The Wall Street Journal - 21.10.2019

A14| Monday, October 21, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

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A

strong core is key to staying

active as we grow older, says

Tony Maloney, fitness center

manager of the National Institute

for Fitness and Sport in Indianap-

olis. In simplest terms, the core

can be defined as everything but

your arms and legs.

“Most people think core

means abs, but it also includes

your glutes, lats and trapezius,”

he says. When our core is weak,

we tend to rely on our spine to

support the body. This leads to

lower-back pain and unstable

movement, he says.

“All movement is generated

from the middle out, and motor

control and balance are directly

linked to our core strength,” he

says. “Older individuals with a

weak core often shuffle when

they walk, which leads to falls.”

You can build a stronger core

without a single sit-up. He sug-

gests standing on each foot for

10 to 15 seconds three to four

times. When that becomes easy,

balance on an unstable surface

like a pillow. Marching in place or

in motion and crawling with your

knees hovered off the ground are

also easy ways to build core

stability.

KeystoaCore

Curriculum

WHAT’S YOUR WORKOUT| JEN MURPHY

He’s Gone a

Long Way on

His Unicycle

LIFE & ARTS

Terry ‘UniGeezer’ Peterson rides

in Redondo Beach, Calif., top,

and Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.,

below right. He shows off his

unicycle collection at his home

workshop, bottom left.

beyond what

you would nor-

mally find,” the

restorer, Ros-

sella Lari said

at a news con-

ference pre-

senting the

painting, which

will be dis-

played in the museum of Santa

Maria Novella in Florence.

In the work, the apostles flank-

ing Jesus and John convey emo-

tion with their expressions and

hands, but less with their poses.

“In certain ways, it is a stiff pre-

sentation. It doesn’t have the flow

and energy of Leonardo’s ‘Last

Supper,’ ” said Dr. Judith W. Mann,

curator of European Art to 1800 at

the Saint Louis Art Museum in

Missouri. Yet Nelli “has a marvel-

ous eye for detail and it creates a

wonderful, engaging work of art.”

The story of Nelli’s rediscovery

dates from the 1990s, when Prof.

Nelson came across a pious work

written about her by another nun.

He organized a 1998 conference on

the artist at Georgetown Univer-

sity’s center in Fiesole, Italy, and

the scholarly papers it attracted

were published as a book.

Six years later, Jane Fortune, a

writer and philanthropist from In-

dianapolis, picked up a used copy

of the conference papers at an an-

tiques stall during a visit to Flor-

ence. The volume inspired Ms. For-

Rossella Lari, above, restoring Plautilla Nelli’s newly

unveiled ‘Last Supper,’ top, which was painted in the 1560s.

UNICYCLINGisn’t as trendy as

spin class, but Terry Peterson says

he sweats just as much and smiles

way more.

In 2006, at age 50, Mr. Peterson

was 30 pounds overweight and got

winded climbing a flight of stairs.

His job as a piano tuner in Lomita,

Calif., was mostly sedentary.

Popular workouts like running,

cycling and boot camp sounded

boring. “I needed something that

would constantly demand my at-

tention and keep me entertained,”

he says. He thought back to his

childhood unicycle, googled his old

toy and was wowed by online vid-

eos of Canadian off-road unicy-

cling pioneer Kris Holm. “This

wasn’t the cheap ride I had when I

was11,”hesays.“Hewasona

real, purpose-built unicycle doing

unreal tricks.”

Inspired and intrigued, he

bought a unicycle and was sur-

prised that he was able to hop

right back in the saddle. Unlike a

bike, you can’t coast. It took him

five months to get in good enough

cardiovascular shape to not stop

pedaling every 100 feet. After one

year, Mr. Peterson, who stands 5-

foot-11, went from 170 pounds to

145 pounds. “Uni is a natural won-

der drug,” he says. “It got my

heart, lungs and legs in shape.”

Now 63, Mr. Peterson has pro-

gressed from bike paths to rugged

mountain trails and is known for

his caped helmet emblazoned with

his nickname, UniGeezer. Based on

his GPS and bike computer, he es-

timates he’s logged nearly 30,

miles, or 24 million pedal revolu-

tions, since he started.

He thinks there’s a fear factor

“I love steep hill climbs,” he says.

“They really get your heart rate up,

as you don’t have gears. Even the

downhill is a workout, as you need

body control to manage your mo-

mentum. The smallest pebble can

throw you.” His steepest feat to

date is riding his unicycle up Los

Angeles’s Fargo Street, a long block

with an incline over 30%.

He heads to the mountains

around San Diego, Santa Barbara

or Moab, Utah, on weekends and

will log anywhere from 10 to 40

miles. He has completed 10 all-day

rides of 100 miles or more to raise

money for charity.

“Uni builds core and legs, but

doesn’t do much for my arms and

chest,” he says. “I’ve been thinking

about getting weights to build more

upper-body strength.” For now, he

compensates by doing chin-ups and

push-ups almost daily. His record is

35 chin-ups and 75 push-ups. He

also adds in sit-ups.

The Diet

Mr. Peterson is a pescatarian.

He eats oatmeal with a banana for

breakfast and occasionally adds

some egg whites. Lunch is his big-

gest meal of the day. Salmon with

whole wheat pasta or a big salad

are staples.

