Summer Iron Man Challenge.

Not one to shirk a challenge, I gave it a crack on Wednesday night… 1 minute 50 point something seconds.

Friday night… 1 minute 47 point something seconds. In tie for third place in 55 – 64 years men’s category.

Saturday afternoon (final day of comp)… 1 minute 46.5 seconds.

Darn. Still in third place; second place timed 1 minute 45 point something seconds.

Felt a real nark for pushing someone out of equal third spot without gaining anything myself.

The winner? 1 minute 41 point something!!!!!!!!!! In a league of his own.

My best news was that I found it possible to strap in my feet. Seems as if rowing can join my program after all.

may 2009

You told me earlier this year that it was time for more photos. Purchased my first digital camera last year but too technologically inept to use it.

Took it to gym last night and enquired if the young fitness instructors could figure it. They looked at me askance. “Of course!”

All photos taken at Campbelltown Catholic Club Aquafit Gym, Sydney Australia, 8 May 2009.

Dips, with 20 kg plate + 5 kg plate suspended on belt. Set of 6, then set of 4, then set of 4.
Bench pressing 100 kg. Spotting by fitness instructor James. (Note. His palms are open. He's not lifting.)
Thinking it over.

I’ve adopted an idiosyncrasy when setting out to bench press close to my maximum. (My max has been 110kgs in Feb 09.)

I start by lifting the 20 kg bar alone, concentrating on hand placement and alignment of the bar above my body. Then 2 x 10 kg plates are placed on bar and lifted 3-5 times. Add 2 more 10 kg plates. Lift 3-5 times. Add 2 more 10kgs. Lift 3 times. Add 2 more 10kgs. Lift once. That’s 100kgs.

I don’t lift sets of 10-15 reps as some do. There might be some logic to it but I struggle to see it. The most I usually lift in a set is 6.

Best wishes

Neil

Neil’s adventures continue in Part 2 >>

When my father and a whole crew of his friends turned 40, they all went through a midlife thing, gave up their previously sedentary lifestyles, and began running. This mindset stayed at obsession levels with about 10 guys and gals for the better part of 15 years, and though I didn’t participate, I watched and was immersed in the mentality of marathons, carbo loading, and 20 mile training runs. (Today, as homage to my dad and his unconscious influence on me, I wear an endless variety of his race T-shirts from the 80s as my training garb.)

I still sat on my ass, though. In high school I got out of the horrors of gym class after the first semester by joining the marching band, which saved me for the entire 4 years.

Two years of college went by in similar fashion, until I realized that I needed 2 credits of phys ed to graduate. Whatever to do? This was junior year, 1987, SUNY-Binghamton.

This reclining bathing suit shot is from 1987 or so, before I began training. Notice the chubbiness in my face and the lumpy thighs.

I glanced at the schedule. There it was: “Weight Training for Women.” Something that didn’t require any sort of coordination and didn’t have any guys to embarrass me. I signed up immediately. We trained in a tiny little cinderblock room hidden in the basement of the gym. The central piece of equipment was an ancient Universal that took up the entire center of the space. There was a total hip machine on one side, and a rack of free weights and a scale on the other. That was it. The instructor was a militant style Israeli guy who made us run 1 mile around the track before we lifted – rain or shine. Within one month I was showing significant muscle in my arms and shoulders. People in the class were noticing. The instructor took me under his wing and said “Shotput. You must try it.” He took me down to where the track and field people were working out. I was pathetic. I went back to lifting. I went out and bought spandex. I bought Rachel McLish’s Perfect Parts.

The second semester of that year (1988), I picked a class called “Weight Training” which was the same as the other one, but with men and in a slightly larger, better gym. However, the main focus was still the universal machine. Anyway, those early training sessions are very vague in my mind. I do remember that there was no free-weight leg training, at least not for us women. We never even discussed it or ventured over to that area of the gym. I was the only woman who did upright rows, and I do remember that I had to muster up the courage every single time to leave the machine area, walk over to the mirror, and do them in the midst of all those guys. I still believe that my early dedication to those upright rows was the basis for the fantastic shoulders I maintain to this day, though I have given up the rows in favor of safer shoulder exercises.

