I began my quest to dunk largely to escape the reality of my advancing age. That was my plan. But as the saying goes, if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. Indeed, throughout this journey, circumstances have thrown my age back in my face like a baboon hurling its feces.
To be fair, my journey has not been an unrelenting hailstorm of baboon shit (that's the last time I'll revisit that image, I promise). In the beginning, learning to dunk had exactly the desired effect. I felt like a kid. Not so much because my body was rejuvenated by the workouts, but because I was joining a group of people who had been training together for months. I was the new guy. The new kid. I didn't know the ropes. I had a lot to learn. And there is something about the role of student that makes one feel young. A student, after all, must be open, willing, trusting, and all of these are qualities we are most likely to have when we are young, before age and experience have closed us off, made us wary and put us on our guard. So when we slip back into that student role, we slip back in time a little bit as well. I suspect that may be part of the reason--other than the obvious one of having time on their hands--why retirees take so many classes.
Other things reminded me of my antiquity, however. Early in my training, it was suggested I take a supplement, Triflex, designed to strengthen one's joints against possible injury. One's old, creaky joints. I'd never given my joints a second thought when I was younger, but now doctors and friends constantly cautioned me to be careful with my elbows, shoulders and knees. My God, you'd think I was held together with chewing gum. I appreciated their concern but they seemed to be forgetting something--I wasn't old. Or rather, I didn't want to be.
Also, Gil occasionally likes to predict which of his clients will achieve his dunk dream first. By the summer, I had made a lot of progress; I was grabbing the rim. Not just touching it, grabbing it, getting about four inches of my hand above the hoop. At the rate I was progressing, Gil figured, I would be dunking about the same time as J.C., a 17-year-old high school junior. I'm 6-foot-1, J.C. is 5-foot-7, yet we would be dunking at about the same time. So what was my handicap? It was unspoken but quite clear--the 33 years I'd spent on the planet before J.C. was even born.
Finally, while I was able to keep pace with the youngsters during the workouts, doing so took everything I had. I was panting, heaving and sweating like a beaten mule; meanwhile, the little bastards next to me were dabbing a bead or two of perspiration--there wasn't enough of it to call it sweat--from their unlined brows. This was the most vexing of the reminders of my age because it was the most definitive. The body just ain't what it used to be. I can push it, but at my age, it pushes back. It can only take so much.
It's late in the summer, I'm consistently grabbing the rim by this time, so close to dunking I've started to actually have dreams about it, and we're working out at USC on a morning that's ridiculously hot. It's the last exercise of the workout--I put the huge rubber bands around my waist and have to sprint about 50 yards while dragging a fellow dunk dreamer behind me. A feel a twinge in my left knee but don't think much about it until later that day, when the pain has gotten worse. I'd never had any trouble with my knees before, so this was disturbing. Weeks and weeks went by, but the pain wouldn't go away. I stop running, I stop jumping, Gil, ever ingenious, devises a workout that keeps my legs strong without stressing my knees, but the pain persists. I finally go in for an MRI and it shows a tear in my miniscus, a little strip of cartlidge that acts as a shock absorber in the knee.
Surgery would be required. The first doctor I talk with about it says typically people recover fully from such an operation, but I probably won't--because of my age. The baboon had wound up and thrown a nice steaming heap smack in the middle of my face (okay, so I broke my promise). I find a doctor who's prognosis is more hopeful, and I am currently awaiting surgery. I hope this doctor's right and I'll have enough of my miniscus left to get back to what I was doing. I want to resume my pursuit. I want to dunk. I'm tired of standing around watching while the other guys run, jump and strain. It only reminds me that I have broken down. And that is the reality about age that we can't escape. Things break down. It's just something we have to accept. But there's a line between acceptance and resignation; that's a line I'm not willing to cross.
So this whole thing with the knee is frustrating, but ultimately, it could end up adding something to the achievement when I dunk. Not only will I dunk for the first time at age 51, but I will do it on a surgically repaired knee. That ought to impress the hell out of Oprah.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Mrs. Mike
Now here’s a side of the story you won’t get from Mike. Because it’s from Mrs. Mike.
Like many wives, I have a long history of asking my husband, “What do you want for your birthday?” and for years the answer had always been the same -- “Oh, I don’t want anything special.” And that would result in him receiving a couple of shirts that I liked but honestly would not do anything to change his life. Last birthday, though, was a biggie. I don’t like to use the exact number, but if you’ve been reading this blog at all, you know what milestone I’m talking about.
This pivotal, though unmentionable, birthday was weighing on Mike, I could tell. The previous summer he’d gone digging for a pair of shorts to wear in the 100-degree heat and came up with a pair that didn’t zip. Now me, I’ve had two kids, and even before the two kids I’d been gaining and losing the same five pounds for years. Unzippable pants are nothing new. But Mike had never experienced that particular blend of shame, disbelief, anger and self-loathing. Mike was born skinny. He may not have always had the most honorable dietary habits, but he had ironclad work ethic in the gym. He’d go to the gym like a postal worker goes around delivering mail -- no rain, no storm, no gloom of night after a crappy day at work, nothing would stop him. Even when I got sick of going with him, even when I may have suggested his fitter-than-thou attitude was starting to get a little grating, nothing stopped him. What compelled him like this? I thought for a while it might be the sight of a bunch of sweating women splayed open as only they can be on a adductor/abductor machine. But I was wrong. I realize now that the main reason Mike worked out so hard for so long was because the workouts kept him connected to who he really is.
