How would you rate your personal health & fitness level?

[r2473]

Are you happy with your current health and fitness level?

Why or why not.

[LuckyR]

Yeah, I can do what I want to do. Of course when I have more free time, I'll be able to do more, but I'll have the time to train so I can do it.

[LeeD]

Scale of 1 (deathbed) to 10 (high school varsity football and varsity basketball) ?
I'm about 3.
Junior high 100 yards, 11.6 seconds with jeans, tennis shoes, and no warmup in 55 degree temps, fully fogged in SanFrancisco. Now, more than 30 seconds, as I can't run.
Standing long jump jr high... 9'2". Now, barely 5'9".
Standing vert. Jr high, 40", no BS. Now, having grown a foot, can't reach the bottom of the basketball net...
Long jump, 8th grade 21'7" in all city, admittedly my best by 2' ever, but the 6 guys who beat me did their personal bests also. Went from dirt track to cork at KezarStadium. Now, for sure no better than 10'.
In college, we ran 6 miles around 38 minutes, if we wanted a shower before the next class. I wanted a shower. Now, I can't go 6 miles period....even in 3 hours.

[NLBwell]

Happy to be alive.
A few incidents have used up 3 of my 9 lives. Modern American medicine in intensive care units have kept me alive. Alternative medicine keeps me healthy and has close to conquered the viral/bacterial/other malaise that messed me around for a couple of years that standard medicine couldn't cure (maybe caught it in the hospital, or result of so many bad things happening to my body).
Tennis and other exercise keeps me fit and healthy. Unfortunately, tennis (and previously basketball) is taking quite a toll on my body and joints specifically and often it is hard to walk. Still enjoy playing, though, even if only at a 4.0 level.

[sureshs]

What alternative medicine do you use?

[NLBwell]

Lots of vitamins and food supplements, home and ancient remedies, magnets (especially for injuries and recovery), and also yoga and massage.

[sureshs]

what supplements, what home remedies

[NLBwell]

From a post a while ago:

Originally Posted by NLBwell

I believe (on circumstantial evidence only) that many chronic symptoms of fatigue are due to infections that the body has essentially quit fighting (thus things like white blood cell counts don't show it). I was exhausted for a couple of years, barely functioning after a couple of hospitalizations for near-death experiences. I had chronic sinus and ear infections that didn't respond to antibiotics anymore, recurring shingles, and barely managed to function, sleeping 14 hrs per day. My doctor put me on long term sulfa antibiotics and the anti-shingles med, but that only helped a little. Then I researched everything I could about anti-staph natural cures. I can't say exactly what was most effective, because I did them all at once, but here is what I tried.

Supplements for energy:
Magnesium, vitamin D, Zinc, Pantothenic Acid, kelp (Iodine), and you need to balance with enough copper.
Supplements with anti-bacterial and some anti-viral properties:
echinacia and goldenseal (take in 2 wk bouts), grapefruit seed (not grape), NAC, colostrum, lots of garlic, of course lots of vitamin C (grams at a time), some vitamin E, a good multivitamin, and a pretty fair amount of fish oil (reduces inflammation throughout the body) AND Lysine as an anti-viral.
Other antibacterial things to do:
Couple cups of Peppermint tea a day WITH apple cider vinegar, oil of oregano (a few drops in the tea, and inhaled - just a drop on a paper towel - sounds like food, but feels more like paint thinner). For draining the sinuses, oil pulling. This seems strange but it is basically putting oil - like safflower oil - in your mouth and holding it there for 10 minutes. Uncomfortable, but really works (supposedly from India). Also, Sudafed as a decongestant, also.
Of course, you want to crowd out the bad bacteria with good bacteria. I use SinusEase, which comes in a bottle at Vitamin Cottage in the refrigerator. It has rhino bacteria as well as the acidopholus, etc. for the stomach. Drink about a third of a bottle each day and get some up toward your nose.

Also - and this really hurts and my doctor questions about how harsh it is - get one of those sinus rinse bottles you are supposed to put a bit of salt solution into. Put in some garlic-infused oil, some hydrogen peroxide, some Listerine (the thymol and eucalyptol are potent anti-bacterials as well as the alchohol) - about 1/3 inch of each except less of the peroxide - a bunch of salt, and fill the bottle the rest of the way with water. Rinse your sinuses out with that. You will definitely feel it. Tailor it to what you think helps you and how much you can stand.
(If you really want to feel your head explode, just snort a bunch of Listerine straight).

I felt better pretty qucikly, within a week or two, doing these things. Since then it has been a steady climb upward toward being normal. Since I've gotten on top of the infections, I've slacked off on the most unpleasant things (oil of Oregano, sinus rinsing) though I make sure I do them at any sign of sickness or weakness.

Now, when I play tennis for two hours or so, I'm more tired than before I got sick, but I'm not trashed for a week lying in bed.
All of this is just what one guy did to get better, doesn't mean it is applicable to others, but it is definitely worth researching.

[dman72]

Not happy with it. Lost to one of my main playing partners in a league match about 3 weeks ago after being up 5-2...mainly because of being worn down by some extremely long points. I haven't been running much or doing non-stop hitting sessions for the last 4 months or so..it really caught up to me. I was gassed after choking that first set, probably operating at about 70% the rest of the way.