I encouraged my roommate and 2 friends to take that class with me. The three of us continued to run together, now as far as 2 and three miles, on our own time. Class met two times a week but we trained a third day on our own time.

These two photos are from Binghampton college gym, 1989, and the next phase of training, Training On My Own. That’s what I call senior year of college, 1988/89, when I was no longer in gym class. I found myself training 3 days a week with no one telling me to do it. I lived off campus and would take buses to get there even on days when I had no classes and no other reason to go to campus.

The year ended and I went home to my folks for the summer. My training ended abruptly. I resumed on a small scale, using some Nautilus machines, when I went to grad school for library science at Syracuse from 1989-1990. But my heart wasn’t in it. None of my new friends worked out, and during the summer session at the end, I didn’t have automatic use of the gym without paying for it.

My first two working years, 1990-1992, were dark ones in terms of working out. I was living away from my parents in Brooklyn for the first time, and was commuting over an hour in each direction on the subway every day (I worked in the Library at the American Museum of Natural History, all the way uptown). At night I was exhausted and sat in a chair watching TV.

Early in 92, I started dating a new guy. He smoked regularly, and though I had always been an on-again, off-again smoker, I started smoking all the time with him. One day in April I looked down at myself and realized that things were starting to go. I’d been reluctant to investigate any local gyms because I didn’t have anyone to go with, but now I realized that the situation was getting desperate.

I asked my boyfriend, “If I joined a gym, would you work out with me?” “Hell no,” he said. I dumped him a week later, threw my cigarettes in the garbage and made an appointment for an orientation at Jack LaLanne.

At Jack LaLanne, things started to seem right again. This was in the days that Cher was advertising “the 30 minute workout” and I did that first. It was a circuit of electronic machines. I would do it once and then leave the gym. Over the next few months, I built up to a cycle of doing the entire circuit 3 times.

But something was missing. I started to feel guilt over my lack of cardio. I stepped onto the LifeStep machine. Those first times were very frustrating. After those years of smoking and sitting around, I couldn’t even do 2 minutes on the machine without serious lactic acid pain and cardiovascular exhaustion. I devised a plan. Surely my body wouldn’t notice an increase of 1 minute per session? I wrote out the complete schedule, minute by minute, workout by workout, and stuck to it. It worked. By January 1993, I was doing 60 minutes on the Stairmaster nonstop, and I had migrated from the 30 minute circuits to some Nautilus, Gravitron, and other specialized machines. But I still hadn’t made it into the free weight section.

Jack LaLanne was laid out on two levels. Downstairs on one side were the machines, in the center was the aerobics theater. Behind the aerobics theater, accessible only by a tiny passageway, lay the free weight section, a mysterious area I could not bring myself to venture into. Above all this was the track, which overlooked everything. Time after time, I did my post-cardio cooldown by walking around that track, and looked down at the free-weight area. It was small. It was dungeon-like. The equipment seemed very primitive compared to the slick machines from the regular area. There were NO women.

During those long 10 months of training, I still had not made a single friend, and in fact did not talk to anyone beyond hello and goodbye. So I had no real connections who could convince me to go into the free weight area.

In January 1993, I was slogging through another 60 minute session on the Stairmaster, stuck in sort of a rut workoutwise. Suddenly a man who I had been admiring for months appeared up near the cardio machines. He was always alone, like I was, and had the best legs in the gym, thick and strong. I thought, “That’s it — I’m going to tell him I think he’s got the best legs in the gym.” Literally at that very moment, as the thought crystallized in my head, he finished stretching, turned toward me, and approached my machine.

“Can I ask you something?” he said. “How long have you been training?”

“Eight months,” I said.

“I think you have the best physique in this place,” he said. “You look like you’ve been training for years.”

I almost fell off my Stairmaster. “I was just about to tell you that you have the best legs in this gym!”

So we both stood there doing double takes until he stuck out his hand and introduced himself. “My name’s Marc.”

