Townsend Letter for Doctors
Jump Your Way to Health & Fitness
Doctor Recommended Home Workout with Rebounders
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Dr. Walker has established himself as a major author in the self-help and holistic health fields. He is an award-winning professional medical writer, having over fifty books to his credit, as well as over 1000 magazine articles. He is a highly sought after lecturer and appears on TV and radio shows. |
In the spring of 1981, 28-year old Samuel J. Kofsky of Manchester, New Hampshire, a Ph.D. candidate attending the School of Economics at Dartmouth University, lay in a Hanover, New Hampshire hospital room, recovering from the surgical excision of an apparent cyst. Soon after the operation, his surgeon and an oncologist entered the room and walked hesitantly to the foot of the patient’s bed. The surgeon said, “Sam, I don’t want to shock you, but our hospital pathology department reports that your biopsy shows you have a connective tissue cancer. It’s a rare form of fibrosarcoma, which develops suddenly from small bumps on the skin like what I thought was your cyst. Sam, I’m sorry to tell you that there’s an 80% chance it will take your life within four years.”
The oncologist had come along to confirm the young man’s diagnosis and prognosis. Then he suggested further treatment.
Soon Sam Kofsky found himself faced with daily radiation therapy and then intravenous chemotherapy which the late Senator Hubert H. Humphrey had once referred to during a TV interview as “bottled death!” For graduate student it was devastating treatment routine. He felt that his body being assaulted, burned, and poisoned.
To sustain himself through chemotherapy, and to believe that he was doing something positive to help himself, Mr. Kofsky took up exercise of the aerobic type. Aerobics is the steady state of exercising which, when performed over a period of months or years, develops the cardiopulmonary system’s ability to take in and utilize more oxygen. This elevated amount of “oxygen uptake” increases cellular metabolism of oxygen molecules as nutrients. Besides competitive team sports such as football, basketball, racquetball and tennis, aerobic exercises include speed walking, running, sustained jogging, swimming, rowing, bicycle riding, calisthenics performed in a specific time frame, and rope jumping.
As it happens, Mr. Kofsky became intrigued with rebounding, which is similar to jumping rope except that it’s performed on a kind of mini-trampoline (see Photograph 1 on the next page). Since the jumping surface of a rebounding device has cushioning spring to it, any jarring to one’s ankle joints, knees, and back is removed. While rebounding, too, a person can work out outdoors or indoors and simultaneously speak on the telephone, watch television, listen to music, and do other things. Jumping on the mini-trampoline is the ultimate aerobic exercise able to be performed anywhere, even in hotel rooms with a carryon, foldable-type rebounding device As he was being treated with toxic chemicals, Mr. Kofsky engaged in rebounding for his health several hours every day, including 60 minutes before breakfast, lunch and dinner. Whenever possible, he carried his rebounding device out-of-doors to bound under the trees. Also he ate a nutritious diet, took supplements, and engaged in other exercises for diversity. At regular intervals he swam a full mile at the local health club, furiously punched the heavy bag, and ran a consistent six-minute mile over a ten-mile course. His weight plummeted 36 pounds from a high of 193 not from cancer, but from his strenuous amount of daily exercising.