On the Importance of Exercise in the Age of Grad School (A Case Study in Tennis Lessons)

Oh grad school. You take away many things from me: a social life, feelings of self-worth, sleep, my sanity… But you also take away something else from me – time to exercise. Now, this is not to say that this is a grad-school-centered phenomenon and if I wasn’t in grad school this problem would magically disappear. For sure, there are things that we all do that keep us from really spending time in the gym, in the yard, or just taking a walk around the neighborhood. There are very few of us who can say that we lead lives that truly have hours a day left completely open for exercise. Yet, as much as we hate to admit it, of the things that we can and do make time for in our day-to-day lives, exercise should be one of them.

These thoughts come from the tennis lesson that I had today. I have to say that I love tennis. Summer makes me happy because it’s the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open in about a span of 3 months. I get giddy =P. So, when I found myself on the beach with one of the highest rated tennis clubs in the South right down the street, I figured I’d take advantage and fit in a lesson from a pro.


Now, although I love tennis, I have to say that I’m at best highly mediocre. Factor in that I haven’t played more than once in almost a year, and I’m sure that I’m even less than decent at this point. That being said, I’ve always found that, at least for me, tennis is one of those sports where simply the more time you spend playing, the better you will get. Drills and such surely help if you know someone who can help you out, but repetition will be enough for your average recreational player.

In order to really get back into the game though, I thought it would be a horrible terrific idea to spend an hour doing drills with a pro to work on my shot consistency. Did he have some good advice? Definitely. He reminded me of things that I already knew a bit and showed me some things that I didn’t. I got a good reminder on getting under the ball and using topspin to keep it in the court – something I already knew – along with making sure to bend ze knees for more power. One of the things he showed me was that I wasn’t getting all the way around the ball when I was hitting it. Of course, I was being a bit lazy and keeping a bit of an open stance when hitting. This basically kept me from getting much power on the ball, even with bent knees. If you can’t swing around with it, much like baseball, where is the power going to come from? So, all of that being said, he definitely helped my game.


What wasn’t useful was my bright idea to schedule the lesson at 1 p.m. in the afternoon on an 80-something degree South Carolina day. Thank God for ocean breezes. Moreover, I haven’t worked out in about the same amount of time as I haven’t played tennis – about a year. And the latter is what really got me. At my weight, I’m already stressing my heart. Throw in intense aerobic exercise out in the heat with a huge stress on my core and it’s a recipe for disaster. And a disaster it was. After the first set of drills I was already having trouble catching my breath and my heart was pounding – probably over 180bpm. When you hit over 200bpm, you’re really at a point where you’re overtaxing yourself. 160 is supposed to be a really good aerobic range. If only I could have been there. Oy. Instead, even after taking about 8 or 10 minutes to slow down and get somewhat back to normal, the next set of drills killed me in about half the time. Flash forward and I had to take another break before really getting too far into the third set of drills and inevitably ended the lesson about 10 minutes early. Sure, that gave us plenty of time to pick up the balls littering the court, but it was more because I was completely spent than anything.

Now, although it was definitely intense and it was hot outside, to be so completely drained after about 45 minutes is not a good thing, especially when I was taking 5 or 10 minute breaks every 15 minutes. After already being on high-anxiety mode over other perceived health problems this summer (note that I said perceived – thanks existential crisis for sending me to near-hypochondria land), the fact is that my blood pressure is high, especially for someone my age. There were times were being on the tennis court was almost more painful than enjoyable.

Given all of that, I have resolved to join the gym near my apartment when I get back. Why I haven’t before is mostly a mystery. The sad part is that the gym is literally a block away. There is zero to no excuse why I shouldn’t be able to take advantage of it. What it comes down to is that the heart is a muscle and it needs to get a good workout. The more important thing is that it’s the little muscle that is pretty essential to life. Sure we can’t really do without any of our organs (save for that pesky appendix or one of those flakey kidneys or that gallbladder thing that I hear about once in a while), but we can’t really work out the others either, save for maybe the brain. That is to say, you can’t work out your liver to make it work better (contrary to many of my college friends’ who were in fraternities beliefs). There are of course things you can do to keep from harming those other organs, but the heart is unique in that exercise will decrease risk of heart disease, lower your blood pressure, and really increase it’s quality of functioning. Isn’t that worth it?


Coming from a family that has a history of diabetes and heart disease, I have always told myself that I wouldn’t let myself fall into that trap. And yet, here we are: I’m 22 years old, far overweight at 250, and bordering on being clinically diagnosed with high blood pressure. I refuse to let that happen. Instead, I will make the effort to get myself back to being someone that can be happy with. After all, there are cosmetic reasons for wanting to lose weight as well. Let’s face it, gay guys can be quite superficial (not to stereotype, but hey, the stereotype has to come from somewhere). Of course, exercise isn’t the only key to losing the weight and increasing overall health. That comes from diet as well, which certainly can’t be ignored. The first step, though, is making all of this habit. I’ve talked up a big game, and I hope I can live up to it.