And so, a short lived but extremely beneficial partnership was born. On our very first training session, Marc took me into the free weight room. I remember vividly that as we walked in there, every eye turned to look at us. That was really intimidating. It never really changed or lessened with time, but I got used to men staring at me. He taught me to squat, to stiff legged deadlift, to leg press, to bench press and do dumbbell flyes. I stopped using most of the machines in favor of free weights over the course of one month. I bought a belt.

In March, we both abandoned the restrictive, crowded, and tiny Jack LaLanne and plunked down another $500 to join a brand new Gold’s Gym next to the Verazzano Bridge. It was much further from my house but had 2 squat racks, 2 leg presses, treadmills (Can you believe Jack LaLanne had none – you had to jog around the gym 14 times just to get 1 mile), and a juice bar. And most importantly, it was EMPTY. Within another month, Marc and I had a falling out and he went back to Jack LaLanne, never to be seen again.

But I stayed. And thrived.

So, there I was, alone in Gold’s Gym, March of 1993. Around this time I began to be plagued by increasingly frequent episodes of “intestinal distress.” Within a month it had progressed to something like 8 or more episodes every day, and I also began bleeding. I was in denial, completely. I felt like every time was the last time, that it would all be normal the next day. I would be struck down by abdominal cramps on the treadmill during my 45 minute runs. In the worst possible case of denial, I would jump off, dash to the bathroom, and return and reset the machine to make sure I got the full 45 minutes in. By May, things had deteriorated to the point where I had to sit or lie down and rest for 10 minutes after each trip to the bathroom. It started waking me up in the middle of the night. My body fat was way lower that it should be with the kind of diet and exercise I was doing. A 5 day Grand Canyon rafting trip was on the horizon at the end of May. I knew that I would only have access to a toilet twice a day. So I finally went to a doctor, who heard my story and sent me right to the hospital for some tests. The diagnosis? Ulcerative colitis (same disease that pro bodybuilder Mike Francois has — unfortunately, he had to have his colon removed). I was put on a dose of very strong meds for about a month and thankfully, went into remission and was able to go on my trip.

How was I able to keep going while so seriously ill? The doc said it was my level of fitness due to the cardio and weight training. I’ve had two more flare-ups since then, and the doc encouraged me to exercise as much as possible to keep my strength up. We were able to beat both down into remission without the use of corticosteroids, which are your worst nightmare in terms of residual side effects.

Anyway… .the story doesn’t have much going on in the years of 94-97. I was up and down with workouts….sometimes it would be cardio work for months while lagging with the weights, other times it would be weights and cardio would slack off. When I did lift, I tried to always lift heavy and make the workouts more meaningful.

In 95, I had a new boyfriend who was on the Central Park Skate Patrol. So I got Rollerblades. He lasted less than 3 months… but my Rollerblades are still going strong!

In 97, a short lived friendship with a guy named Noah produced my first bicycle since childhood. He moved to Florida before the year was out. I’m still biking around all over the place.

In late 97, I met my current boyfriend Brett. Brett resurrected my interest in weight training. He had his personal training certification, but also a Master’s in Sports Psychology. At 6’3″ and only 205 pounds, Brett regularly deepsquatted between 365 and 405 pounds. He deadlifted even more. He did stiff-legged deadlifts with 315. I was impressed. None of my previous boyfriends since Marc had worked their legs very much. He finally convinced me to come back to the weights in April of 98.

With the change in squatting stance that he recommended for me (wide stance with toes slightly pointed out) I was able to get 5 reps at 165 by the end of the very first workout. I started squatting every week, increasing the weights by 10 or 20 pounds each time. Over a period of 8 months I was able to increase my lifts on the last set to 275. Of course, I only did the 275 twice. And I realized that the lifts were not to parallel. I’ve abandoned the 275 for now and I’m concentrating on getting 240 to parallel for that last set. This involves having the spotter hold me right from the beginning of the lift so that I can get to parallel without worrying so much about the fear. I do get stuck down there, but I’m confident that I’ll eventually be able to get up out of the hole without help.