At heart he’s an athlete. He may have a long resume of jobs that keep a man’s ass in his seat, but at heart, he’s still an athlete.
(The other reason Mike has always worked out so much was because he likes to eat cheeseburgers and fries. He likes them a lot. More about that some other time.)
We have a mixed marriage. He is athletic. I am not. I got a lesson in the difference between these two fundamentally different types of people once while Mike was signing himself up for a city softball league. The guy from Parks & Rec was exhorting the players to remember to bring a photo ID to the first game. “Now I understand how it is,” the man said, much like a preacher talking about our common mortal failings. “These men want to play ball. They’re not thinking about a photo ID. These men are athletes. All they know is there’s a game, so where’s my shoes and where’s my car keys? All they know is there’s a game and they are athletes. Still and all, you need a photo ID.”
From my seat in the back, I burst out laughing. Much to my surprise, nobody else thought this was funny. Looking back, I realize I knew very little about athletes. They really are very different.
Now getting back to the birthday, I guess I was thinking it would be another two-, maybe three-shirt kind of year, but Mike had something else in mind.
This birthday’s tough on a lot of people, but Mike wasn’t going out without a fight. He wasn’t ready to give up on himself -- the youthful, athletic guy he’d always been. There may be a whole lot of candles on the cake from now on, but this birthday wasn’t going to be the start of any downhill slide. Instead, Mike said he wanted to start dunk-training, the dunk being a perfect symbol of youth and power and strength. That’s what he wanted for his birthday -- he wanted to learn to dunk -- and I wish I could tell you I heard all this and I totally got it. I didn’t. But I also knew I married an athlete, no nice shirt was going to do it for him this year.
Mike’s still chasing the dunk dream, but in the meantime I can tell you the body’s looking pretty amazing. Toned but not bulky. Tight, flat, six-pack stomach. Really nice arms. And for the first time, really nice legs. Oh, and those shorts that didn’t zip? They’re kinda loose these days.
Like many wives, I have a long history of asking my husband, “What do you want for your birthday?” and for years the answer had always been the same -- “Oh, I don’t want anything special.” And that would result in him receiving a couple of shirts that I liked but honestly would not do anything to change his life. Last birthday, though, was a biggie. I don’t like to use the exact number, but if you’ve been reading this blog at all, you know what milestone I’m talking about.
This pivotal, though unmentionable, birthday was weighing on Mike, I could tell. The previous summer he’d gone digging for a pair of shorts to wear in the 100-degree heat and came up with a pair that didn’t zip. Now me, I’ve had two kids, and even before the two kids I’d been gaining and losing the same five pounds for years. Unzippable pants are nothing new. But Mike had never experienced that particular blend of shame, disbelief, anger and self-loathing. Mike was born skinny. He may not have always had the most honorable dietary habits, but he had ironclad work ethic in the gym. He’d go to the gym like a postal worker goes around delivering mail -- no rain, no storm, no gloom of night after a crappy day at work, nothing would stop him. Even when I got sick of going with him, even when I may have suggested his fitter-than-thou attitude was starting to get a little grating, nothing stopped him. What compelled him like this? I thought for a while it might be the sight of a bunch of sweating women splayed open as only they can be on a adductor/abductor machine. But I was wrong. I realize now that the main reason Mike worked out so hard for so long was because the workouts kept him connected to who he really is.
At heart he’s an athlete. He may have a long resume of jobs that keep a man’s ass in his seat, but at heart, he’s still an athlete.
(The other reason Mike has always worked out so much was because he likes to eat cheeseburgers and fries. He likes them a lot. More about that some other time.)
We have a mixed marriage. He is athletic. I am not. I got a lesson in the difference between these two fundamentally different types of people once while Mike was signing himself up for a city softball league. The guy from Parks & Rec was exhorting the players to remember to bring a photo ID to the first game. “Now I understand how it is,” the man said, much like a preacher talking about our common mortal failings. “These men want to play ball. They’re not thinking about a photo ID. These men are athletes. All they know is there’s a game, so where’s my shoes and where’s my car keys? All they know is there’s a game and they are athletes. Still and all, you need a photo ID.”
From my seat in the back, I burst out laughing. Much to my surprise, nobody else thought this was funny. Looking back, I realize I knew very little about athletes. They really are very different.
Now getting back to the birthday, I guess I was thinking it would be another two-, maybe three-shirt kind of year, but Mike had something else in mind.
This birthday’s tough on a lot of people, but Mike wasn’t going out without a fight. He wasn’t ready to give up on himself -- the youthful, athletic guy he’d always been. There may be a whole lot of candles on the cake from now on, but this birthday wasn’t going to be the start of any downhill slide. Instead, Mike said he wanted to start dunk-training, the dunk being a perfect symbol of youth and power and strength. That’s what he wanted for his birthday -- he wanted to learn to dunk -- and I wish I could tell you I heard all this and I totally got it. I didn’t. But I also knew I married an athlete, no nice shirt was going to do it for him this year.
Mike’s still chasing the dunk dream, but in the meantime I can tell you the body’s looking pretty amazing. Toned but not bulky. Tight, flat, six-pack stomach. Really nice arms. And for the first time, really nice legs. Oh, and those shorts that didn’t zip? They’re kinda loose these days.
Monday, January 28, 2008
The Twisted Tale of the Adjustable Hoop
I've talked about how difficult the Dunk Dreams workouts are, but ... do they work? Do they actually help you jump higher? Well, there was a moment when I was convinced I'd wasted my time. I was ready to demand a refund.
