I spent a couple of months in Italy this summer, partly work and partly holiday. As a family holiday, it was lovely; two of my sons came with their families and so did two of my friends. The result, alas, is that I did not do enough exercise and the moment of truth came when I returned to Oxford on August 1st, so unfit that I thought that at long last, at 94, old age had caught up with me.
I did not give up, though, and I worked on two fronts. The first one was obvious: gym and more gym. I am very lucky that I have an excellent gym ten minutes of my slow walk away from my flat. I confess to a luxury: I have a personal trainer for two hours a week. As you will see this is not a luxury at all but an essential need.
My trainer worked with me to recover general fitness through cardio exercises and so on. On the two days per week that I am on my own, I tried to recover my leg muscles, that had weakened, making my walk slow and a little painful. We have a few machines that are supposed to help with these problems, but very little progress ensued. Until about a fortnight ago, when I asked my trainer to take me through those machines. The result was staggering, not only I recovered my strength, but my performance was a great deal better than in my younger days, a year ago. The reason: I had to change my sitting position in one of these machines by less than a couple of centimetres. This was all, no longer pain after dozens of repetitions of the exercise. You can now see why a personal trainer is not a luxury: working on your own, it is quite possible to repeat the same slight mistake that nullifies the effects of the exercise. And every session my trainer works through my joints, which he leaves nice and smooth: I call him my oil can.
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