A Physically Fit Retirement

January 20, 2026 ~ If You Want My Opinion ~ Leave a comment

In his remarkable book, Badass Retirement, author Robert Pagliarini includes a chapter titled “Upgrade Health.” His message is simple for people who want to escape average retirement: think and act like an athlete. He posits that professional athletes “invest their time and energy into improving their performance.” They work hard at it to avoid injury, recover quickly if they do get hurt, and achieve the highest possible energy and stamina for years, even decades. He stresses that retirees should have these exact same goals – and I agree one hundred percent.

My wife and I are now in our second year of retirement, and one of our top priorities since we left employment is to get in better physical shape and maintain a healthier lifestyle than we did during our working years. We are paying closer attention to what we eat and drink (well, better than we once did). We are also wearing the right kind of clothes and shoes for our new lifestyle. We are paying more attention to our bodies and making sure we get the medical care we need. We believe in the value of vaccinations and medication.

Perhaps the most significant change in retirement related to our health is our increased focus on physical fitness. Much of our time is now discretionary, and we are devoting more of it to a variety of exercise options including weight training, cardio activity, Pilates, walking, and hiking. We both have trainers we work out with at least once a week. We have pickleball paddles and hope to learn how to play this game that has swept across America and is attracting all ages, not just seniors.

Dan Kinney Family Center, Springfield, MO

We are fortunate to live in a community that offers ample opportunities for indoor and outdoor recreational activities. Our city and county have an excellent trail system for walking, hiking, and biking. Some of the trails connect to surrounding towns. We have a nature conservation area, a botanical garden, a historical landmark park, and several outdoor green spaces with hiking trails, paved walkways, creeks, and ponds.

Because we are both over age 60, we get an extra benefit through our local park board in the form of a deep discount on membership at their fitness centers. We can reach the one closest to our house in about ten minutes. This family center has a multi-use court for pickleball, basketball, volleyball, children’s inflatable bounce houses, and group exercise programs like SilverSneakers. There is a walking track on the second floor that circles the court. There is an outdoor paved walking track too. The center is equipped with a wide variety of dumbbells, weight machines, treadmills, bikes, ellipticals, stair steppers, and much more. The center also has meeting space and separate rooms for small classes and individual training.

We are making a concerted effort to exercise several times a week, with two days of weights, at least one day of cardio, and 2-3 days of alternate activity like walking or Pilates. We live in a subdivision that is great for walking. If possible, we also try to include exercise as part of our daily routine when we travel, taking advantage of hotel and condo fitness rooms or just walking nearby trails or in neighborhoods. We look for public gardens, arboretums, and greenways for walking too. When we are away from home for extended periods of time, we purchase a temporary membership at a fitness center so we can maintain our weight and cardio routines.

Hiking has always been a favorite activity for both of us, even before we met and got married. I have written about our hiking adventures a few times in this blog. When we travel, we look for fun and scenic places to hike. Phoenix, the Sonoran Desert, San Francisco, Lake Erie, Joshua Tree National Park, Yosemite, Mount Hood, and various locations in the Ozarks and Appalachia are just a few places we have hiked. We have walked or hiked in temperatures from 13 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, in light rain and sunshine, and in all four seasons.

Sometimes it’s not easy to get motivated, but we know we need to keep moving, strengthen our core, develop and maintain muscle tone, protect our bones, keep our hearts healthy, and improve our balance. Robert Pagliarini makes a valid point to keep in mind in his badass book on retirement. “The most important asset you have is your health, but knowing what to do when it comes to nutrition, supplements, and fitness feels like a moving target for a good reason. If there is one area that changes more than any other, it’s health.” Medical professionals agree that exercise is essential to staying healthy, and we intend on staying as healthy as possible as we age. After all, we’ve got places to go, people to see, things to do!