Before my first workout with Gil, I tested my jumping ability on the basketball hoop in our driveway. It's one of those adjustable-height hoops, so I cranked it up to the top, took a few steps back and let her fly. I surprised myself by jumping up and actually touching the rim. My memory was that, back in my day, that's about how high I was able to jump. I was very pleased with myself. Here I was 50 years old and I was still jumping as high as my 20-year-old self. "Good for you, Mike," I thought, "you've kept this old body in pretty good shape." Yep, I was patting myself on the back something fierce. Pat, pat, pat, pat, pat.
Then I began working out with Gil Thomas. For the next three months I jumped--I jumped straight up in the air, I jumped bringing my knees to my chest, I jumped kicking my heels to my butt, I jumped over hurdles and with strange shoes on my feet.
Before my first workout with Gil, I tested my jumping ability on the basketball hoop in our driveway. It's one of those adjustable-height hoops, so I cranked it up to the top, took a few steps back and let her fly. I surprised myself by jumping up and actually touching the rim. My memory was that, back in my day, that's about how high I was able to jump. I was very pleased with myself. Here I was 50 years old and I was still jumping as high as my 20-year-old self. "Good for you, Mike," I thought, "you've kept this old body in pretty good shape." Yep, I was patting myself on the back something fierce. Pat, pat, pat, pat, pat.
Then I began working out with Gil Thomas. For the next three months I jumped--I jumped straight up in the air, I jumped bringing my knees to my chest, I jumped kicking my heels to my butt, I jumped over hurdles and with strange shoes on my feet.
The Jump Sole
I ran up hills, dragging other dunk dreamers behind me as ballast. I strapped huge rubber bands over my shoulders--rubber bands so thick and strong it felt as though they would shoot me down through the center of the Earth--and did squats, matching my strength against theirs. I drove to San Clemente, Culver City and Pasadena to work out on the Super Cat, this odd contraption designed for squats and jump squats. I watched as Gil piled more than 300 pounds on the thing and ordered me to do 15, 25, then as many as 40 squats without rest. I turned my head as men half my age doubled over and vomited because they'd pushed their bodies so hard. (I never vomited, but I sure as hell felt like it.)
The Super Cat
I spent days, especially in the first six weeks, when, after working out, walking was a painful chore. The muscles in my legs were screaming in revolt. "You're 50, goddammit. Why can't you just take up golf?" they seemed to be saying. My wife commented on the irony of my condition. Here I was, working out like a bastard to stay young, she'd say, but I walked like an old man. "I'm just glad I can walk at all," I'd say, still smarting from my latest round with the Super Cat.
But I was getting stronger. I was noticing muscles in my thighs and calves that weren't there before. And once the pain in my legs subsided, I felt a spring in my step I hadn't felt in years. I felt as though I had the legs of a 25-year-old man. I was ready to blast through the ceiling.
Then, after three months of working out--it was about April of last year by this time--Gil gave all of us two weeks off. He wanted us to rest for an entire week, give our legs a chance to recover, and then test our jump. An entire week's reprieve from working out--I was elated. It's one thing to skip a workout because you're too tired or not feeling well--you can't really enjoy it because of the nagging feeling that you COULD have worked out, you were just too big a baby. But to skip workouts because YOUR TRAINER ORDERED YOU TO, my God what a gift. I wasn't slacking off, I was giving my muscles the chance to heal and grow. It may look like I'm watching television, but this is actually a vital part of my fitness regime.
After my glorious week of rest, I took myself down to the nearest gym. I was going to test my jump. I went to an actual indoor gym because Gil always said that you get the truest test of your jump if you take off from a wood floor. The gym was empty. No need for me to feel embarrassed or self-conscious. I took a few steps back from the rim, launched myself up with my powerful new legs and ... touched the rim. Hmmm, I thought. I just touched the rim. I was able to do that before I even started these workouts. Perhaps, I reasoned, I'm not warmed up. I leapt again. And again. And again. Each time--rim, rim, rim. No higher. What the fuck? Now I'm starting to get pissed. I spent months lifting, jumping, sprinting, straining--for this? For weeks I shuffled around on sore legs, scooting across the floor like Grandpa Moses, and I'm not getting any more air than I was before I started? This is bullshit!
I drove home, parked in the driveway, and there it was--our basketball hoop. The one I had measured myself against all those months ago. It seemed to mock me. "Hah, old man. You think you can defy age, defy gravity? Kiss my ass." Angry, I got out of the car and ran toward the hoop. I took off and--grabbed the rim. Got damn near my entire hand above the damn thing. Now I was puzzled. Why was I able to jump so much higher here than I had been in the gym? My driveway is concrete, the gym floor is wood--it should be the other way around. Then I remembered something. My basketball hoop is adjustable. Could it be ....
I hadn't allowed anyone to adjust the rim since I measured my jump against it three months ago. It was the same height then as it is now. But, is it possible ...
I got out a tape measure. Measured my hoop. The tale of the tape--9-feet, 8-inches. I had measured my jump against a short hoop. Three months ago I was not able to touch the rim--at least not one that stood the regulation 10-feet high. Back then I was only able to jump 9-feet, 8-inches. But today, in the gym, I DID touch the rim. An honest-to-goodness, regulation-height 10-foot rim. I had improved. By a little more than four inches. In only three months! My God, I thought, at this rate I'll be dunking by Independence Day! I felt relief, exhilaration and like an idiot, all at the same time.
