'What the heck is a plank?'

Max Ozor knows he’s a lucky man. “It’s the mystery of life to feel this good,” the trim, fit, 82-year-old says.

Ozor, known as the “planking grandpa” for his ability to hold the plank exercise position for 15 minutes, was once close to death due to congestive heart failure. Over the course of two decades, he had a series of heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery and was on the waiting list for a heart transplant. He got some good news in 1999: a donor heart was available. He had the transplant and has made the most of the new lease on life it has given him. 

On September 30, the Mount Pleasant man will join other heart patients and supporters for the Lowcountry Heart Walk at Riverfront Park in North Charleston. The event raises money to help fight heart disease and stroke. Ozor has a particular interest in one aspect of that day: a planking contest. He started planking after reading about another athletic octogenarian in the newspaper.

“This old guy from the Mount Pleasant Senior Center won a contest. He was 80. He planked for 11 minutes, and no one else was left in the contest, so he stopped. I thought, ‘What the heck is a plank?’”

Ozor did some quick research and found out it’s kind of like a push-up, only you rest on your forearms instead of your hands and hold your body in the shape of a wooden plank. 

He built up his endurance, adding planking to an exercise routine that already included an unusual way to travel the five or so miles from Mount Pleasant to the MUSC Health Transplant Center in downtown Charleston for checkups. “I’d walk across the Ravenel Bridge for my appointment. You can park under bridge and walk from there.”

MUSC Health Heart Failure Chief Ryan Tedford applauds Ozor’s healthy lifestyle and encourages other people with heart problems to get help like Ozor did. “Right now, only a small fraction of patients in South Carolina who have heart failure get a heart transplant or heart pump,” Tedford says. “It’s a lot less than in other states. We’re not reaching everyone who could benefit from these therapies.”

The MUSC Health Heart and Vascular Center has seven of the state’s nine heart failure-certified cardiologists. “We have so many interventions and medications to not only prolong the patient’s life but make them feel better and actually improve the heart function,” Tedford says.

He wants people to know about their options when it comes to treating heart failure, including:

• Cardiac rehabilitation. “Symptoms in heart failure are not only caused by the heart not pumping well, but also due to the skeletal muscle, which fatigues more easily and becomes deconditioned. Patients can really feel a lot better after undergoing cardiac rehabilitation,” Tedford says.
• Implantable monitoring devices. “We have implantable remote monitoring devices that in real time give us information about the patient’s pressure in the heart and lungs. That allows us to keep very close track of patients and make sure they’re getting the right medications. We know pressure in the lung rises before patients develop symptoms, so we can make changes to their medication as soon as we see that and prevent hospitalizations."
• Cardiac transplantation and mechanical assist devices. "Although cardiac transplant is an excellent option for patients with severe heart failure, only about 2,500 cardiac transplants are done in the United States each year due to a shortage of suitable organs," Tedford says. "For patients who need a transplant but no organ is available, or for those who aren't candidates for transplant, we now have mechanical assist devices — also called heart pumps or LVADs — that can dramatically improve quality and duration of life. These pumps are getting better and smaller. We are the only center in the state right now that is implanting the newest heart pump, the Heartmate 3.” LVAD stands for left ventricular assist device.
• Medication. “Medical therapy has also continued to improve. Just last year, we had a new heart failure drug approved to treat heart failure that  proved superior to previously state-of-the-art therapy,” Tedford says.

And new options are in the pipeline. “There’s incredible research being done here,” Tedford says. “There are a lot of ongoing clinical trials for both types of heart failure, where the heart doesn’t squeeze well or the heart is stiff. There is really unparalleled, high-level care that occurs at MUSC. We have every cutting-edge technology, every tool available.”

That includes technology and tools to treat other heart problems, including valve issues and arrhythmias. Whatever the problem, Tedford encourages people to get the best help available and live in ways that are good for the heart. “The big things are eating healthy, getting regular exercise, avoiding tobacco, seeing a primary care doctor who’s going to check your cholesterol and blood pressure. Control those risk factors.”

Ozor is open about the fact that he was not always healthy. He drank too much alcohol and smoked. “My lifestyle was awful,” he says. 

Not anymore. “I have a 33-inch waist now, and it was 32 when I was younger. I couldn’t imagine feeling better.”