Web Version - Drum Workshop

GEARING UP
for the
eil peart writes about
N his preparations for
Rush’s Clockwork Angels tour,
launching in September, 2012.
During the mixing of our Clockwork
Angels album in January, 2012, Alex and
Geddy and I started making plans for the
upcoming tour. The first show would not
be until September, but after thirty-eight
years as a touring band our musical and
visual presentations have grown ever
more elaborate. The staging, lighting, and
effects are enhanced by rear-screen films
that lend much drama and comedy, and
these ambitious productions take time to
prepare.
Similarly, our live show is always
highly demanding physically, as we, and
our audiences, naturally tend to prefer
our most energetic and hard-hitting songs
for the concert stage. As the one who has
to do that hard hitting, my physical state
also requires some preparation. The ideal
timing for me is when tour rehearsals
follow a winter season of cross-country
skiing and snowshoeing, or a summer of
swimming and rowing. Those are natural
and enjoyable ways to build one’s stamina.
However, the seasons did not so
converge this time. I knew I would be
facing the most physically demanding
Rush tour ever, and I would be turning
sixty as the tour got underway. So in
February, while we were still mixing, I
began visiting my local Y three times a
week, and continued that fairly religiously
for the next four months.
A twenty-minute bicycle ride across
town, with my workout gear stuffed
into a backpack, is a decent warm-up.
Changing at the lockers, I trade the helmet
for a bandana, to keep the sweat out of
my eyes (the same purpose as the hats I
wear while drumming). My first ritual is a
thirty-minute session on the cross-training
ROAD
A
machine, where I ease into something like
the rhythm of cross-country skiing (though
without the pretty setting). Keeping a
fast, steady pace against a fairly high
resistance, I raise my heart-rate to near
my recommended maximum, and keep it
there.
A row of those machines, along with
treadmills and other types of ellipticals,
overlooks the pool, and I often seem to be
there when a geriatric water aerobics class
is underway. It is not exciting to watch. I
just keep pumping, and think my thoughts.
Some people like listening to music while
they exercise, but that has never worked
for me. It’s the same with motorcycling
and skiing — some like music along for
the ride, but I feel that those activities, like
music appreciation, are “exclusive” states
of mind, wanting no distractions. The only
activity I combine with music is driving,
because long trips by car are clearly made
for listening to music. For me, exercise
is an act of will, and not conducive to
listening, reading, or creative thinking.
So the time passes slowly. On the crosstrainer,
I watch the red LEDs displaying
time, distance, heart rate, calories burned,
and level of resistance, and rarely go as
long as a minute without checking the
clock’s achingly slow progress. I count
down each fraction of a minute, and each
fraction of the thirty minutes. “That’s one
fifth . . . that’s one third . . .”
One time I got into trying to see how
many sevens I could post on the screens
(I think I got up to six). Suffice to say, it’s
painfully tedious. It takes a huge effort
of will to get me there, and to push me
through my routine. But it works.
One morning I was grumbling about
going to the Y and my wife, Carrie, said,
“But you love the Y!”
I could only stare at her in disbelief.
How can a guy be so misunderstood?
I make myself go there, and feel good
A
by Neil Peart
for having done it — physically and
“morally” — but I do not love it. Quite the
contrary. I told Carrie, “If there were a pill
I could take that made me feel the way I
do after exercising, I would take that pill
instead.”
After thirty minutes I am well pumped
and sweated, and I go to the mats for
a program of yoga and calisthenics.
Back in 2000, when I first moved to Los
Angeles, I combined my Y workouts with
yoga classes several times a week, and I
believe the effect was enduring, keeping
me balanced and flexible and preventing
injury.
Since then I have incorporated the
most useful poses and transitions into my
own workouts. Standing on the mat, I do
a series of neck and shoulder rolls, then
work through the standing poses of the Sun
Salutations, holding each pose for a count
of twenty Mississippis. I especially like
one of the Warrior poses, standing on one
foot (gaze fixed on a distant point) with the
other leg held back by its matching hand
and stretching everything in that direction.
Triangle is nice too. Lunges not so much
— but, they feel...worthwhile. Then
Downward Dog into Plank, and Upward
Dog, each for that count of twenty Old
Man Rivers, three times around — a flow
of motion and pose called a vinyasa.
(Lately I avoid pushups, as I do heavy
weights, because they expose weaknesses
— like a long-ago fall while skiing that
remains vulnerable to over-exertion of my
left shoulder). Then a few sitting stretches,
all adding up to about twenty minutes.
Next, bent-knee situps on the board,
inclined upward. I think twenty-five or so
is good (because I’ve had enough by then).
My brother, Danny, is a personal
trainer by profession, and over the years
I have often consulted him about my
workouts. With the weight machines,
Danny counseled me to alternate muscle
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