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Here’s Hoping All Health Breaks Loose
November 22, 2016
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Today’s brilliant column idea came to me recently during my daily ritual – something I call my “10 o’clock walk.” Every morning about then, I get up from the desk and stroll to nearby Edgehill Café off Music Row for my usual large nonfat latte, followed by the long route around the neighborhood, back to my office. The total distance is less than a mile, but it fulfills my need for caffeine, gets me moving, and most importantly, away from sitting.
I’ve seen a ton of articles lately, titled, “Sitting Is The New Smoking.” Go ahead, Google that, and see how many matches come up. It’s in the millions. All of them warn against being too sedentary; apparently, those who stay idle day after day are predisposed to developing diabetes, prone to cancers, depression, feeling blue, and – if already suffering from mental illness – likely to see their mental illness worsen.
Hey, good times! While you ponder those grim realities, stand up, take a deep breath, stretch your legs a minute, and try to walk it off while I continue.
While at Edgehill that day, I started talking to one of the employees, Wes Bourque. Working there is a side-hustle; his real job – the one which truly fulfills his hopes and dreams – is a being a working musician. A drummer, he’s on the road most weekends, driving long distances, keeping irregular hours, and – potentially – eating poorly. On this day after work, he was headed to his personal trainer, who, he told me, provides him with a program specifically designed for performers with a goal to make him healthier overall and maximize his onstage performance.
I spend most of the space here talking about radio programming, music, and other industry issues, but without good health, none of us can do a great job at any of those things. And, not to be a buzz-kill, but how many industry friends and idols have we lost in recent years who may have benefitted from even a slightly healthier lifestyle? So, in the spirit of wellness and wanting all my friends in the biz to, as Star Trek’s Mr. Spock famously used to say, “Live Long and Prosper,” today I hope to offer some thoughts on how to make that happen. And, perfectly timed, I might add – just as all of us embark on a Thanksgiving weekend filled with over-eating, sleeping, football-watching, boozing, napping, snacking, more napping, and then another serving of somebody’s grandma’s legendary dessert.
Wes gave me the name of his trainer, Barry Donegan, with whom I talked for a few broad ideas that some of you in the biz – radio or the music sector, male or female – may want to consider for a healthier lifestyle, long term. When you’re healthy and well rested, your mood is positive, you’re more productive, and your overall performance is stronger. That makes you a better employee, more marketable, and generally easier to be around – and that’s a good thing.
“Sitting is The New Smoking”
Echoing what I’d read about sitting, Donegan told me, “What it does for more than four hours a day is significant and deadly. Potentially, you’re looking at a decreased lifespan. Some of the things that can mitigate that are getting up and walking around for maybe 10 or 15 minutes.”
Even just standing upright up for small periods several times a day is helpful, says Donegan. If you’re feeling adventurous, he offers this: “Get up and do 20 body weight squats once an hour, or use your hands to pull yourself up out of the seat and stretch your lower back out. Do these few things persistently throughout the day. Additionally, sit-stand desks and yoga balls [instead of chairs] are very effective.” Actually, as I visit my label friends on Music Row, I am seeing more and more desks that offer an option of sitting or standing during the day. For example, everybody at Big Machine seems to have one.
“If you’re doing a sitting job, it’s important to hit the gym and to make sure your body doesn’t look at sitting for hours as the most challenging thing of the day,” Donegan says. “The most difficult challenge of the day needs to be a weight training program at least three times a week, so your body will fight morphing into the shape of a chair.” Specifically, says Donegan, “Most important is resistance training; particularly, compound movement resistance training with barbells – where you’re doing bench press, squats, deadlifts, overhead press, rows, chin ups, or lateral pull downs. These particular exercises use multiple joints in a really holistic fashion the way that the body generally moves. You’re loading it with weight in a way that kind of almost forces your posture to realign under the weight.”
Donegan believes it’s important to understand that strength is a skill. “It’s not an innate capability. Anyone who sits there and lifts weights forever is eventually going to be lifting a crazy amount of weight compared to everyone else. If you do it for 40 years, you’re going to be weirdly strong, no matter what. If you’re strong enough, you should be able to maintain your body through almost anything.” For somebody confined to a desk, Donegan reiterates: “Three days of resistance training a week, at least, is important to make sure you don’t turn into the shape of that desk.”
“Take Care Of Your Body. It's the Only Place You Have To Live.”
Donegan’s clientele is primarily musicians, and it’s a life he knows well as a touring musician himself. “I’ve been the opening band on a bill, touring without much budget where you often sleep in the van, or crash on the floor in someone’s apartment.” That life took a devastating toll on his body, says Donegan. “I lost significant muscle mass on tour, over time, to where my metabolism broke, and I started gaining body fat really easily. I also got back and knee injuries persistently. All these little aspects of it left me broken down physically. I had to rebuild my fitness, start all over, and build a bunch of muscle mass back up. But now at 38, I could chase down, hold down, and savagely beat the 21 year old version of myself.”
And who among us doesn’t aspire to do that?
Like many musicians, Donegan didn’t have a steady income, yet had people asking how he leaned out, gained muscle, and went from skinny, to overweight, to ripped and muscular. “So, I went and got certified through American Council on Exercise – which is a very difficult certification – and they don’t pass just anybody; it’s a really tough test.”
I found it fascinating to hear Donegan’s advice on what challenges singers, drummers, and guitarists to stay fit. I’ve watched bands for years, and most of them make it look pretty easy.
“For a touring performer, cardiovascular health is important – especially if you’re a vocalist who is also dancing, because the strain on your cardiovascular system is constant,” says Donegan. “The last thing you want to be is huffing and puffing and missing notes; you can’t hit the notes if your cardio isn’t there. Nothing registers on the Fitbit as hard as singing; it uses your core and all of your cardio capabilities. It also raises your blood pressure really, really high.”
Donegan has clients who sing doing an exercise called sled pushes, where he loads a sled up with weight and has them push it 30 yards or so. “It’s really intense and fills your lungs with so much lactic acid that sometimes people have to cough it out,” he says. “That kind of extreme overload of lactic acid in your lungs is how a dancing and singing performer is going to hit the wall in the middle of a set and have to stop singing.”
Meanwhile, drumming is an athletic position, explains Donegan. “It’s a resistance and cardio workout that is constant. Drumming destroys your posture. You have to have a forward lean, and that fundamentally messes with your hips and your core the longer you do it.”
For drummers, Donegan recommends, “Barbell squats and deadlifts, bench press, rows, lat pull downs, and core work. Your body is going to become better at conventional movement patterns that you do anyway in life. It’s going to rebuild your posture back to the normal factory settings. It’s almost like a factory reboot to your posture, if you do an even amount of volume. When people talk about needing muscle confusion and complicated workouts – I don’t believe that. All you need to do to confuse your muscles is to add five more pounds.”
And for guitar slingers? “I focus more on the resistance side of it and maybe a little more on core strength through progressing leg raises, leg lifts, and hanging leg raises, depending on their ability. You also need a strong upper and lower back to help hold that guitar up. The main goal is to make sure the guitar player is strong enough that the guitar itself is negligible weight, no matter how heavy the guitar they like to play, and insignificant enough that their body is not like, ‘we need to adapt to holding this guitar.’”
For more on Donegan, check out his Facebook page, and you can reach him via email here. As for me? It’s almost 10:00a. Time to get up and take a walk. Happy holidays to all of you.
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