So the Dunk Dreams workouts DO work. Remarkably well. And yes, I am a boob.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Cutting Loose Some Ballast
Dunking a basketball involves being airborne, and things that fly are typically light weight. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when, after just a couple of workouts with Gil Thomas, the dunkmaster of Dunk Dreams, I was told I needed to shed a few pounds.
I never had to think much about my weight before and I certainly had never dieted. I was 6-foot-1 and a shade over 200 pounds (202, I believe) when I started working out with Gil. I was always basically fit. A woman at the Al-Anon meeting I used to attend regularly (that's a topic for another blog, believe me) actually thought I was a retired professional baseball player. But Gil wanted me lighter. There's no way I could get far enough off the ground at my current weight, he said. Which initially didn't make sense to me. Jumbo jets fly, and I didn't weigh nearly as much as one of those. But then, jumbo jets have huge engines and I have two skinny little legs, so I was beginning to see Gil's point.
Thus began my first experience with an actual, honest-to-God diet. At Gil's urging, I eventually settled on the South Beach Diet. I got the book. It's about 300 or 400 pages, and I'm sure the authors want you to read every word of it, but I had no use for the theory behind the diet. I just wanted to know what I was supposed to eat and what I wasn't. From what I could tell, it basically came down to no bread, no potatoes, no rice.
Well, I'm a meat lovin' man, so I figured this diet wouldn't aggravate me too much. And, actually, it hasn't. Except for one thing. I have always loved the sandwich. I would say that the sandwich is my favorite thing to eat, be it a hamburger, a hoagie or a hero. Sandwiches, of course, have bread as one of their main ingredients. Initially I substituted lettuce leaves for the bread, and that worked okay for a while. But I grew impatient with the process of peeling the leaves off the head of lettuce. The damn things kept ripping and I'd find myself virtually shredding an entire head of lettuce just to get two suitable leaves for my sandwich. So now I've settled on just eating the stuff that goes in the middle of the sandwich. I have by no means been a South Beach saint--I still have the occasional piece of pizza (I have two kids, age 14 and 9, so ... there's pizza), and once in a great while a donut (they haven't found a way to make those out of lettuce, thank the Lord in heaven)--but somehow I have managed to plummet to 190 pounds. I haven't been that weight since I was in college. When I first saw that number on the scale a couple of months ago, I was ecstatic. Gil's reaction? "Let's get you down to 185."
I never had to think much about my weight before and I certainly had never dieted. I was 6-foot-1 and a shade over 200 pounds (202, I believe) when I started working out with Gil. I was always basically fit. A woman at the Al-Anon meeting I used to attend regularly (that's a topic for another blog, believe me) actually thought I was a retired professional baseball player. But Gil wanted me lighter. There's no way I could get far enough off the ground at my current weight, he said. Which initially didn't make sense to me. Jumbo jets fly, and I didn't weigh nearly as much as one of those. But then, jumbo jets have huge engines and I have two skinny little legs, so I was beginning to see Gil's point.
Thus began my first experience with an actual, honest-to-God diet. At Gil's urging, I eventually settled on the South Beach Diet. I got the book. It's about 300 or 400 pages, and I'm sure the authors want you to read every word of it, but I had no use for the theory behind the diet. I just wanted to know what I was supposed to eat and what I wasn't. From what I could tell, it basically came down to no bread, no potatoes, no rice.
Well, I'm a meat lovin' man, so I figured this diet wouldn't aggravate me too much. And, actually, it hasn't. Except for one thing. I have always loved the sandwich. I would say that the sandwich is my favorite thing to eat, be it a hamburger, a hoagie or a hero. Sandwiches, of course, have bread as one of their main ingredients. Initially I substituted lettuce leaves for the bread, and that worked okay for a while. But I grew impatient with the process of peeling the leaves off the head of lettuce. The damn things kept ripping and I'd find myself virtually shredding an entire head of lettuce just to get two suitable leaves for my sandwich. So now I've settled on just eating the stuff that goes in the middle of the sandwich. I have by no means been a South Beach saint--I still have the occasional piece of pizza (I have two kids, age 14 and 9, so ... there's pizza), and once in a great while a donut (they haven't found a way to make those out of lettuce, thank the Lord in heaven)--but somehow I have managed to plummet to 190 pounds. I haven't been that weight since I was in college. When I first saw that number on the scale a couple of months ago, I was ecstatic. Gil's reaction? "Let's get you down to 185."
Friday, January 25, 2008
The Workout
As I've mentioned before, I've always been reasonably athletic and kept myself in pretty good shape. Over the last 15 years or so, I've always tried to do at least the minimum amount suggested by those doctors and surgeons who make it their business to tell the rest of us how much we need to exercise to keep the Reaper at bay. Thirty minutes of cardiovascular training each day, another half hour of weight lifting three times a week, that sort of thing. I'd give them their minimum and not a tick of the clock more. And why the hell not? I'm a writer, they should be glad I'm getting out of my chair at all.
Turns out the minimum was not adequate preparation to dunk. I will never forget my first workout with Gil, my Dunk Dreams trainer. Not because it was so exhilarating but because it damn near killed me. I remember it as the single most physically demanding thing I've ever done. It began innocently enough: we jogged slowly for about five minutes, we jumped rope over an imaginary rope, we hopped and skipped through a velcro ladder Gil had laid down on the grass. And then we started jumping. I don't know about you, but I'd never really thought of jumping as all that physically demanding. And truth be told, one jump isn't. But 150 of them are. And some of those jumps were done straining against straps buckled over the tops of our shoulders. Gil said this contraption was invented by Russians. Perhaps early in their space program they were trying to jump to the moon.