Walking In Memory of Autumn

November 14, 2020 ~ If You Want My Opinion ~ 4 Comments

A ten-year study conducted by Paul Williams and Paul Thompson published in 2013 concluded that brisk walking several times a week can significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, heart failure, and dementia. No weightlifting, jumping jacks, or push-ups required – just a fast-paced walk. Furthermore, individuals who do exercise regularly in other ways can still benefit just the same from walking. That magic 10,000-step-a-day threshold that our Fitbits remind us about daily was reinforced by another ten-year study completed in 2015 that demonstrated how meeting that daily goal can lower risk of death by 46%.

Honestly, we all know we need to move to stay healthy. A treadmill will do the job, but strolling five miles on a churning rubber belt is about as exciting as working in a meaningless profession from 9-5 every single day, which is why the treadmill analogy works so well for those circumstances. The good news is, no matter where we live, there are usually at least a few good options outdoors to pack in several miles of vigorous walking when the weather permits. Local nature trails, state and national parks, city and county recreation areas, national forests, greenways, river walks, and so many other options are available to us if we are serious about staying healthy.

What if we live in a big city? Well, there are typically public parks and gardens with paved trails for walking. We can even map out a “trail” in our boroughs, neighborhoods, or suburbs. However, there is another great space for walking that we should always remember – cemeteries. True enough, most of us don’t exactly consider walking among gravestones to be a source of happiness, but take into consideration the design, maintenance, and accessibility of cemeteries. They can be quite beautiful. Most major cities have several of them, and they may be even larger than parks and recreation areas.

Obviously, people tend to have an emotional connection to cemeteries where friends and family are buried, which means that they usually support them through political influence, volunteer hours, and donations. In this sense, cemeteries are beneficiaries of charity in much the same way churches and hospitals are. Through their function as spaces of “eternal rest” for the departed and places for contemplation and memories for those left behind, cemeteries have evolved into sanctuaries characterized by creative architecture, landscaping, and gardening.

Acre for acre, we are hard-pressed to find more diversity of trees, shrubs, and other plantings in urban areas than what cemeteries contain. Many of them have water features, bridges, statues, prayer gardens, chapels, gazebos, and special monuments and memorials. The older they are, the more character they have developed. They are rich repositories of history and genealogy. Cemeteries speak volumes about a community’s past and the promise of its future.

This autumn I decided to take a walk in one of the cemeteries where we currently live in Springfield, Missouri. Maple Park Cemetery dates to 1876 when a group of local businessmen established it on a 31-acre tract where an old fairground was once located. Some of the city’s most prominent citizens are interred there. One of the most famous people buried in Maple Park is known not by his own merit but by how he met his end. David Tutt was killed on the square in downtown Springfield by Wild Bill Hickok.

Maple Park gets its name because of an abundance of the species, which according to early newspaper accounts were growing on the property when the cemetery was first established. Because Maple Park is almost 150 years old, there is an interesting variety of grave markers and mausoleums. There is also a wonderful mixture of mature and young trees of many different species, which put on a spectacular show in autumn months.

Many of us drive for hours to visit mountains and valleys to see fall leaves on a grand scale, but Maple Park Cemetery offers a chance to see those brilliant yellow, orange, and red trees in a setting that is peaceful and even reverent. My walk among the memorial markers under the canopies of color helped me appreciate how wonderful it is to still be moving, how the turning of the seasons is a perfect metaphor for our lives, and how precious beauty is because it is so brief.

A Wooded Path

April 8, 2015August 5, 2015 ~ If You Want My Opinion ~ Leave a comment

If you like hiking, or simply taking a walk on a nature trail, the state parks and national forests in north Georgia are some of the best places to enjoy this activity. The state of Georgia does a fine job, with dwindling resources I am quick to add, with the access to natural resources it provides through the state park system. The trails vary in length and difficulty levels to accommodate almost any age and degree of fitness. Most parks have trails that are wheelchair accessible. The diversity of flora and fauna in the southern Appalachia is unmatched anywhere in the U.S. There are very few weeks out of the year where the weather makes outdoor exploration uncomfortable here. I have spent many hours wandering mountain paths through densely wooded countryside and have always come away restored.

Visit Georgia State Parks website

View from Black Rock Mountain State Park visitor center