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Kurt Browning lifting weights to keep fit

Source: Edmonton Sun
Date: May 7, 2015
Author: Cary Castagna
Favourable genetics and an active lifestyle only take you so far, Kurt Browning has discovered.

That's why the Canadian figure skating icon did something last fall that he's never done before: He started lifting weights under the tutelage of a personal trainer.

"I haven't honestly in my whole life really ever had a fitness trainer before," Browning, 48, tells Keeping Fit by phone last week from Halifax, prior to the kickoff of the 25th anniversary cross-Canada tour of Stars on Ice.

The four-time world champ and four-time Canadian champ is working with Mary-Danielle Cifelli, a veteran trainer with The Sports Medicine Specialists in Toronto.

And over the last several months, she has helped Browning alleviate the chronic back pain that has plagued him for many years.

"My lower back has always been a problem. It was a big problem when I was 24, 25, competing and trying to win worlds," he recalls.

"I slipped disks, I had a fracture in my spine, all sorts of things. I thought it was just something I was going to have to live with."

But Browning, who turns 49 next month, says Cifelli has him on a "very specific" resistance training regimen that includes plenty of back exercises such as king deadlifts.

"I didn't really think it was going to work," he admits. "I thought it was going to make me feel worse - a lot of weightlifting, but not heavy. If you're looking at me in the corner doing my workout, you're not seeing anything impressive. It's about quality and it's about very specific muscle that we're trying to work."

Besides his lower back, Browning's knees have also been a target of his training program.

"Mary-Danielle has been really good working with my physiotherapist (Marla Pichler), as well, coming up with a program that's super-specific to try to equalize my body," he adds.

"With it comes more strength around my knees and more support in my core."

Perhaps the biggest telltale sign of his improved mobility is the reduced amount of time his socks now stay on the floor in the morning.

"I get out of bed and I bend down and I pick them up," he chuckles. "Whereas, for the past few years, I waited until 10:30 to get those socks or I got into a hot tub of water first … so that has been a big change in my life."

Prior to last fall, Browning didn't spend a lot of time in the gym. When he did go, it was "for fun - kind of" and he would make up the exercises as he went along.

The Alberta native and Ontario resident figures he's been lucky when it comes to keeping fit.

These days, Browning weighs an athletic 148 pounds at five-foot-seven - a mere four pounds more than he weighed at the 1988 Olympics in Calgary.

"I think it's just mom and dad," he reasons. "They gave me good genes."

Browning also inherited a penchant for physicality, which he routinely expressed away from the competitive confines of the rink.

"Everything I did for fun when I was competing was physical, like 50-mile-long bike rides or playing soccer," he recalls. "Even if we went to the park to have a beer, it was throwing a football while we had the beer, and then running. And I don't mean just standing still and talking. We were running and long passes. And that was 45 minutes straight and coming back sweaty. Everything I did for fun was physical. It's just who I was."

And it's who he still is.

Although, as 50 approaches, Browning admits he feels his body is starting to slow down.

The Stars on Ice headliner, director and choreographer doesn't seem entirely certain whether he'll skate next season.

"I don't know if this is my last year, but 25 is such a nice round number for my anniversary with Stars on Ice that maybe I'll consider this summer changing my pro skating lifestyle and really pulling back," he reveals.

Either way, his new fitness regimen will be a constant.

In fact, Browning hints that he may even give yoga and Pilates a whirl in the near future.

"I always told myself that when I get off the ice, I have to stay in shape," he explains.

"I have to get up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, ‘Here's someone that's attacking life and not letting life attack you.' That's the person I want to be."

Stars on Ice visits 12 Canadian cities this month, including Edmonton's Rexall Place on May 16 and Calgary's Scotiabank Saddle-dome on May 17, before wrapping up at Vancouver's Rogers Arena on May 21.