More jumping followed. Jumping like a kangaroo for 25 or 30 yards, two foot jumps over a set of five hurdles, quickly jumping side to side over a rope held by Gil and one of his nephews. I realize that if one is going to dunk, jumping is a logical exercise, but God almighty enough already. I should have counted my blessings with the jumping, because what followed was much worse.
Here I am in the park, under
the supervision of Gil and his
nephew K.P.
We had been doing all this exercizing in a park, a very lovely park with several rolling hills. Hills are nice as long as you don't have to run up them. Then they become instruments of torture. Gil led us to one of these hills and ordered us to sprint to the top. Sprint. Not run. Sprint. It was about 75 yards to the top of the hill. It is my vow in this blog to never exaggerate the facts for effect. So you can trust me when I tell you that the hill was also no more than two or three degrees shy of vertical. At first glance it appeared that the only way to scale this hill would be with a pick axe and cleats. But were we given such tools? No. We were asked to sprint up the incline in only our Nikes and shorts. Which we did. Somehow, I made it all the way to the top, slowing down considerably by the time I reached the crest. We were allowed to walk back down to the bottom. Once there, we were instructed to sprint up the hill again. However, this time we would do so while dragging another dunk dreamer behind us, attached by huge rubber bands. To give you an idea of the size of these things, imagine the rubber bands that would come wrapped around Paul Bunyan's newspaper.
I don't know if that was the last exercise in the workout, I just know it was the last one I was able to do. The guy next to me, a 16-year-old high school athlete training for his football team, vomited when he reached the top. I wasn't so lucky. I was visited by a thick, heavy nausea. Somehow I drove home, and even though the drive from the park back to my house took nearly an hour, the nausea had not abatted one inch. I crawled onto the couch in our downstairs office and stayed there for hours. My wife and children were concerned for my health. They should have been worried for my sanity. Two days later I met with Gil to do the whole thing over again.
Turns out the minimum was not adequate preparation to dunk. I will never forget my first workout with Gil, my Dunk Dreams trainer. Not because it was so exhilarating but because it damn near killed me. I remember it as the single most physically demanding thing I've ever done. It began innocently enough: we jogged slowly for about five minutes, we jumped rope over an imaginary rope, we hopped and skipped through a velcro ladder Gil had laid down on the grass. And then we started jumping. I don't know about you, but I'd never really thought of jumping as all that physically demanding. And truth be told, one jump isn't. But 150 of them are. And some of those jumps were done straining against straps buckled over the tops of our shoulders. Gil said this contraption was invented by Russians. Perhaps early in their space program they were trying to jump to the moon.
More jumping followed. Jumping like a kangaroo for 25 or 30 yards, two foot jumps over a set of five hurdles, quickly jumping side to side over a rope held by Gil and one of his nephews. I realize that if one is going to dunk, jumping is a logical exercise, but God almighty enough already. I should have counted my blessings with the jumping, because what followed was much worse.
Here I am in the park, under
the supervision of Gil and his
nephew K.P.
We had been doing all this exercizing in a park, a very lovely park with several rolling hills. Hills are nice as long as you don't have to run up them. Then they become instruments of torture. Gil led us to one of these hills and ordered us to sprint to the top. Sprint. Not run. Sprint. It was about 75 yards to the top of the hill. It is my vow in this blog to never exaggerate the facts for effect. So you can trust me when I tell you that the hill was also no more than two or three degrees shy of vertical. At first glance it appeared that the only way to scale this hill would be with a pick axe and cleats. But were we given such tools? No. We were asked to sprint up the incline in only our Nikes and shorts. Which we did. Somehow, I made it all the way to the top, slowing down considerably by the time I reached the crest. We were allowed to walk back down to the bottom. Once there, we were instructed to sprint up the hill again. However, this time we would do so while dragging another dunk dreamer behind us, attached by huge rubber bands. To give you an idea of the size of these things, imagine the rubber bands that would come wrapped around Paul Bunyan's newspaper.
I don't know if that was the last exercise in the workout, I just know it was the last one I was able to do. The guy next to me, a 16-year-old high school athlete training for his football team, vomited when he reached the top. I wasn't so lucky. I was visited by a thick, heavy nausea. Somehow I drove home, and even though the drive from the park back to my house took nearly an hour, the nausea had not abatted one inch. I crawled onto the couch in our downstairs office and stayed there for hours. My wife and children were concerned for my health. They should have been worried for my sanity. Two days later I met with Gil to do the whole thing over again.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
You Want to Do What?
When you decide at age 50 to dunk a basketball for the first time, you have to expect to take a certain amount of crap. I have taken a little, but, honestly, not nearly as much as I was expecting. My neighbor has been the worst offender. He likes to needle me by constantly asking if I’ve dunked yet when he knows damn well I haven’t. This routine amuses him tremendously. What amuses me is that my neighbor is prematurely bald.
My closest friend, John, whom I’ve known since high school, was not as supportive as I would have liked. At least not at first. At UCLA, which we also attended together, he majored in kinesiology, and when I told him I wanted to dunk, he reacted initially with a very swift, “It can’t be done.” Something about me being too old to develop the necessary fast-twitch muscle fibers. I didn’t know how to respond to this. John is, after all, a close friend (notice the subtle downgrade from “closest”), there’s a good chance he knows what he’s talking about, and he still has all his hair. To John’s credit, however, he soon picked up on how important this is to me and immediately began backpedaling. He is now firmly in my corner and once again my closest friend.
