Add some life to your years

As my 4-year-old son approached his fifth birthday, I asked him what he wanted to do on the big day. He replied, ‘‘I just want to go up the mountain, go snowboarding and hold hands with you, Daddy!’’

So, we climbed Mt Taranaki that early June, found a slab of snow, borrowed a small snowboard, and my son carved his first few turns. The following year, we made it up Mt Hutt with his sister – the first of our family snowboarding holidays had begun.

Sixteen years later, plus a few continents and a snowboard instructor qualification under his belt, my son joins me back at Mt Hutt to carve a few more turns.

The only time he holds my hand now is to pull me out of a drift of snow down south, or out of a tree well in the Northern Hemisphere. It didn’t take long for him to overtake me in skill and speed and now I am approaching 60 years old it, is getting harder to keep up.

This season I decided to do some prep by spending more time on my bike and at the gym – cardio, squats, bike and strength work – before hitting the slopes. Even just a month of training has made significant improvements.

Instead of feeling like an ageing man going backwards, my turns are sharper, my endurance longer, my rests less frequent. It’s nice to hear your son say, ‘‘That’s the best boarding you have done, Dad’’. Although I amsure his politeness is all his mother’s training, his praise adds some spring to my step and helps me try harder.

Getting fit also helps with the apres snowboarding events, when we catch up with old university mates and their kids over dinner and reminisce about our own student days, hitchhiking up the mountain with borrowed gear and legs that felt like steel springs.

Investing time with your children and time training so you can keep up with them as you age are important factors in wellbeing.

Whether it’s a skifield, a bushwalk, kicking a ball or in our case surfing, the family who plays together, stays together.

As we age, we lose muscle like it’s going out of fashion so strength and conditioning are vital to maintain muscle mass, proprioception and flexibility. Proprioception is how our brains knows where our bones are in space and time. Receptors in joints and muscle fibres send signals to the counter muscles that can pull you back from the brink of a fall.

Falling is not what you want to do on a skifield, a wave, or your front porch. Falls are the leading cause of injury-related death in people aged 65-plus and the most common injury presentation to emergency departments. A third of people over 65 years old will fall in a year and if you fall once, you are three times more likely to fall again.

Exercising with your kids or grandchildren has physical, mental and spiritual benefits that are exponential.

Exercise will add years to your SUPPLIED life and life to your years.

As I sit here late at night writing this, I look forward to another day up the hill tomorrow with sunny skies, fresh snow and the view of the Canterbury Plains I have seen many times.

With the right preparation and planning, I hope to see many more days with my kids in my very happy place. What’s your happy place?