Fight Your Way Back To Fit By Training Like Djokovic

A harsh reality check at the doctor's office led one writer to a revelation. The only way to get healthy was to become the No. 1 tennis player in the world.

- Joe Posnanski

Almost a year ago, I went to see the doctor for my annual physical—what I have started to call my “OK, so what medicines do I have to take now?” visit—and the nurse took my blood pressure and said five words that you probably don’t want a nurse to say after taking your blood pressure: “Oh, this can’t be right.” It is possible, I suppose, that “Oh, this can’t be right” could be good news, as in, “Oh, this can’t be right because it’s so great.” But somewhere along the way, doctor’s visits stopped providing me with good news. The best I could hope for was news like, “Well, you’re no worse than last year.”

Anyway, she took my blood pressure again, and she looked at the numbers, and she didn’t say anything at all, but her face said, “Oh, this can’t be right.” And her feet said, “I need to go get the doctor this instant” because she bolted out of the room at the speed of a television ER nurse. Within a minute or so, the doctor was in there, and this time he wanted to take my blood pressure. He maintained a poker face, and said with the equanimity of a commercial pilot: “Well, we really need to get your blood pressure down.” He prescribed me some medicine that I was to pick up on the way home (“On the way home!” he repeated), and he told me to get a blood pressure machine, and didn’t say anything else during the examination.Before I left, though, he reiterated that I needed to get some blood pressure medicine immediately.