In attempting to do something like this at my age, it helps to have a wife who is understanding and patient. While we’re at it, let’s throw in beautiful, and now we have an accurate description of my lovely wife, Linda. This is her.
See what I’m talking about, fellas? The Dunk Dreams workouts tend to be lengthy and numerous, so Linda has been called upon to be incredibly flexible. She has answered the bell every time. Only occasionally have the cracks shown, such as the time I spent basically the entire day driving to and from San Clemente (over three hours round trip from our house) to workout with Gil, my trainer, on the Super Cat, a big beast of a machine used for squats and jump squats. She jokingly accused me of loving Gil more than I do her. I’m fond of Gil, but there is a line neither of us is willing to cross.
Now, there have been some benefits to Linda in all this. For one, she enjoys what the Dunk Dreams workouts have done to my body. It is, she says, lean and toned, without being obnoxiously bulky like a body builder’s. (In this, she knows whereof she speaks; she used to be an editor for “Shape” magazine, published by Joe Weider, who introduced her to a pre-“Terminator” Arnold.) Also, I think she appreciates that of all the ways a 50-year-old man could chase after youth, I have chosen something relatively unharmful to a marriage.
Nonetheless, I have found the quality of her support very moving. She’s really rooting for me. She has applauded my progress, rubbed salve into my sore muscles and never once scoffed at or belittled my quest; and, let’s face it, wanting to dunk is definitely scoff-worthy. She didn’t even laugh when I told her that when I finally do dunk, Gil is going to get us both on Oprah. Maybe it’s our 26 years together, or some kind of womanly wisdom, but she seems to have crawled inside my head and really understood as no one else has what this means to me. It has reminded me yet again--as if I needed reminding--why I fell in love with her in the first place.
Then again, maybe she just wants to meet Oprah.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
A Proper Guide
At the age of 50, I decided I wanted to dunk a basketball. Something I had never been able to do before. If I was going to do this, I would need help. A personal trainer, someone to help get my legs--and the rest of me--in the proper shape to get me airborne. Now, I’ve always been reasonably athletic--Little League, Pop Warner football, my high school tennis team, that sort of thing--and I’ve always worked out. At least ever since 8th grade gym class. At the beginning of that year we were introduced to weight training, and the coach arranged us in groups of four according to our strength. I ended up on a mat with the violinists and the bug collectors. Needless to say I went straight home, retrieved my oldest brother’s weight set from the garage and started lifting. I was determined to get pumped up and bumped up to a beefier group. And thus began a lifetime of three-day-a-week workouts.
Nonetheless, I was in no shape to dunk. Luckily, right around the time of my 50th birthday, the Health section of the Los Angeles Times featured just the man who could help make me fly: Gilbert Thomas, proprietor of a little enterprise he calls Dunk Dreams.
Gil Thomas
In the article, Gil claimed to have the wherewithal and the know-how to turn any average Joe into a bona fide slam-dunking machine. Still, I hesitated calling Gil because at age 50, I thought I might be more of a below-average Joe. I feared that as soon as I revealed my advanced age, he would say, “Take another look at that picture of me in the L.A. Times. Am I wearing a sorcerer’s hat?” As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. At my first workout with Gil, not only was I the tallest, but among the other dunk dreamers were two lovely college girls from Hong Kong, a couple of Korean fellows from UC Riverside and a 30-year-old from Bangladesh. A handful of Asians and a 50-year-old white guy. Clearly, Gil is not a man who shrinks from a challenge.
Indeed, Gil is relentlessly upbeat. But he’s not all cheerleader about it. Gil just likes to tell people what’s possible. “In two more months, you’ll be squatting 300, 400 pounds.” “By the end of summer, you’ll be grabbing the rim.” And then before you know what’s happening, he’ll lift up your shirt, poke at your stomach muscles and tell you how close you are to a six pack. He’ll even summon one of his nephews over to take a look and verify the prognosis. The overall effect is remarkable. I often find myself leaving workouts with Gil feeling as though I could do anything. His knowledge of workout machines and regimens is encyclopedic, and his passion for the dunk infectious. Lately, Gil has been tell me that if--pardon me, when--he gets me to dunk, the two of us will end up on Oprah. And I’ll be damned if he doesn’t have me believing it, too. Gil Thomas and his amazing 50-year-old Dunking Man. Stay tuned.
[check out these videos of Gil: on the CBS evening news (cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/15/eveningnews/main2483713.shtml?source=search_story) and on public television (on YouTube, search for "dunk dreamin"].
Nonetheless, I was in no shape to dunk. Luckily, right around the time of my 50th birthday, the Health section of the Los Angeles Times featured just the man who could help make me fly: Gilbert Thomas, proprietor of a little enterprise he calls Dunk Dreams.
Gil Thomas
In the article, Gil claimed to have the wherewithal and the know-how to turn any average Joe into a bona fide slam-dunking machine. Still, I hesitated calling Gil because at age 50, I thought I might be more of a below-average Joe. I feared that as soon as I revealed my advanced age, he would say, “Take another look at that picture of me in the L.A. Times. Am I wearing a sorcerer’s hat?” As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. At my first workout with Gil, not only was I the tallest, but among the other dunk dreamers were two lovely college girls from Hong Kong, a couple of Korean fellows from UC Riverside and a 30-year-old from Bangladesh. A handful of Asians and a 50-year-old white guy. Clearly, Gil is not a man who shrinks from a challenge.