This past summer I started hiking, which is great for the legs. January 1st, 1999, I added upper body again to my weight routine, and also cardio. Both had fallen by the wayside for the past year, though I did do a sort of weekend warrior thing with cardio – 30 mile bike rides, 8 mile hikes. My upper body stayed muscular, probably due to increased testosterone production, but I gained 20 pounds. Hopefully that will come off soon with some dietary modifications, but I’m not agonizing over it.

The next projects are deadlifts, unassisted chins, and an experiment with German Volume Training.

I did my first competition after 2 weeks of training with Simon and a teacher at my school, who was a former weightlifter named Denis Dubreuil. There was a small regional competition in my school and I was allowed to compete. I did 30 kg (66 lbs.) in the snatch and 47.5 kg (107 lbs.) in the clean and jerk, in a bodyweight class of 52 kg (114 lbs.). I was so nervous that I almost threw up.

That’s how I started! In May 1991, there was a competition for 16 years and under and there was a trophy for the best team. We had 4 girls but 5 girls was the requirement for a full team. So, I said to my sister (who was 12 years old, 35 kg [77 lbs.], and mostly bones!!) “Come on, you will complete the team!” That’s how my sister got started in the sport, and she did a lot of competitions with me (almost all). She won medals at the first women’s junior world championship in July 1995, and she is one of the best junior Canadian woman that has ever done weightlifting. Now she is pregnant (she’s 20 years old) so I think that will end her career for now, but she still trains with light weight and will probably referee or coach for a while.

Maryse lifts 107.5 kg (237 lbs.) at a bodyweight of 53.1 kg (117 lbs.).

I am sad that I won’t have my sister any more with me in competition for the warm up. In Quebec, all the weightlifters called us the “Turcotte sisters”. That was our name! We have a lot of souvenirs from the training camp, the competition, travel… It’s very special to be in a sport with my sister; a lot of people ask us if we competed against one another. The answer is NO! Well, yes we competed at the same time, in the same place, but we were not in the same bodyweight class (she is a 48 kg [106 lbs.] class and I am 59 kg [130 lbs.]) and she is younger than me by 3 years, so it wasn’t a real competition. Even by the Sinclair formula, which is the way we compare two weightlifters that have different bodyweight classes (example: in the 58 kg class, if I do 200kg total, a girl in the 48 kg class needs 170 kg total to beat me), me and my sister never compared each other with that formula: it is not important at all to know that I do X points Sinclair more than my sister. The important thing is to say “Let’s go” to each other at the competition and in training and, to try to beat our personal best.

Anyway, after that competition where my sister came to complete the team, we took a break for the summer. I quit volleyball and in September, there was an ex-athlete that wanted to coach so me and my sister had an official and serious coach, named Éric Gosselin. Thus it was in September 1991 that I seriously started to train with a training program and a coach. I never stopped after that date; I trained 4 times a week for the first year, 5 times weekly after that, and now, I train minimum 6 times a week (8-9 in summer).

I “graduated” in competition, doing all the steps that I had to do: I started provincial competition for junior, national for junior, provincial for senior, and so on. I injured myself one time in competition: at the junior Canadian championship in 1993 (I hurt my right elbow by trying to hold the bar in the snatch that was too far behind me, and that I should had dropped). It took about 6 week before I did snatch again but after that, it was ok.

Since 1992, I have been dating Pierre Bergeron Jr., a weightlifter from another town, who was also starting to be involved as a coach in weightlifting. He started to coach me in 1994 because my other coach, Éric was working a lot and had less and less time to be involved in weightlifting. By the way, all the coaches and referees in Canada for weightlifting are volunteers. Anyway, Pierre still coaches me (and we are still together!), and he is probably the best coach in Canada. I say that because he has the strongest weight club in our country (best female and best male lifters in Canada plus other very good athletes). He is the one that brought me to where I am, and he aided me in refining the foundational skills that Éric helped me develop.

I did my first international competition in April 1994. It was an American championship, and I didn’t have a good day because I was too nervous!

