If your trait is infected by any adventurous streak of virus you may appreciate the thrills associated with self-exploration – be it in mountainous wilderness, roaring seafronts or unknown variegated landscapes. Or trying to delve deep in the ocean of knowledge or pouring over petty ‘how-tos’ or playing any kind of behaviroural gimmicks. And might have experienced big or small perils on the way. I have mixed bag of all such funny things. There are too many. Here, I will restrict to a minor pitfall -- related to health -- I fell into, due to combination of ignorance and arrogance. It may offer warning signals to a few green horns and help them to evade potential hazards.

I used to spend my retired life in front of the computer for 6-8 hours daily exploring the virtual world from here to eternity. My chair was low and posture improper. After some time I not only developed back pain but fast approaching to become a ‘hunchback of Notre Dame’.  My spine got stiffened and bent forward, with a pronounced hump in the middle. Worried, I rushed to the orthopedic, but he could offer no specific relief. I was left on my own. . Still I persisted repeating the same mistake without any deviation, not knowing what it was due to. Later, after diagnosing the cause I changed the pose and the chair.  I began bending backwards from standing position, with both hands raised over the head. The spine refused to come back to original shape. It pained. Swaying sideways and bending backwards from upright position for many times in a day over a period of one year I regained my erect spine and got rid of the back pain. Have you ever noticed anybody walking with a permanent question mark pose (?). Now, I think they could have remedied the defect by deliberately stretching the backbone in the reverse direction during initial stages, as I did with good result.

The other part of the story pertains to my ‘concern’ for health. I remained a health freak as well. Always conscious to maintain right weight without any bulge since my student life. Ignored friendly advice that a paunch adds gravity to the gait and personality to the post of a principal. Of course, never aimed for the six pack abs but only to be in good health and remain active. Hence, became fond of reading health related issues.

Ignorance is no bliss as you have seen above, but a little knowledge is more dangerous I learnt the hard way.

We – me & wife – were happy having a 5 km walk at 4 am in the morning, in shivering cold of Delhi December or in the sweltering heat of June. A little information caused disturbance in my years-long routine. For heart health you need to exercise your heart as well. For that aerobic exercise is necessary. Maximum heart rate should be 220 minus your age. Walking 5 km in the morning doesn’t raise my heart rate a bit. So, I resorted to skipping i.e. rope jumping against the advice of cardiologist and neurologist, thinking, that was the easiest way for aerobics. At this age it should never be done, they said. But when they came to know I was doing fine with half an hour rope jumping in the morning, they gave a nod.

At one stage, I developed pain in the right foot near the toes, disabling me to walk even, not to talk of skipping. An X-ray dispelled my fear of fracture – some ligaments might have got overstretched perhaps. Medicine and particularly hot fomentation gave relief. Next, I switched to stair-climbing instead of skipping anymore.

Some more good news was in store for me: shrinkage of muscles in old age can be prevented by exercising the muscles before one turns 80. I lost no time buying dumbbells and start using them in right earnest. I was so delighted to see my arms muscles growing. Now, I thought of giving attention to my lower limbs. Selected some work-outs from FIT TV. Again became joyous watching my enlarging thigh-muscles. But it was too short lived: the stiffened muscles made me crippled – I couldn’t walk even for a few yards.

I am an inveterate optimist. It took about 4 years to restore my original walking mode. Now, I devised my own way of exercising by a combination of turning, twisting , swaying sideways, bending forward and backward, kicking and swinging arms etc. – involving  movement of all parts of the body to maintain flexibility, which I consider to be very important.  For balancing I practice standing on one foot alternately. ‘Use it or lose it’ applies pretty well here. Occasionally, I revert to skipping, stair climbing and dumbbells too. And now fighting fit for blogging as a pastime and boring people like you.

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