Indeed, Gil is relentlessly upbeat. But he’s not all cheerleader about it. Gil just likes to tell people what’s possible. “In two more months, you’ll be squatting 300, 400 pounds.” “By the end of summer, you’ll be grabbing the rim.” And then before you know what’s happening, he’ll lift up your shirt, poke at your stomach muscles and tell you how close you are to a six pack. He’ll even summon one of his nephews over to take a look and verify the prognosis. The overall effect is remarkable. I often find myself leaving workouts with Gil feeling as though I could do anything. His knowledge of workout machines and regimens is encyclopedic, and his passion for the dunk infectious. Lately, Gil has been tell me that if--pardon me, when--he gets me to dunk, the two of us will end up on Oprah. And I’ll be damned if he doesn’t have me believing it, too. Gil Thomas and his amazing 50-year-old Dunking Man. Stay tuned.
[check out these videos of Gil: on the CBS evening news (cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/15/eveningnews/main2483713.shtml?source=search_story) and on public television (on YouTube, search for "dunk dreamin"].
Monday, January 21, 2008
The Journey Begins
I want to dunk. A basketball. Through an honest-to-goodness, regulation-height, 10-feet-off-the-ground basketball hoop. “Okay,” one might say, “go ahead and do it. What’s the big goddamn deal?” All right, here’s the thing. First of all, I’m white. And if you don’t believe that puts me at a disadvantage, quick, name all the white guys who have ever won the NBA’s slam-dunk competition. Or more to the point, name all the white guys who have even participated in the NBA’s slam-dunk competition. Second, I am 6-feet, 1-inch tall. Taller than the average American male, to be sure, but compared to people who dunk basketballs for a living, that’s quite short. Five inches shorter than Kobe Bryant, seven inches shorter than LeBron James, 10 inches shorter than Kevin Garnett.
Even with my arms stretched as high as they can stretch, I only reach to 7-feet, 10-inches. That means I’d have to jump 26 inches just to touch the rim. To get high enough to dunk, I’d have to add another six to eight inches on top of that. That means I’d have to get my body 34 inches off the ground--nearly three feet--if I wanted to dunk a basketball. The average vertical leap for NCAA Division I basketball players is between 27 and 30 inches. That means I would have to jump higher than your average big-time college basketball player. Division I. These are the guys who go on to play in the NBA. Also, it’s not as if I can rely upon some long dormant muscle memory. I have never done this before. Never dunked. So what have we got? I’m white, I’m 6-foot-1, I’ve never done this before, and, oh yeah, I’m 51. Years old. And now we are getting to the reason why I wanted to do this in the first place.
This quest started when I was 50, an age at which one is confronted with the fact that one is most likely closer to the day he will die than he is to the day he was born. I awoke one morning to the realization that I am sliding down the hill, and at the bottom is a great big hole just waiting to swallow me up. No more Mike Teverbaugh. Bye-bye. My reaction to that: no fucking way. I was going to turn around and start running back up that hill. Or, at the very least, believe that I was. I knew it wasn’t likely that I would find something to actually reverse the aging process, or even that I would start doing things to prolong my life. You know, like eating healthy foods, reducing stress or becoming an adulterous comedian (Bob Hope, George Burns and Milton Berle all lived to be a hundred, or damn close to it; there must be some connection). No, my best hope was to find something that would make me FEEL as though I were still on the north side of the slope. I can’t change physical realities or the limitations of the human body, but I can trick myself. I can make myself believe things that aren’t true just to make myself feel better. It sounds awful, but we all do it. It’s the inspiration for the comb-over (“I’m not bald!”) and the ridiculously young second wife (“I’m her age!”). I have too much hair and too much love for my wife to make either of those options work, so I needed something else. To actually feel in my bones the surge of youth, the promise of countless more days to come, I would have to … make my body do something it had never done before. Then I could say to myself, “Look, you’re not breaking down, you’re breaking new ground.” Yes. I like sentences about myself that have the word “new” in them.
So, what would this thing be? It couldn’t just be some crazy stunt like jumping out of a plane. Hell, you can throw a sack of wheat out of a plane; that doesn’t make it young, vibrant and immortal. It would have to be some act of physical prowess, something that says, “This body, the temple of this soul, is still in the game, and it’s nowhere near halftime.” I thought of running a marathon but then quickly dismissed the idea. I mean, wow, talk about drudgery. Dragging myself around some course for nearly four hours. I’ve tried running the treadmill, riding a stationary bike and believe me, none of that endurance crap is tolerable unless you’re watching TV. And in your average marathon, I probably wouldn’t be allowed to strap a set to my forehead. Besides, old people run marathons. I’ve seen them. Emaciated, wrinkled, sunken cheeks--this is not the image of youth I was looking for. I would need something that requires power and speed, and it would be nice if it also came with an in-your-face, take-that, I-can-kick-your-ass attitude. You know, all the things we associate with youth. And that is why my mind turned toward the dunk. In all of sports, nothing else combines the athleticism and the attitude of the dunk. The dunker soars above everyone else and then slams the ball back in their faces. It’s an incredible release, the ultimate exclamation point, punctuated not by a period but a fist. And it’s completely unnecessary. One could simply lay the ball in the basket. But the dunker dunks for one reason--because he can.
