Interviewed for an article on taking control of your health

[slwiser]

The link below is to the Richmond, Va., Times-Dispatch article concerning "Taking Control of your health." This article shows a short 90 second video interview that I had and the article below shows several individual profiles, one of which is mine.

I am shown on the Concept 2 C Indoor rowing machine in the video at Cardio Rehab.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/lifestyle ... ar-413229/

[Bob S.]

The link below is to the Richmond, Va., Times-Dispatch article concerning "Taking Control of your health." This article shows a short 90 second video interview that I had and the article below shows several individual profiles, one of which is mine.

I am shown on the Concept 2 C Indoor rowing machine in the video at Cardio Rehab.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/lifestyle ... ar-413229/

Interesting article. It sure makes me envious to see that Cardio Rehab room. It has been just a few days over 7 years since I had my own open heart surgery - aortic valve replacement and triple bypass. I don't know what sort of cardio rehab facilities they had in the city (Fullerton, CA) where my operation was done, but we had just moved three months before from the SoCal metropolitan area to the boonies of the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains. We had to go back to the south coast to have the operation done and had to stay there a month before I could be driven back to our new home in the high desert. Once back here, I was on my own with no real idea of what I should be doing for rehab. I had my old Model B concept 2 and a well-equipped dumbbell rack. There is a fitness center in Bishop, 15 miles away from the house and there are a myriad of hiking trails available ranging in altitude from 4000 ft on the valley floor to almost 14500ft at the top of Mount Whitney. So I wasn't lacking for opportunity. What was missing was advice. The cardiologist, surgeon, and rehab personnel were 270 miles away back in Orange County and not really available for advice. The "local" cardiologist is a brief once a week visit by one or another members of an 18 member team of cardiologists located in Reno, Nevada, 220 miles in the opposite direction of SoCal.

Fortunately, I seemed to have worked out the right procedure all on my own. It was an alternating melange of a little erging, easy hikes, starting from the house down on the valley floor, occasional tread-mill workouts at the fitness center, and some light resistance workouts with the weights at home and with machines at the fitness center. It was strictly baby steps - exercising as regularly as possible and very gradually increasing the load of any particular exercise that I was doing. I was typically weak as a kitten right after the surgery, but 18 months to the day after the operation I competed at the Long Beach satellite erg regatta and qualified for the roundtrip flight to Boston for the CRASH-Bs, where I picked up a hammer to go with the two from a decade earlier.

Bob S.