Health & Fitness: Weekend Warriors

This article first appeared on Patch on May 24, 2010. Tim Reynolds asked us to run it again since The Maplewood/South Orange Men's Recreational Softball League started up again on July 7, 2011. The league will meet every Thursday night at 6 p.m. at Maplecrest Park, Field #2 through the summer. Contact Tim Reynolds for more information.

In the past year, I decided it would be good for me to leave my "I'm a father with two young children cocoon" and get back out with the guys to play some sports.

As a boy, I loved to play. I'd run out of the house as soon as I woke up and it would be a challenge for my parents to slow me down enough to eat. I'd play ball sun-up to sun-down. I'd play so hard my parents would find me passed out half under the sheets with my ball cap still on, cheeks rosy from the sun. Give me a ball, hell any kind of ball, and you could find me throwing it against a wall somewhere. Of course, I wasn't really throwing against a wall. It was two outs, bottom of the ninth, and I was protecting my perfect game against the dreaded Yankees. 

Let me tell you, that love doesn't necessarily go completely away. As many of us grow older, and our bodies age, we lose a step. We also might discover something else that gets us going…making money, dating, cars, clothes, whatever. So maybe we just watch sports to get our fix…but it's not quite the same. 

Then we get out of school, get a job, maybe have a kid or four. They get a little older and maybe they didn't fall too far from the tree. There they are throwing a ball in the air and catching it over and over and over again. We think to ourselves, "Hey, I was pretty good at that game once! Here's my chance to pass along some of that knowledge I've been gathering all these years…"

So, we go out to have a catch with our sons and daughters, and we realize something—we couldn't throw our way out of a wet paper bag. We stink, and a lot.  But we can make it work okay eventually, especially if we practice at it a bit. Compared to a four year old you're an all-star baby!  So maybe it's time to make a real go of it and try to play with other grown ups. 

So here I am, a member of the Maplewood/South Orange Men's Recreational Softball League. There's actually quite a turn-out, 22 teams in all. The team names are great: The Henchmen, Isotopes, Squids, Slammers, Wild Stallions, Mooks, 973'ers, Ragamuffins, SOB's and Sacrifice Blunts are some of my favorite team names. My team, well we're the South Orange Dads. Yeah, not so exciting a name, but it suits us just fine. 

We're a few games into the summer season now, and let me tell you, it's like a walking infirmary out there. There are more pulled hamstrings, strained shoulders and bad knees than you can shake a stick at. Why, do you ask?  Well maybe it's not in the athlete, but it's in the approach. Now mind you, not many of us are able to even remember being 20 anymore, but that's not the only reason for all these injuries. 

These guys are pretty darned good. You can still see the athlete in every single one of them. Their bodies are just not able to respond quite how they used to. 

When you're a kid, you're basically made of rubber. You warm up, but that's because that's what everyone does, but you probably don't feel like you need to very much. It's all part of the "team building" process. You can just go out and play. And taking care of yourself between seasons or the games? Well sure, if eating junk and goofing off counts, you're a champ. But you probably didn't spend a lot of time stretching and strengthening in the off-season.

Well, it may be the same person out there playing, but it's definitely not the same body. So maybe we should try to remember how we got ready to play all those years ago. Maybe we should even do more than that alone.

I just know that playing the games I love ain't as easy as it used to be. But I can still feel like a kid again while I'm out there in the late afternoon sun. But it takes a little more thought than it did before. Here are a few guidelines I like to follow to keep me in the game:

First, I like to think about the things I'll be doing when I play. If it's softball, it's not just swinging a bat and throwing, but running and bending and lots of other stuff, too. So I try to assimilate some of those motions while I warm up to play.  Sometimes, I use rubber band resistance tubing to really work those actions, it'll make it feel much easier when you're doing it without the resistance. 

If you think you'll look ridiculous doing this, well you're not alone. I felt insane taking various tools and apparatus out of my gym bag out in front of the guys…at first.  Then I realized, "Hey, didn't I see the pros doing the same thing before they went out and played?" Well, if it's not too good for Derek Jeter….

Next, I make sure I stretch out thoroughly after the game. This is where a lot of damage can be avoided. We're not used to stretching out a double into a triple in our daily lives, so why wouldn't that tighten up our hamstring to feeling more like piano strings?  When we played years ago, those muslces would just loosen right back up again, but not so much any more. Now you're just waiting for those tight hamstrings to transfer up into your lower back, as overly tight hamstrings will often do.

Better probably just to stretch it out in the first place.

Last, I just try to temper my expectations. I'm just not going to be as fast as I was a few years back. My reactions will not be as quick, and I'll mess up maybe twice as often. But I'm here just to compete and have fun.  As far as I can see, there's no big league scouts in the stands looking for a very average 37-year-old shortstop. So, I just try to do the best I can, and realize that if I make it out injury free and had some laughs along the way, that it's been a really good day.

Like anything else, you can always try harder and take it further. You can get some hitting lessons at one of the local batting cages. It certainly wouldn't hurt to take better care of yourself and exercise a little more often. I happen to know some very good personal trainers.  Let me tell you one quick story about a client of mine…

For our case here, we'll call our client Larry. Larry worked with me a couple years ago, and needed to quit for financial reasons. He came back recently with the same goals, lose some weight, feel better, and beat the hell out of his long time tennis nemesis. He plays this guy every week all year long, and beat him twice over the years, if I'm not mistaken. He wants this more than any other goal. 

So, I go to work on him. I get his hips more flexible so he can have better lateral movement. I work on the power of his hips with some kettlebell swings. I work on his core with some plank movements. I stabilize his shoulders with some simple movements, and I give him some more things to warm up with before he plays his evil adversary.

I was getting showered to go on my date night last Saturday. My mother-in- law came to get me, asked me if I could come up to speak with Larry. I towel off and come up to find an extremely excited man who just wiped the tennis courts with this guy!  And he felt great, no injuries, no sore shoulders, no rolled ankle.

Just the joy of feeling like a kid again.

Tim Reynolds is the owner/operator of THE GYM ON SPRINGFIELD, a personal training studio in its third year located on Springfield Ave. in Maplewood. He lives in Maplewood with his wife Suzanne, and their children August and Sinikka.