Cool under pressure: Why sports are better than exercise

I was swimming at my athletic club the other day when I saw a woman on the second floor running on a treadmill and watching CNN. I always think that’s a weird thing to do. Like, would that make you less stressed or more stressed?

I mean, what fun is running on a treadmill? All that pounding on your knee joints. And for what? And then you’re watching TV? That can’t be good for your mental health.

Plus, it’s good mental health to be on a team. Doing something that involves skill, coordination, and strategy ... doing it with your team, against another team.

But you always see that in gyms. Thirty-something women running on the treadmill. Guys too. Guys who don’t like sports but know they’re supposed to “stay active.”

So they run on the treadmill. Their wife does it. Their co-workers do it. People on TV do it. So they do it.

I’ve been in that upstairs area. There’s a weight room too. That also seems weird to me. Lifting weights. Dudes sitting in front of a mirror, admiring themselves doing arm curls.

Not that swimming laps is much better. But I’m in my 60s. I’ve reached that age where I have to go easy. And at least it’s quiet and peaceful in the pool. It’s meditative. And no CNN.

The shape I'm in

Growing up in Oregon, I never saw a real gym. Not like you see in movies, with the grime and the sweat and the old guy with the broken nose.

In the suburbs of Portland, we had weight rooms in our high school gyms. I guess that counts. I remember bench-pressing 150 lbs once, during football season. That was considered good at the time, for someone of my small size and weight.

At college, in Connecticut, I played in alternative rock bands. Music and sports didn’t really mix in the 1980s. So if you were in a band, you wanted to avoid any overt “jock” behavior.

Still, at one point, I joined the local YMCA so I could “stay in shape.” I don’t remember why I did that. I was 20 years old. How “out of shape” could I get?

That was my first urban gym experience. I went there and swam and shot baskets, by myself mostly. Then I ventured into the mysterious steam room.

During the day, most of the patrons of the local Y were older black men. So it would be me and a bunch of white-haired black guys, sitting there in the dense steam fog, sweating into our towels.

Coffee and cigarettes

After that, I enrolled at NYU, where I began my career as a writer. This began a long period when I didn’t think about my health or my physical fitness at all.

I became a coffee and cigarettes person, which kept me slim and trim. I worked in nightclubs for a couple of years. I got pasty. I got pale. But that was good. I was the right age for that look.

It wasn’t until I’d sold my first novel at 32 and moved to Los Angeles that I once again signed up for some physical exercise. I joined the Hollywood YMCA.

Playing with 'the big kids'

There, I planned on swimming laps, maybe shooting some baskets, but within a week, I was playing in pickup basketball with out-of-work actors and recently fired movie producers. There were also some very talented ex-high school and college players in these games. So the competition was sometimes intense.

But that’s what I needed. Competition. I didn’t have the discipline to swim laps in my 30s. I needed something to get my blood flowing.

Those pickup games became the highlight of my week. Since I wasn’t a great basketball player, every time I was on the court, I had to hustle to make myself useful. It was like being a little kid again. Playing with the big kids.

Some of those guys could really play. In many cases, if I could do anything positive in a game, it was an accomplishment. And then I’d walk home along Hollywood Boulevard, glowing with excitement and satisfaction.

Swimming in it

Eventually, at age 37, I ended up back in New York, living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Whenever physical fitness came up, people would talk about the Williamsburg pool.

So I signed up and started going there. It was a public pool and not the cleanest. At times, it would get super crowded. The good news was that Williamsburg was the coolest neighborhood in the world at that time (late 1990s).

So even at the public pool, there were interesting people around. Hipsters, weirdos, indie-rock stars, trust fund bohemians — a true cast of characters!

A young man's game

And then I learned to surf in my 40s, and that changed everything. I would never have to join another YMCA or a gym or a pool again. Or so I thought. Surfing took care of all your physical fitness needs. If you surfed regularly, you were in the best shape of your life, all the time.

Unfortunately, surfing is a young man’s game. It can become genuinely life-threatening in the big, brutal surf of the Oregon coast where I live now. I’ve had to cut way back and limit myself to only the mildest surf days.

Team player

So now I’m playing in a senior softball league, which has been great fun. Competitive sports, to me, are always preferable to just working out.

Basketball, softball, volleyball, whatever. Competition creates adrenaline. Adrenaline cleans out your body and clears your head. And generates testosterone, if you’re worried about that.

Plus, it’s good mental health to be on a team. Doing something that involves skill, coordination, and strategy ... doing it with your team, against another team ... what could be more fun than that? And better for you. Much healthier than staring at your biceps in a mirror.

Of course, being older, I can’t go super hard. That’s why senior softball is a good fit. But even senior softball involves speed, skill, split-second decisions, and physical dexterity under pressure.

That might be the most important thing of all: a chance to be cool under pressure. There’s nothing that elevates your confidence and self-esteem like calmly making a key play in a crucial situation. And you can’t do that at a spin cycle class.

In my opinion, exercise with no goal, no sense of victory or defeat, no risk, no danger, no moment of truth where you either make the play or you don’t ... to me that’s just moving your body around. It doesn’t enrich your life.

Old joy

But yeah, I’m in my 60s now. So I’m back in the pool, back in the hot tub, trying to soothe my joints and ease my stiff muscles between softball games. I sweat in the steam room. Now, I’m the old white-haired guy.

But I have to say, I never feel frustrated with my aging body or the physical limitations that seem to come faster and quicker as you age.

The main thing I think about is how lucky I have been. And all the joy I’ve experienced from sports and exercise and the thrill of competition.