Dinner is often a veggie burger

with greens or a baked potato. He

avoids coffee and alcohol. Snacks

might be Greek yogurt or low-fat

cottage cheese and an apple. “I re-

move the skins to avoid insecti-

cide,” he says. For long rides he

wears a two-liter CamelBak filled

with a mix of Gatorade and water

that prevents more people from try-

ing unicycling. “If you fall, 99% of

the time you land on your feet,” Mr.

Peterson says. His worst injury was

a torn piriformis, a tiny muscle be-

hind the glutes, from overuse.

Mr. Peterson says riding hasn’t

only gotten him fit, it’s kept him

young. “I go to bed thinking about

where I’ll ride the next day, I love

it so much,” he says. “Who can say

that about their workout?”

The Workout

Mr. Peterson rides six days a

week, using Friday as a rest day.

He does a mix of street riding,

gravel riding and muni, or moun-

tain unicycling. During the week,

he rides streets and trails around

Rancho Palos Verdes, a Los Ange-

les suburb.

tune, who founded the AWA in

2009, to search for Nelli’s works—

and those of other overlooked fe-

male artists. Ms. Fortune’s book,

“Invisible Women: Forgotten Art-

ists of Florence,” estimates that

there are about 1,500 drawings,

paintings and sculptures by

women in the city’s museums,

churches and homes. Many were

brought to light by her co-author,

Linda Falcone, who is now the di-

rector of the AWA.

After Ms. Fortune was diag-

nosed with cancer, “she contacted

me and said: ‘I’ll fight for my life

if you will fight for my book,’ ” Ms.

Falcone said. Ms. Fortune died last

year. Ms. Falcone’s quest brought

her through the cellars, attics and

cobwebbed storerooms of Flor-

ence. “I found works that were

covered in pigeon droppings or

gnawed by rats,” she said.

Thus far, AWA has restored 65

works by about 15 women artists

spanning five centuries. Female

artists, especially in the Renais-

sance, labored under many handi-

caps. They couldn’t be apprenticed

to a master. They weren’t permit-

ted to study anatomy. Nor were

they allowed to practice drawing

male nudes—a prerequisite for

many religious subjects, including

the Crucifixion. The only woman

artist of the Renaissance to receive

a formal art education was Nelli’s

near-contemporary, Sofonisba An-

guissola from Cremona.

Nelli’s entrepreneurship isn’t

the only evidence of her powerful

personality. “She loaded her

brushes with a lot of paint and

used very broad brushstrokes,”

Ms. Falcone said. And in an age

when artists rarely signed their

works, the Dominican nun put her

name prominently on her “Last

Supper,” along with an invocation

in Latin: “Orate pro pictora” or

“Pray for the woman painter.”

and packs a bagel, gels

and raisins. His

splurge is low-fat fro-

zen yogurt.

The Gear and Cost

Mr. Peterson owns

12 unicycles made by

Nimbus Unicycles and

Kris Holm Unicycles,

with wheels ranging

from 24 to 36 inches

in diameter. Each is

used for a specific

type of riding. His

mountain unicycle

with a 24-inch wheel

is for rocky and tech-

nical trail riding,

while his 26-inch fat-

tire uni can tackle

snow and deep sand.

Unicycle prices can

range from under

$200 to over $1,000, he says.

“Most of the higher-end brands

include disc brakes, aircraft qual-

ity aluminum frames and other

high-quality components,” he says.

Mr. Peterson estimates he has

spent $6,000 on his collection. He

wears gloves, knee and shin

guards and a Bell helmet with a

cape to keep the sun off his neck.

He rides in Five Ten mountain

bike shoes ($180).

The Playlist

Mr. Peterson always rides to

tunes. “I make sure I’m not near

car traffic,” he says.

He loves listening to piano con-

certos and classical music, includ-

ing Gershwin, Beethoven and Bach,

as well as the Beatles and the

Grateful Dead.

FROM TOP: RABATTI & DOMINGIE; FRANCESCO CACCHIANI

Florence, Italy

A NUNfrom the Italian Renais-

sance is the latest female artist

whose works are moving into the

spotlight after a long time in ob-

scurity.

Sister Plautilla Nelli’s vast

painting of the Last Supper was

unveiled here Thursday, after a

four-year restoration. The effort

was funded by Advancing Women

Artists, an American nonprofit

that finds, restores and displays

works by overlooked women paint-

ers, mostly in Tuscany. This

month, the Museum of Modern Art

in New York joined other institu-

tions around the world in devoting

more space to female artists.

Nelli (1524-1588) was well-

known to her contemporaries, yet

much of her output was lost. Gior-

gio Vasari, the earliest historian of

Renaissance art, mentioned her in

the second edition of his “The

Lives of the Most Excellent Paint-

ers, Sculptors, and Architects,”

published in 1568. To make her

convent economically self-suffi-

cient, she created a studio of up to

eight other nuns. Their religious

works were found in the houses of

Florentine gentry, Vasari wrote.

“Last Supper,” painted in the

1560s, measures more than 22 feet

wide and almost six feet high. The

work depicts Jesus and his apos-

tles seated at a table covered in a

white cloth for an ascetic Lenten

meal of beans and lettuce.

Professor Jonathan Nelson, who

teaches art history at Syracuse Uni-

versity’s Florence campus, praised

the restored painting’s “unimagin-

ably luminous colors” that emerged

from a once-gloomy canvas.

“It was very faded and there

was a layer of dirt on top that was

Centuries Later, a Painter of

TheRenaissanceGetsHerDue

BYJOHNHOOPER