Different Perspectives

I gave a member of our church some advice a while ago. He's several years older than me and he's had some issues with his health over the past couple of years. We were talking about exercising and he mentioned that he was trying to do some push ups but he could barely do one. I gave him a suggestion involving a technique that I learned in physical therapy eleven years ago. One of my therapists taught me to do push ups on a kitchen counter. She taught me to lean on the counter at an angle with my arms stretched out and to push up and down away from the counter. My arm and leg were not healed enough or fit enough to do real push ups on the floor at that time, and the counter method helped me greatly as I sought to strengthen my upper body. This friend of mine at church was really happy to hear my advice and determined to give it a try.

This past Sunday he told me that the counter method helped him greatly and that he had now moved up to doing regular push ups on the floor. I think that I remember correctly when I state that he was struggling to do six push ups at a time, but he was making progress. As he complained about his difficulty with doing regular push ups, the conversation turned to my exercise routine and the things that I deal with because of the injuries. At some point he asked me about push ups and I mentioned that I did 100 push ups at a time when I exercise.

I use push up bars because I can't bend my one wrist far back enough to do them on the floor, but the bars (similar to the ones pictured) allow for me to keep my wrists straight and do regular push ups on the floor without any hindrance at all. My friend kind of freaked out and talked to me about the comparison between his number and mine.

I never really think about the things that I do, but maybe I should consider physical progress more often. It's just that I did so much more before the accident than I do now, so it never seems like a big deal to me. I guess that it takes someone else's perspective to remind me that I have made progress over the years. I'm currently sixty one years old, and I think that I'm in OK shape for a dude that had so many things damaged within his body at one time. Perhaps I should keep in mind that my injuries were not the beginning and end of physical abilities.