Les Weiser – The Master of Harmony

We profile Les Weiser, a man of differing passions from singing in a seven-time international men’s chorus called “Masters of Harmony” to recumbent bicycling and boomerangs.

Les Weiser – The Master of Harmony-oomphTV.com from oomphTV on Vimeo.

Jack Kirk – The Dipsea Demon

We profile 94-year old Jack Kirk on his 66th consecutive attempt at the seven mile foot race known as the Dipsea.

Jack Kirk – oomphTV.com from oomphTV on Vimeo.

Reverse Aging by Pedaling Forward

I was just thinking the other day about how good I felt after finishing my 11-mile bike ride to work. I have not felt this good in many years, if ever. My regular bike ride to work has made me feel younger and look younger (according to my wife, friends, family and colleagues). It has given me solid improvement on my physical strength and my overall physical condition (losing 30 pounds and blood pressure going from 141/91 down to 129/82). My bike riding and better eating habits, has actually turned back the aging clock for me.

I took a quick look on the web and read that the British Journal of Sports Medicine, did a report on aerobic fitness in 2008. (http://bjsm.bmj.com/) The report states that, “ Maintaining aerobic fitness through middle age and beyond could delay the aging process by more than a decade and prolong independent living.” Regular aerobic exercise improves the body’s ability to take in oxygen and use it, but a person’s maximal aerobic power falls steady as people age.

Twenty years ago, Dr. R. J. Shephard of the University of Toronto in Ontario and his colleagues proposed that adequate aerobic capacity was a key factor in helping very old people to maintain a high quality of life and live independently. In a review published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Shephard analyzes the latest data on the issue.

According to Shephard, studies of aerobic training response in older people have shown that workouts, especially more intense physical activity maintained for a longer duration, can improve aerobic power. In fact, seven studies of this type of exercise found people’s aerobic power increased nearly 25 percent, equivalent to reversing 12 years worth of aging-related loss of fitness.

Based on his review, Shephard concludes that elderly people who engage in progressive aerobic training can maintain their independence longer, in effect by turning back the clock on the loss of aerobic fitness that occurs with aging.

Other positive spin-offs of aerobic fitness include reduced risks of serious illness, faster recovery after injury or illness, and reduced risks of falls due to maintenance of muscle power, balance and coordination.

“There remains a need to clarify the importance of deteriorations in fitness relative to other potential causes of dependency but, from the practical viewpoint, regular aerobic activity can address many of the issues of both functional loss and chronic disease,” he writes.

There seems to be a report done on everything these days and some of them seem to support how I feel and how I look. How I do love the internet!

Our current profile, Rose Gilbert

Taking AP Literature with Rose Gilbert is akin to a rite of passage at Palisades High School – at least it was many years ago. Judging from my recent visit to her classroom, I sense that years later, nothing has changed at all.

Mrs. Gilbert’s classroom seems to have been frozen in time. Great classic books spew over the boxes that line her room.  Faded newspaper clippings, magazine articles, pictures and posters made by current and former students still abound. Dozens of college posters lure the interest of countless students, seemingly dangling the subliminal message that if you work really, really hard, you can come here too.

Mrs. Gilbert’s pure passion for teaching hasn’t changed a bit in all of these years either. Her enthusiasm is infectious – you just can’t help falling in love with the writer’s words she presents. When I was her student in the late 70s, she would pass out pairs of toothpicks to each and every student. She told us that we’d need them, as we’d be reading so many thousands of pages that surely they would come in handy holding our eyelids apart. (Don’t worry, I never tried the toothpick trick.) More than reading book after book, Mrs. G. enabled us to really ‘peel back the onion’ and uncover sometimes controversial  themes the writer presented. Ideas of racism, misogynism, crossing class lines – they were all part of the process of an on-going discussion of ideas that became the key ingredient of Mrs. G’s class. Additionally, knowing that this was one of the most challenging classes offered, bonding with fellow students became the norm. It happened to me with my friend Jan, who remains one of my closest friends still after all this time. Mrs. G called us the ‘Bobsie Twins’. Surely, she must’ve been clairvoyant.

Interestingly, Mrs. Gilbert never ‘needed’ to teach in financial terms. Her late husband Sam left her millions. She gives generously to PaliHi and UCLA, where she attended college. What a gift it must be to find your passion early in life. So many never really find their gift, and if they do, it sometimes conflicts with work and reality. Mrs. Gilbert, on the other hand, truly loves what she does. How else does a now ninety year old get up each and every morning and teach a full load, and then grade papers at night? (And did I mention that Mrs. G is on Facebook? Or that she has nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren?)

Truth be told, Rose Gilbert is a classic example of wanting what you have. Just thinking about this simple phrase – wanting what you have – can guide what you do and how you do it. No doubt Mrs. G has endured many heartbreaks – the untimely death of her daughter Maggie, the death of her husband of thirty-seven years – but she has persevered. Mrs. G wants what she has; classroom after classroom of inquisitive minds, all ready to take in her unbounded love of literature and poetry.

Inspiration is Contagious

As I wrote in my last blog post, I got inspired by a former co-worker of mine who commuted to work on his bicycle.  I ended up buying a bike and did the same.

My main goal was to improve my health by lowering my high blood pressure and losing some weight.  After a few months of riding my bike to work (22 miles round trip, three days a week), cutting down on sugar and those bad carbohydrates, I managed to accomplish both my goal of losing weight (now over 30 pounds) and lowering my blood pressure to a normal level.

The big unexpected surprise was that I inspired several people at work of taking up some sort of exercise in their own lives.  I know of at least two people that ended up actually purchasing bicycles. One of them continues to ride to work on a regular basis because of being inspired by me!  Imagine that!  Me inspiring others to ride a bike or exercise was not part of my plan, but what a wonderful, surprising outcome.

Over a half a dozen people ask me several times a week, “Did you ride today?”  After a month or so I would feel that I would let my co-workers down if I didn’t ride in. The interesting point here is several of these people asking me if I rode my bike to work were people I had never spoken to before. Some of my new co-worker friends asked me questions like, “ How many miles do you ride? How many days a week? How much weight have you lost? Why are you doing this?”   After many discussions, I got to know them very well. Soon enough, some of them felt comfortable in revealing to me their own health concerns and challenges.  A few confessed to me that they felt they needed to take better care of themselves and have been thinking on what they could do to improve their own health and lifestyle.

I could not have been more effective if I stood at the entrance of the building I work in and preached to everyone on how they should take better of themselves by riding their bike to work. I simply rode my bike and did my own thing. Somehow I became an unexpected inspirational role model for so many of my co-workers. Here I am producing videos on people with oomph! and unknowingly became an oomph! role model myself.

I keep thinking back on my former co-worker who rode his bike to work and then inspired me.  I myself have inspired two others to ride their bikes.  Will these two new riders inspire four more riders? Perhaps inspiration is in fact contagious.

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