Originally published 31/01/2019
When I was in my early 50's I could quite happily walk 3 miles a day, carry things quite easily and generally wasn't too unfit for my age. However, in my mid 50s, things started to go wrong. 😞
As I have said, I had been a smoker for many years and also had the underlying hereditary heart condition. This all finally took its toll: I was always wheezy, could only walk about a third of the amount I used to without breaks, got chest pains and was short of breath after only a little exercise.
I stopped smoking before anything was diagnosed, but although this helped clear the wheeziness, and cleared up the almost continual cold I had, but I still couldn't walk any further, or do much more exercise. This continued after the diagnosis, because I was afraid to exercise in case I did myself more harm.
However, there are definite benefits to doing cardio-vascular exercise and Karate has worked for me. In the early days, I could probably go only 10 minutes without taking a break. Now, 10 months on, I can go 40 to 50 minutes without taking a break on the better days. I am back to being able to walk 3 miles in a day and carrying things again without too much difficulty.
Those are things that I didn't think I would be able to do again 😊😊😊
Update: 24/04/2019
A few months further on and its 50 minutes to an hour I can last now, less effort to walk those 3 miles, and the things I can comfortably carry are a bit heavier. So things are still improving 😊😊😊
Wrestling was the start of getting into Karate ðŸ’😊
I had watched wrestling before on TV, British shows when I was younger and later TNA, and my son was keen on playing various wrestling Console games, mainly WWE.
Early in 2017, I took him to see a local wrestling show, "Wrestleforce" and he and I were bitten by the bug. He was too young to train with an club locally, and we needed him to find a physical outlet, so suggested Karate, which he started towards the end of the year.
We started to watch WWE online and late in 2017, we went to WWE live in London in Wembley Arena. We went again in August 2018, to the O2 in London 😊😊. We might not always like the story lines, but the energy and the enthusiasm of both the Wrestlers and the fans at the live shows shines through!!!!
The favourites we saw included Triple H, Matt Hardy, Rhonda Rowsey,Finn Balor, Kane, Braun Strowman, Asuka, Dolph Ziggler, Bray Wyatt, and many more, but we missed out on Jeff Hardy.
Nevertheless, Wrestling definitely opened the door to Karate, and Karate helped us appreciate the physicality of what Wrestlers do 😊😊
My Father died from a heart condition when I was about 6 or 7. I later found out it was called "coronary thrombosis" which is hardening of the arteries around the heart. As I was later to learn, it's hereditary.
I suppose I always tried to shut out the possibility it might happen to me, but hey ho, I was wrong. I have been a smoker for most of my adult life, which hasn't helped things, but in 2016 things came to a head health-wise. I had a chest infection that never seemed to clear, got really short of breath, was struggling to walk anywhere near as far as I could and started to get chest pains. you might say I was a little scared....
I stopped smoking and went to see the doctor, and the next step was off to hospital to the chest clinic to see a specialist and have the basic tests done. I was told that in all likelihood I had some form of heart condition, and was booked for a CT scan. This took forever to come about, due to a couple of cancelled appointments.
My basic health improved (got rid of the nagging chest infection), and was put on statins as a precaution. But pretty much went into my shell, afraid to push myself in case I triggered anything. I still struggled to walk distances and was wheezy on top of that. I struggled to carry anything heavy and was afraid to try until I really had to.
In mid 2017, I finally had my CT scan. It confirmed I had a heart condition, with partial blockages of some of the arteries around the heart with a build up of Cholesterol. I was lucky in that it was early enough to be controlled with statins and that not all the arteries were affected. However, I was still stuck in my shell, afraid to push myself in case.... 😔
One of the biggest reasons for pulling myself out of the rut I had got myself into was my son. He wanted to get involved with something close to wrestling, and as he was moving to a new school, we wanted to get him involved in something to give him confidence beforehand.
He had a choice of Judo or Karate, he chose Karate. Originally, I was just taking him to lessons, but seeing him enjoy it gave me an idea. We could do with a shared interest that meant we could do things together and I needed a CardioVascular workout.
So after a trial period, I signed up too 😊