My junior career ended in December 1995. To be a junior weightlifter you need to be 20 and under and I was born in 1975 so… 1995 was an important year: I competed at the Canada games (first in the 54 kg [118 lbs.] class with 152.5 kg [335.5 lbs.] total), I did my first senior world championship in China, scoring 6th position in the 50 kg (110 lbs.) class with 150 kg (330 lbs.) total. Overall in my junior career, my best lifts were, in the 50 kg (110 lbs.) class: 67.5 kg (149 lbs.)in the snatch, and 92.5 kg (204 lbs.) in the clean and jerk, for a total of 160 kg (353 lbs.).

In 1996, I had to improve my Canadian ranking by the Sinclair formula, which I mentioned above, because that’s the way to select a team for the big competitions. I was fourth in Canada in 1996 but I was improving because I moved to a heavier weight class (54kg [118 lbs.] instead of 50 kg [110 lbs.]).

I did my second world championship in May 1996 in Poland, and came 5th in the 54 kg (118 lbs.) class with 165 kg (363 lbs.) total. I won the best female athlete as ranked by the Sinclair formula (the most prestigious title in weightlifting in Canada), at the Canadian championship in 1997 (54 kg class with 180kg [396 lbs.] total).

So, in Thailand, at the 1997 world championship in December, I was fighting for a medal in the clean and jerk but I did 110 kg (242 lbs.) and missed getting the medal. I wasn’t that down because at that competition, I became the first North American woman to clean and jerk double her bodyweight. I finished fifth again in the 54kg class with 187.5 kg total (412.5 lbs.).

Maryse at the 1998 Senior World Championships lifting 115 kg (253 pounds) at a bodyweight of 57.04 kg (125 pounds).

In April 1998, I finished second, at the first College and University World Championship in Israel, with 200kg (440 lbs.) total in the 58 kg (128 lbs.) class (I moved up another weight class in 1998). Finally, to end my career story, I won, for the second year in a row, the title of the best female athlete according to the Sinclair formula at the Canadian championship in 1998 with 192,5 kg (430 lbs.) total in the 58kg class. In November 1998 I won my first medal at the senior World Championship in Finland with a clean and jerk of 115kg (253 lbs.) in the 58 kg class. I finished fourth in total with 200kg (at the World Championships, they give medals for the snatch, clean & jerk, and total but at the Olympic games, only in the total).

Now I am training for the second world College and University championship, to be held May 1999, in Japan, and the Pan-American games that will be held in summer 1999. Afterwards, I will compete at the senior World Championship in Greece, in November. That’s where Canada’s team will have to rank high enough to qualify for a place in the Olympic games.

For now, my best lifts are 87.5 kg (192.5 lbs.) in the snatch and 117.5 kg (258.5 lbs.)in the clean and jerk (205 kg [451 lbs.] total), which I did at the Quebec Senior Championship in October 1998.

I just want to mention some other things that weightlifting brings to my life; well, there are a lot but I will try to be brief!

First, parents are usually afraid of allowing their kids to start to do weightlifting, or other weight sports. That makes me a little bit mad because there is nothing bad in those weight sports if there is a good coach that knows the safety rules for beginner training. People think that they know what weightlifting is, and the only things they can say about it are usually negative things, like it stops kids’ growth, weightlifters all take steroids, it injures the back, it is not good for one’s health. The truth is that those people know absolutely nothing about weight training. They have just heard comments somewhere and they think that they know what weightlifting is. But if you ask them to describe the training of a weightlifter, they won’t be able to say a word!

Anyway, I always say to little kids whose parents don’t want them to do weightlifting (especially the girls) to invite them to talk to the coach and to assist in training in the club. 100% of the time, they feel a lot better after and they agree that weightlifting doesn’t create monsters (I think I look great! And the same goes for every athletes in the club, elite, beginner, girls or boys).

Intelligent weightlifting is good for everybody. I agree that there is some people who ruined their life because of too much training with too heavy a workload, or because of steroids. First, most people who overtrain (sometimes you have to take a rest you know!) and have had injuries are athletes who didn’t know how to train correctly. I only had two major injuries in 8 years of elite training in weightlifting. Most of the people who have had bad experiences of weight training are not even good athletes. Good athletes don’t ruin their life; on the contrary, they have a better life with that sport. Second, people who have health problems because they took steroids or other things obviously don’t have problems because of the sport, but because of drug abuse. Don’t stigmatize the weight training! In my club, we are doing a big promotion about the fact that we don’t want anybody in our federation (not only in our club but in all of Canada) who wants to cheat and take stuff that is supposed to make people stronger.

