I deny that I'm aging rationalizing away that I can still do some things I did in my youth. Truth be told I just had some pictures of myself from a family event and while I look great for my age my hair is all grey and my youthful appearance I always took for granted is gone.
As we age we are treading thin ice with injury. Injury prevention should be a priority but I would guess we all push our self into the red zone. My head says I should be careful with the weights but my ego says full stream ahead. I always think back to an interview with Bill Pearl. I bet I still have it buried in my pile of magazines in my basement. He said when he hit 55 he stop caring about the weight on the bar. Dave Draper in his latest book says essentially the same about hitting 55. Dave said in effect at 55 your best days are behind you in the weight room.
I guess I'm trying to convey is that what good is training with abandon when you are skating on thin ice with excessive weight. Blowing out a knee or a shoulder past 55 will mean there is a possibility your body can't repair it no matter what operation you have.
I am a broken record with my training. Generally one or two work sets. I keep telling my self it's time to train with moderate weights with a short amount of rest between sets with higher sets but I still want to handle reasonable weights to satisfy my ego.
No one gets out alive. I worked with a guy I really respect. He is close to 60. He said training should be thought of as a marathon and not a sprint.
Many of us think we look youthful and we may. It can be hard to accept otherwise because folks keep telling us we look so young. The truth is in the mirror, we just don't want to see it. For me the shocker is photos. It is rare that I look good in photos. That's always been the case since puberty. It is harder to make an honest assessment when looking in the mirror, I think. My guess is that I look better when animated, mainly because the happy side of my personality shows more.
Today at the gym, I noticed that as thin as I am now, there's the tiniest fat roll (thick skin, if you like) around my waist. Once I noticed it, I couldn't stop checking it out in hopes that seeing it was just a fluke and hoping it went away, LOL.
I disagree that anyone's best days are behind them in the weight room. Everyday that you work out is a great day. It's much better than being too ill, too lazy or too tired to exercise. For me today was a better day than yesterday. Yesterday I caved to my calves being sore and having stressed my inguinal ligament so I didn't go to the gym. Today I said, "fuck it" and I worked out. See how that works?
I have friends at the gym who are 80 years old and still hitting the weights. They may not look like they once did or lift like they once could, but they are still showing up and that's really something. They are my real idols.
I disagree with Dave Draper, our best days are today and all those ahead of us. Think about it.