For my purposes, the dunk easily surpasses other iconic acts of sport, such as the home run or the touchdown. Sure, I could join some city league team and hit a home run or score a touchdown--two other things I have never done--but what would that prove? That I could “go yard” against Bob, the checkout guy from the supermarket, or that I could sprint for a TD by outrunning Ted from accounting? Big fucking deal. But the dunk is different. To dunk, one has to hurl one’s body up at the same 10-foot hoop the pros jam it through. To dunk is to legitimately lay claim to some small percentage of similarity to LeBron James, Carmello Anthony, Michael Jordan and Dr. J.
LeBron James.............Dr. J....
Me
You can say with a straight face and a sure finger on the polygraph machine that you can do something those guys can do. There’s your surge of power, of youthfulness, of invincibility. There’s your goddamn fountain of youth. And by God I am determined to drink from that spring--greedily. For me, this has become a case of dunk or die.
In the days that follow, I will chronicle everything involved in achieving this goal--the excruciatingly difficult workouts, the aches and pains, the setbacks. I haven’t dunked yet, but I will. You’ll see. We’ll get there together
Even with my arms stretched as high as they can stretch, I only reach to 7-feet, 10-inches. That means I’d have to jump 26 inches just to touch the rim. To get high enough to dunk, I’d have to add another six to eight inches on top of that. That means I’d have to get my body 34 inches off the ground--nearly three feet--if I wanted to dunk a basketball. The average vertical leap for NCAA Division I basketball players is between 27 and 30 inches. That means I would have to jump higher than your average big-time college basketball player. Division I. These are the guys who go on to play in the NBA. Also, it’s not as if I can rely upon some long dormant muscle memory. I have never done this before. Never dunked. So what have we got? I’m white, I’m 6-foot-1, I’ve never done this before, and, oh yeah, I’m 51. Years old. And now we are getting to the reason why I wanted to do this in the first place.
This quest started when I was 50, an age at which one is confronted with the fact that one is most likely closer to the day he will die than he is to the day he was born. I awoke one morning to the realization that I am sliding down the hill, and at the bottom is a great big hole just waiting to swallow me up. No more Mike Teverbaugh. Bye-bye. My reaction to that: no fucking way. I was going to turn around and start running back up that hill. Or, at the very least, believe that I was. I knew it wasn’t likely that I would find something to actually reverse the aging process, or even that I would start doing things to prolong my life. You know, like eating healthy foods, reducing stress or becoming an adulterous comedian (Bob Hope, George Burns and Milton Berle all lived to be a hundred, or damn close to it; there must be some connection). No, my best hope was to find something that would make me FEEL as though I were still on the north side of the slope. I can’t change physical realities or the limitations of the human body, but I can trick myself. I can make myself believe things that aren’t true just to make myself feel better. It sounds awful, but we all do it. It’s the inspiration for the comb-over (“I’m not bald!”) and the ridiculously young second wife (“I’m her age!”). I have too much hair and too much love for my wife to make either of those options work, so I needed something else. To actually feel in my bones the surge of youth, the promise of countless more days to come, I would have to … make my body do something it had never done before. Then I could say to myself, “Look, you’re not breaking down, you’re breaking new ground.” Yes. I like sentences about myself that have the word “new” in them.
So, what would this thing be? It couldn’t just be some crazy stunt like jumping out of a plane. Hell, you can throw a sack of wheat out of a plane; that doesn’t make it young, vibrant and immortal. It would have to be some act of physical prowess, something that says, “This body, the temple of this soul, is still in the game, and it’s nowhere near halftime.” I thought of running a marathon but then quickly dismissed the idea. I mean, wow, talk about drudgery. Dragging myself around some course for nearly four hours. I’ve tried running the treadmill, riding a stationary bike and believe me, none of that endurance crap is tolerable unless you’re watching TV. And in your average marathon, I probably wouldn’t be allowed to strap a set to my forehead. Besides, old people run marathons. I’ve seen them. Emaciated, wrinkled, sunken cheeks--this is not the image of youth I was looking for. I would need something that requires power and speed, and it would be nice if it also came with an in-your-face, take-that, I-can-kick-your-ass attitude. You know, all the things we associate with youth. And that is why my mind turned toward the dunk. In all of sports, nothing else combines the athleticism and the attitude of the dunk. The dunker soars above everyone else and then slams the ball back in their faces. It’s an incredible release, the ultimate exclamation point, punctuated not by a period but a fist. And it’s completely unnecessary. One could simply lay the ball in the basket. But the dunker dunks for one reason--because he can.
For my purposes, the dunk easily surpasses other iconic acts of sport, such as the home run or the touchdown. Sure, I could join some city league team and hit a home run or score a touchdown--two other things I have never done--but what would that prove? That I could “go yard” against Bob, the checkout guy from the supermarket, or that I could sprint for a TD by outrunning Ted from accounting? Big fucking deal. But the dunk is different. To dunk, one has to hurl one’s body up at the same 10-foot hoop the pros jam it through. To dunk is to legitimately lay claim to some small percentage of similarity to LeBron James, Carmello Anthony, Michael Jordan and Dr. J.
LeBron James.............Dr. J....
Me
You can say with a straight face and a sure finger on the polygraph machine that you can do something those guys can do. There’s your surge of power, of youthfulness, of invincibility. There’s your goddamn fountain of youth. And by God I am determined to drink from that spring--greedily. For me, this has become a case of dunk or die.
In the days that follow, I will chronicle everything involved in achieving this goal--the excruciatingly difficult workouts, the aches and pains, the setbacks. I haven’t dunked yet, but I will. You’ll see. We’ll get there together
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)