It can be very difficult to change people’s mind about weight training. But I hope the 2000 Olympic games will persuade girls that woman weightlifters look great.

Weightlifting has helped me to become a very organized person. I am able to have good marks at school and to perform in competition because I am a well-disciplined person, due to weightlifting.

My sport has also enabled me to travel around the world, to meet people in competition, to develop a team spirit, and to improve my self-confidence and my concentration capacity.

As I continue to train over a period of years, my body is has gotten more sculpted but I will never look like a bodybuilder because my sport doesn’t encourage people to look like that. We just want to lift more! Bodybuilding is different and maybe I will try it after my weightlifting career. I am very impressed by the looks of female bodybuilders.

To conclude, there are few disadvantages to doing weight sports. In weightlifting, the only bad thing is when you can’t improve anymore! When you start, the weight that you can lift improves quickly but with the years, it is more and more difficult to improve. You have to work harder and harder just to lift 2.5 kg (6 lbs.) more at the clean and jerk, for example. If you train for fun, this is not a big deal; you can easily live with that! But if you are an elite athlete who wants to be the best… it can be a big problem, particularly in mental terms, because you have to push yourself to train with the same weight that you were lifting last year!

Weightlifting is my life for now (I eat well, I go to bed early at night, I don’t drink, etc.) because I want to have the best chance to be the best. After my career of competition, I will never be able to completely stop doing weight training.

For me, it is the best way to feel healthy, to feel your muscles working, and to feel good in your body.

updates

Pan Am Games: Maryse took gold in the 58 kg class.

2000 Olympics: Maryse took 4th place in the first women’s weightlifting event in the Olympics, again in the 58 kg class.

2004 Olympics: Maryse placed 11th in the 58kg class with a final lift total of 210kg (463 lbs).

2005 World Championships: 7th place in 53 kg class.

2006 Commonwealth Games: 15th place in 53 kg class.

Maryse retired from competition in May 2008 at age 33 to pursue a career in geriatrics. “I had a great career. I could not have asked for better.” She announced her retirement after completing a meet where she competed in the 48 kg class with a 63 kg snatch and a 91 kg clean and jerk. For now, she remains Canada’s most successful weightlifter.

In 1996 I went to Los Angeles and competed in the Galaxy fitness competition and placed in the top half of 300 girls. I was pretty pleased.

During my pregnancy I gained approximately 30lbs. and worked out 2-3 times per week. During the first trimester I didn’t train at all because I was too tired, the second trimester I worked out basically 10 min. cardio and 20 min. light weights and gentle stretching. The last trimester I had to stop working out because I was too tired.

After my first baby Karman, I was at 128lbs in about 4 weeks and didn’t start working out again until about 6 months later. My shape was easily maintained just through breastfeeding and keeping up with the baby.

This photo is me at 8 1/2 months pregnant. This was my second pregnancy; my other daughter is now 19 months old. I went from 128lbs. to 160 lbs (160 is my weight in the photo). I was eating four good meals a day plus some snacks and almost no junk foods, as I didn’t really crave anything out of the ordinary. My workouts were down to two per week consisting of 1 hour of walking on a daily basis, plus 5 minutes of stairmaster and a 20 minute all over body weight training workout, with very gentle stretching at the end.

I went into labour on a Monday morning and was out raking the lawn and cutting the grass that afternoon. That evening the contractions became stronger and we headed to the hospital around 7:00 p.m. and our new daughter Tyra was born at 9:15p.m. My actual “hard” labour was about 1 1/2 hours and the pushing stage took about 20 minutes and she was born. I didn’t use any drugs, only laughing gas to help ease the last few contractions.

