Cover version
Wearing a mask used to mean that you probably were pretending to be the Lone Ranger or, in another generation, Jim Carrey.
Obviously, I don’t have to explain what changed.
Just as obviously, it’s not great. I’d prefer not to have to strap something to my face when I’m about to enter a public building.
I certainly don’t enjoy having to talk to people through a layer or two of cloth, or to try to hear what they’re saying to me. As much as I should have listened to my mom, I’ll admit that blasting loud music hasn’t helped my ears.
But I wear the darn things. I want to stay healthy. By extension, I want members of my family to stay healthy. And I certainly don’t want folks I encounter worrying about me potentially spreading something their way.
In the grand scheme, I really shouldn’t be complaining at all. Plenty of people are obligated to wear their masks for much more sustained periods than most of us, and that includes situations in which you wouldn’t think it was all that possible.
During a post-reopening visit this summer to the Spencer Family in YMCA in Bethel Park, I talked with healthy living director JoAnn Guilfoil while she was conducting a personal-training session. She told me that, while clients have the option of not wearing a mask during workouts, the trainers don’t.
So, how can you possible do all of that with your face covered?
I decided to find out firsthand.
For half an hour, which can seem like a really long time under the circumstances, JoAnn led me through a series of exercises that are good for a whole bunch of muscles, from the chest and back to all those ‘ceps.
“What I normally do is introduce you to simple elements that maybe you forgot about,” she told me as we got started, adding something that I hadn’t heard in decades:
“So, you look like you’re kind of physically fit.”
Unfortunately, JoAnn couldn’t see the wideness of my smile under my mask.
I continued to grin as she put on a “classic rock” type of playlist, giving me the opportunity to work out to songs that were popular back in the ’70s, when I actually was in really good shape.
We went through the likes of steps, squats and an interesting exercise of lifting a weighted ball over my head and then bringing it forcefully downward. Seems like a good way to work off a lot of frustration.
Speaking of which …
Back in the aforementioned decade of pet rocks and Jimmy Carter, I could do dozens of pushups at a time, some of them with just one hand.
In the decade of COVID-19, that number turns out to be a whole lot fewer. As in, fewer than one.
But all in all, I think I hung in there pretty well, considering that my usually dose of daily exercise the occasional walk upstairs for a handful of peanut-butter pretzels. I did break a sweat after a while, and I did start breathing heav …
Holy smokes! The whole purpose of the workout with JoAnn was to do so while wearing a mask. But to be honest, I didn’t really think about it. I was too focused on following her instructions while trying to live up to her “kind of physically fit” observation.
In other words, I survived.
That doesn’t mean I want to wear a mask 24/7, or even for one second. I liked the way everything was the first 57-plus years of my life, and I’m like everyone else in hoping the world returns to that scenario as soon as possible.
But I know that when I have to, I can.