So, I've been running at least a mile 5 days per week....one mile on weight lifting days, 2 miles on non-weight days, and no running on the day of a match.

We'll see what happens the next time we play.

The guy I lost to competes in endurance races, 5K's and this mudder stuff, so I'm never going to have his level of fitness, but I shouldn't need it as I can control points with strokes and I have a much bigger serve. He's a ball retriever so shots I put past most guys come back. We were having rallies of 20 shots+ that night, where i was basically standing in the middle of the court and he was running back and forth. I won most of them..up until it was 5-2.

[LuckyR]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Scale of 1 (deathbed) to 10 (high school varsity football and varsity basketball) ?
I'm about 3.
Junior high 100 yards, 11.6 seconds with jeans, tennis shoes, and no warmup in 55 degree temps, fully fogged in SanFrancisco. Now, more than 30 seconds, as I can't run.
Standing long jump jr high... 9'2". Now, barely 5'9".
Standing vert. Jr high, 40", no BS. Now, having grown a foot, can't reach the bottom of the basketball net...
Long jump, 8th grade 21'7" in all city, admittedly my best by 2' ever, but the 6 guys who beat me did their personal bests also. Went from dirt track to cork at KezarStadium. Now, for sure no better than 10'.
In college, we ran 6 miles around 38 minutes, if we wanted a shower before the next class. I wanted a shower. Now, I can't go 6 miles period....even in 3 hours.

If you recalibrated to: 1 (deathbed) to 10 (normal young adult humanoid), you'd probably be a 6.

To quote Johnnie Mac: "the older I get, the better I used to be..."

[LeeD]

"Better" is different from #'s I posted as a youth. "Better" is direved from memory alone.
#'s are recalled from something I actually did, was posted in the school records (both APGianini and LincolnHigh have actual results posted on cardboard all around the top of the men's locker room.
Lincoln's record of 10'2" in the standing long jump lasted until sometime in the mid '90's, having been posted in 1964, by one DomondLee.
That is not conjecture, not memory, nor is it "when I was younger"... stuff.

[LeeD]

Is it derived?, I didn't pass English6.

[LuckyR]

Originally Posted by LeeD

"Better" is different from #'s I posted as a youth. "Better" is direved from memory alone.
#'s are recalled from something I actually did, was posted in the school records (both APGianini and LincolnHigh have actual results posted on cardboard all around the top of the men's locker room.
Lincoln's record of 10'2" in the standing long jump lasted until sometime in the mid '90's, having been posted in 1964, by one DomondLee.
That is not conjecture, not memory, nor is it "when I was younger"... stuff.

I apologize for being difficult to understand. It never crossed my mind that your numerical values were not accurate. I was commenting on the fact that you, as an individual, are going to be "set up" for appearing currently worse than you really are in the population, specifically because you are comparing your current status, which is likely average for your age, to an astronomically high "peak". Thus coming up with a close to deathbed status for someone who can play tennis, after all.

[tennisplayer1993]

not as good as it used to be

[LeeD]

Compared to the AVERAGE population, my fitness is closer to an 8.5.
Compared to my personal fitness as a youth, barely a 4.
I was king in the urban assault gymnastics, where kids find an abandoned warehouse, or better yet, CoastalArtillery gun emplacements, and do all sorts of stupid jump off the top, climb hanging upside down, stuff. 1963, or thereabouts. What kept me from being the best was my fear of injury, since I'd committed to playing school sports by 8th grade. As a spider, I could climb the length of the bunkers, around 150', hanging upside down using the electric conduits, over and over again.
Now, I can barely ride 39 miles on my road bike.
Can't run one step.
Can't surf in waves over 5'.
Can't snowboard 9-4.
Still can windsurf with the nation's fastest windsurfers, and jump as high as the best in the SF Area. But that is skill more than physical.;
And singles tennis, barely bumpup 4.0, or what I call high 3.5 because even when I can get there, I cant get there with the feet in hitting position and balanced. That's a full point level drop.

[sureshs]

Originally Posted by NLBwell

From a post a while ago:

I am doing the multivitamin, garlic and fish oil too.

[LeeD]

That fish oil thing....
I tried it for 4 weeks couple months ago.
I think it really worked! Seemed the smoothness came back in my hobbling, my ankle still hurt, but didn't bother me during tennis, and I actually felt I could swing my racket with the feet in the right place, for a change.
I'm heading over to the cupboard to take a couple of pills right now...seriously.

[LeeD]

3 downed, but with a couple swigs of Bacardi Superior Puerto Rican Rum..

[Maui19]

I'm could stand to lose 10 lbs. My fitness level isn't as good as it should be, but my heart rate at rest is in the high 40s. I should spend more time in the gym because I'm not nearly as strong as I used to be (or should be now). I need to find the motivation to work out more, particularly at the gym, but mostly I just run around 15 miles a week, walk the golf course and play tennis. I'm 57 and feel like I need to step things up to regain some of my faded capabilities.

[LeeD]

Maybe I"m of weak mind, but by the time I turned 35, I didn't mind being out of shape at all, as long as I could still do the things I wanted to do. I think I ballooned to 150 lbs., from age 33 around 132 lbs. That's a spare tire around the middle for us guys. Maybe guys would kick sand in my face then, but I matured enough to just let it go, and get them back LATER...
Being a surfer, going out at least 5 days a week, I was at the beach LOTS.