Written by István Javorek
As you already know from my introduction, I am István Javorek, a youthful eighty-year-old gladiator. Today, I would like to tell you what’s on my mind and what I have been up to lately.
Unfortunately, as it is sometimes the case with elderly gladiators, I recently slipped down the stairs and broke my upper arm. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, my dear wife developed a terrible backache that has rendered her completely immobile.
So you see, gladiators have their problems, too. What’s important is how we deal with these problems.
As a trainer, I have been active all my life, so I recover from injuries more easily and get over illnesses faster. Easier and faster, but not without willpower and perseverance! Obviously, as a sportsman, I have always trained on a daily basis. For the time being, unfortunately, my upper body training is very limited due to my injury.
But my legs are fine, and I have no problem walking! While I do my physical therapy and work on regaining movement and strength in my injured arm, I walk eighteen thousand steps every day at a nearby park with lots of rolling hills, and I try to eat healthy.
In my wife’s case, because she has been quite inactive for several years, a recovery is considerably more complicated. However, she, too, must try! And if she can do it, believe me, so can you!
Due to the complete or partial seclusion of the two-year pandemic, the population of the world is in dire need of exercise. Each and every one of us should be doing some program of exercises on a regular basis. The exercises have to be easy to perform and should be tailored to everyone’s specific needs and time limitations. And this goes especially for the elderly! Only, I don’t like to say the elderly, so I refer to my clients in my age group as the Aging Youth.
During our short life on earth, we should take care of our health, our most precious treasure, because the longer we are healthy, the longer we can enjoy the small pleasures of the „Dolce Vita.“
The sad fact is that, unfortunately, most of the time we start exercising only after an illness knocks us out, and, instead of dumbbells, we „press the bed!“ The secret to a long life is movement, action, work done with pleasure, and a balanced lifestyle in which exercise should have a prominent place.
I believe that if your cells are filled with joy, they retain their vitality for longer. I try to remind my clients and athletes every day that crying takes a lot of energy and makes you depressed, while smiling is all you need to feel happy!
So, right now, life has thrown me and my wife a few curve balls. But every morning, we still try to do our best. For my wife, for the moment, this means waking up with a smile on her face, despite the pain she is experiencing. It means having the willpower to go regularly to her physical therapy and believing that tomorrow the pain will be less.
It means taking small steps and celebrating every single achievement – being able to sit, being able to tie her shoes, being able to stand and cook again (one of my wife’s favorite activities)! For me, it means helping my wife as best as I can while not forgetting to take care of myself. It means going out into the sunshine and reconnecting with nature. It means staying as active as I possibly can. But it also means having to accept that my body cannot do what it could when I was not an aging youth, but a young man! And throughout these realizations and efforts, it means staying positive and hopeful and optimistic about the future. So let me hear you all say it: “Yes, I love it!” And that’s what’s on my mind these days. Let’s see what I have to say next month.
In the meantime, let me leave you with these two images of my wife and me exercising. My wife is using a little device I developed to help her stretch. It’s very practical, because she can just put it on one of our doors. As for me, I am outside, in my favorite park near our house.
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