My daughter is now 5 weeks old and I am back in the gym twice a week doing 20 minutes of stairmaster and 20 minutes weights and stretching. My recovery from this delivery has been amazingly fast. My weight is down to 140 lbs. and everything is going just fine. I think I owe it all to being extremely fit. The pregnancies were both great, deliveries short, and the recoveries have been incredibly fast.

achievements:

1. Qualified in my first year of powerlifting for the National Championships, open division, with only a lifting belt and knee wraps! (You have to meet the total for the weight class in order to do this, best attempt squat, bench, and deadlift = total.) Almost accomplished this in my second meet. Did accomplish it in my fourth meet. Very unusual, I’ve been told! For comparison, most lifters never attain the qualifying total in their career.

2. Deadlifted 400 raw in my fourth meet ever. A major milestone!

3. Colorado State Record Holder, Open, superheavyweight (SHW), in the following: Full meet, in pounds: Squat: 365 Deadlift: 441 Total: 950 Single Lift: Deadlift: 410 lbs (haven’t competed in a single lift recently!) NOTE we are not talking about my weak spot, the bench press….

4. New!! OVERALL Colorado State Record Holder, Deadlift of 441 lbs., breaking previous mark of 435 lbs., held by Andrea Sortwell, 4 time World Champion, currently on her way to World Championships in May 1999! Also, as a note, my coach! We always seem to teach those who will better our marks. Thanks, Andrea.

advice for women starting out:

Above: Linda performs, of course, the deadlift.

1. We all start with the same tiny little weight. Do not get weight envy of your neighbor’s weight. Remember, he/she started where you did. And if you have the same determination, genetics, and perseverance, or a successful combination of same, you too will be able to move tremendous weights. Without steroids or any other nonsense. And if you’re drug-free, you know darn well how the weight moved!! Never any doubt!

1a. FORM is everything! An athlete’s ability to move increasingly large weights is dependent upon FORM. When in doubt, find a competent athlete and ASK. Most are willing to help you. Or get good videos, practice in front of the mirror. And watch to make sure the muscle you are working is the one doing the work!

2. You won’t get bulky, unless you’re one of the 1-2% who naturally get more muscular (I’m one, by the way!). Lay your fears to rest, and lift to save your bones and perhaps your life! And get your mothers, daughters, and even grandma into the weightlifting! They too can be helped to live straighter, and stronger lives at any age! It’s possible to get improvement from making the motions without any weights, just your own body’s resistance — for example, the push up!

3. You don’t have to lift it all today! For example, great results can be had by lifting just 10 minutes, even in your own home, doing biceps curls and triceps kickbacks. You would be amazed at the changes you get from just that ten minutes, ONCE a WEEK! This is a great way to test drive weightlifting….and build arms you’ll want to show sleeveless! Also helpful in getting those pesky groceries out of the trunk!

3a. Competing powerlifters cycle their training, and the length of that cycle is determined by the meets they are lifting in. You, as a beginner, can improve and strengthen yourself by the same general method. Choose a 3 month period for your first cycle. Test your 1 rep maximum for the exercises you are going to do. Then take approximately 60% – that’s your starting weight for the cycle. Do 8-10 reps, 3 sets, of each exercise for the first couple of weeks. The last week of the cycle, do sets of 3 reps, 3 sets. Then test the next week your one rep max. And reset your cycle. Start low, build the bridge to your next goals!

4. Weight gain is not a bad thing. Contrary to popular belief, when you gain muscle, you gain weight, BUT it’s parabolic, you’ll lose bodyfat when your metabolism grows to support your new muscles. You should really take your measurements, they’ll be your best guide, and perhaps you’ll need a smaller wardrobe! Don’t be afraid to eat!

4a. If you’re interested in losing bodyfat quicker, lift weights first, then walk or bike at a moderate pace afterward for 30 minutes. No great speed needed. Just take it easy, read something. And watch inches evaporate!

5. If the move you’re doing is a free weight squat, ALWAYS use a spotter, and ALWAYS put clips on the weight, no matter how tiny it seems. Movement while you lift can cause nasty damage and set you back far longer than it takes to hunt for a clip!!