Very few of us, myself included, ever gave much thought to maintaining our health as we age. It’s such a slow process while it’s happening, that we forget aging is unavoidable. We saw elderly people every day of our youthful lives, never thinking… “is that going to happen to me?” Let me tell you as I am speaking from experience; we age and we age quickly!
When I picked up my first barbell on January 1, 1970, it was the beginning of the most important career of my life. For forty straight years, beginning in 1974 and ending in 2014, I competed in over one hundred physique competitions. While in my prime, I had no limitations… until I did. Heavy weights and relentless, intense training took it’s toll. But that’s not what slowed me down. I was simply getting old. Yes, OLD! I always new I was getting older, but it wasn’t the same as BEING old.
So here I am now, at seventy six years old, still personal training and still training myself. What “training to failure” meant back in the day, was I lifted until I couldn’t put anymore weight on the bar, or I hurt myself trying. I called it “old school bodybuilder mentality”. At least that’s how it was for me. Now at my current age, training to failure means, how much arthritic joint pain can I take! It’s really sad because it comes on seemingly overnight.
All kidding aside, after reaching sixty years of age, it was becoming evident that muscle growth was a thing of the past. As the years went on, training has now become one of “maintaining” as much muscle as I can. I still enjoy training as much as I ever did, but now it has become a challenge. It requires more thinking and more planning before working out, “how do I maximize my training without the risk of injury”? The good news is I have been doing it successfully for many years now, and then using this same knowledge for my clients as they too age.
My advice to you is invest in you “old age insurance” now by training hard with free weights… eating healthy every single day… and leaving that DAMN CELL PHONE IN THE CAR!!!
Iron Guru 