In 2026 choose kindness over fitness extremes

Steve Lopez, Tribune News Service

One day my left foot hurt for no good reason. I stood up to shake off the pain and tweaked my right Achilles tendon, so I headed for the medicine cabinet, bent over like an ape because of a stiff back. Actually, I lied. It wasn't one day. It's pretty much every day. None of this is severe or serious, and I'm not complaining at the age of 72. I'm just wondering. Are my exercise routines, which were meant to keep me from falling apart, slowing my demise, or accelerating it? What better time than the start of a new year to get an answer? In one poll, the top New Year's resolution for 2026 is exercising more. Also among the top six resolutions are eating healthier, improving physical health and losing weight, so good luck to all you dreamers, and I hope you last longer than I have with similar resolutions.

Instead of a resolution, I have a goal, which is to find a sweet spot — if there is one — between exercise and pain. Maybe I'm asking too much. I've had two partial knee replacements, I've got a torn posterior cruciate ligament, a scar tissue knob on a frayed Achilles tendon, a hideously pronated left foot, a right shoulder that feels like it needs an oil change, and a pacemaker that keeps on ticking. But I decided to get some expert advice that might be useful for anyone who has entered this glorious phase of life in which it's possible to pull a muscle while taking a nap, or pinch a nerve in your neck while brushing your teeth.

And I knew just whom to call. Cedars-Sinai orthopedic surgeon Robert Klapper hosts an ESPN radio show called "Weekend Warrior." This lab-coated Renaissance man, a surfer and sculptor in his spare time, also weighs in regularly on the radio with "Klapper Vision" — clear-eyed takes on all manner of twisted, pulled and broken body parts suffered by elite athletes and banged-up buzzards like me. On "Weekend Warrior," Klapper might be talking about knee replacement surgery one minute, segue to Michelangelo's rendering of the human form, and then insist that a sandwich is not a sandwich without peperoncini. It isn't necessarily all connected, but it doesn't matter. When I emailed Klapper about my aches and pains, he responded immediately to say he's written one book on hips, another on knees and a third one is in the works with the following title:

"Stop Exercising, You're Killing Yourself." No, he's not saying you should never get off the sofa. In a phone conversation and later at his office, Klapper said the subtitle is going to be, "Let Me Explain." He's making a point about what kind of exercise is harmful and what kind is helpful, particularly for people in my age group. My daily routine, I told him, involves a two-mile morning walk with my dog followed by 30 minutes of swimming laps or riding a stationary bike. So far, so good. But I also play pickleball twice a week. "Listen, I make a living from pickleball now," Klapper said. "Exercise is wonderful, but it comes in two flavors."

One is nurturing, which he calls "agercise" for my demographic. The other is abusive, and one of Klapper's examples is pickleball. With all its starts and stops, twists and turns, reaches and lunges, pickleball is busting the Medicare bank, with a few hundred million dollars' worth of injuries each year. I know. The game looks pretty low key, although it was recently banned in Carmel-by-the-Sea because of all the racket. I had no idea, when I first picked up a paddle, that there'd be so much ice and ibuprofen involved, not to mention the killer stares from retirees itching for a chance to drill you in the sternum with a hot laser.

"This is a sport which has the adrenaline rushing in every 50-year-old, 60-year-old, 80-year-old," Klapper told me in his office, which is the starting point in his joint replacement factory. The walls are covered with photos of star athletes and A-list Hollywood celebrities he's operated on. "I see these patients, but they're not coming to me with acute injuries. They didn't snap their Achilles tendon ... like they do in tennis. They're not snapping their ACL like they are in pickup basketball," Klapper said. "They're coming to me saying, 'My shoulder is killing me, my knee is killing me.' "

Pickleball has obvious conditioning benefits for every age group. But it can also worsen arthritis and accelerate joint degeneration, Klapper said, particularly for addicts who play several times a week. Not that he's the first MD to suggest that as you age, walking, cycling and swimming are easier on your body than higher-impact activities. As one doctor said in an AARP article on joint care and the benefits of healthy eating, watching your weight and staying active, "the worst thing you can do with osteoarthritis after 50 is be sedentary." Still, I thought Klapper might tell me to stop pickling, but he didn't. "Pickleball is more than a sport to you ... and all of your compadres," he said. "It's mental. You need it because of the stress. The world's falling apart.... I want you to play it, but I want you to do the nurturing exercises so you can do the abuse." There's no fountain of youth, Klapper said, but the closest thing is a swimming pool. OK, but I already swim three times a week.

Klapper had different ideas. "You need to be walking forward and backwards for half an hour," he said. Do that three times a week, he told me, and ride a stationary bike three times.

Why the water walking? "We as humans take over a million steps a year. Forget pickleball, just in ... daily living," Klapper said, so I'm well beyond 72 million steps. "Think about that," he said. Do I have to? Water walking will develop muscles and joints without the stress of my full weight, and that could "optimize" my pickleball durability and general fitness, Klapper said. Buoyancy and the touch of water on skin are magic, he said, but there's science involved too.

"It's hard to move your arms and legs and your body through water, and yet it's unloading the joint," Klapper said. "And finally — and this is the real X factor — when you close your eyes and straighten your elbow and bend your elbow, straighten your knee and bend your knee ... your brain knows where your limbs are in space." This is called proprioception, Klapper said. Receptors in your skin, muscles, ligaments and tendons send messages to your brain, leading to better balance, coordination and agility and potentially reducing risk of injury.

There are lots of exercises for sharpening proprioception, but the surfing doctor is partial to bodies of water. At my age, he said, my proprioception "batteries are running low," but I can recharge them with a short break from pickleball and a focus on the pool. "You can't guarantee anything in life and medicine," Klapper said. "But I guarantee you, a month into it, you're going to feel so much better than you do at this moment." It's worth a try, and I'll let you know how it goes. In the pool and on the court.