We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
In my view, physical fitness is mainly for full-life functionality, energy, and fun - not to prevent death. Delaying death is fine, of course, if the life before death arrives is full, productive, and physically, mentally, and spiritually engaging.
In civilized cultures, generally your odds are almost 50/50 heart disease or cancer unless you are one of those who just dies from decrepitude, feebleness, and general body rot. What's your preference? Mine is to go via a quick cardiac arrythmia or a stroke while doing something fun, and too far from any medical help that might force me to survive with a nasty disability which would damage my dignity and make me a burden on others.
Everybody in western cultures has some degree of arterial disease after age 40 or 50 whether it is diagnosable or not. It's part of ageing, especially in an affluent society with plenty of good antibiotics available to make sure you don't die of pneumonia.
If you care, this study suggests that stressful aerobic cardio exercise 5 days/week is beneficial for cardiac health. That means keeping your heart rate at around 65-70% of your max for an hour. That is neither easy not comfortable because it means to stay intensely aerobic, ie huffing and puffing and sweating - but at a rate to be able to keep it up. In fact, it's a bitch to do. That's why few do it.
More efficient to do anaerobic HIIT in my opinion. They didn't study that.
Rippetoe is the pro, and I am just an educated amateur but I'd rather see this particular client engaged in a balanced fitness program along with some "nutritional" aka eating guidance. Still, the results are impressive: From Heart Patient to Lifter
But can he run (not jog) a mile? Readers know we favor a balance of HIIT Cardio (total 1/2 hr/wk), Endurance "cardio" (1 hr/wk), serious weights (2 sessions/wk), and calisthenics (2 sessions/wk) for full functional fitness. I doubt that Rippetoe would argue with that, but he is mostly a weights guy. I don't know about our readers, but I find a one-hour calisthenics class to be more challenging - and more satisfying at the end - than anything else I do. They get you jumping and moving like a 16 year-old. The endorphins make you feel like you can take on the world, but you can hardly walk or talk. That tells you that you have done something hard.
Age is no barrier to any fitness pursuit. The body is made to adapt to demands. The discipline to make those stress and dietary demands is the hardest part, but it builds character. No pain, no gain. Best not to wait until you are scared into it by a nasty problem.
Deads are about picking up heavy stuff, and putting it back on the floor. A basic functional effort and good training for how to pick things up without back strain.
Good technique is essential. Do them wrong (eg lifting with your back istead of your legs) and you can hurt yourself. Do them right - it's not complicated - and your whole body gets stronger including your back. Deadlifts prevent aging! Mrs. BD does them weekly, and swears at by them.
Besides general fitness, just doing 5 sets (including a warm-up set) of heavy deads once-weekly has been great for my posture. Generally finishing with my 6-8-rep max. I only aim for a max one-rep effort every couple of months, just for fun (?). Since I am not a big strong guy, I can probably only get to around 300 with a trap bar at this point, and that is good enough for government work. With a plain bar, my grip tends to fail first. (I do need to work on my grip strength.)
Mens sana in corpore sano. (The former is a tougher challenge than the latter.)
(An important deadlift tip - and for barbell squats too - that is rarely mentioned: Make sure your bowels are well-emptied first. The intra-abdominal pressure gets high with heavy weights, and you do not want an accident. Farts are expected, but...)
50% of max heart rate for an hour? It seems inefficient and not stressful enough for my taste (not to mention boring), but maybe as a once-weekly thing on a day following a strenuous weight session it might be warranted as a form of "active recovery." Or, of course, for beginner exercisers, anorectics, the elderly, or the terminally-sedentary.
At the same time, moving at all is probably a better idea than not moving. It burns no fat (not that you need that) and builds no strength, but certainly helps maintain some minimal degree of endurance and mobility.
I tried to introduce one hour of this sort of thing into my weekly regimen a few months ago as a "recovery day" (with a mix of treadmill, stairmaster, and elliptical) but I just can't stay with it. My body seems to insist on bursting into one-minute sprints in the course of it every several minutes, thus converting it to HIIT. Maybe it's because I am in half-decent shape, but my body just wants to pound it every few minutes instead of slogging along. I guess that's a good effect of my fitness training - energy.
VDH notes the paradox of middle class people filling gyms while immigrants do their physical chores for them. Brawn in an Age of Brains:
Sometime in the 1970s and 1980s, millions of Americans—far more than just those constituting an economic elite—decided that a key to the good life was to be free from, say, the need to cook, watch children, mow the lawn, or rake leaves. Illegal immigration promised cheap help for the upper middle classes that had once been the exclusive domain of the aristocracy. In theory, skipping the gym for four hours a week would provide more than enough time to mow the lawn, prune the bushes, or vacuum the floor. Yet sweaty and studied exercise is often deemed preferable to rote labor, given that it is more scientifically calibrated to making one look and feel better. Repetitive muscular work is not seen as commensurately valuable, whether for the exercise it provides or for its psychic benefits. Yet for all one’s degrees and income, a person can still retain some sense of autonomy and an ability to master the surrounding material landscape, if only for a few hours each week, and to appreciate how the other half lives that does such physical labor for wages. It is a choice...
I get his point, but I do not think that fitness is equivalent to physical labor. Our carpenter lifts weights in the gym with the intention of continuing to be able to carry heavy things at work through his 70s. In my case, I have always done all of the outdoor labor at the HQ and the farm that I have time for (ie weekends), but I never saw any fitness gains from that. It is enjoyable for me, though.
For house-cleaning and laundry, we have two high-energy Polish immigrants who leave everything spotless, neat, and sparkling. Their only requirement of us is that there be no clutter, nothing on the floor, and nothing on any surfaces.
When you have day jobs, nobody wants to spend a weekend house-cleaning and doing laundry. Heck, we even do our workouts Sunday morning before church.
Our friendly little neighborhood gym has been running a challenge test (a general fitness race) through the month of December.
Here's how it works: A 60-second sprint on the row erg, an exactly 3-minute rest, then a 60-second sprint on the ski erg. Then your trainer adds up your total meters and posts it on the board. Only trainers can record the test.
They post your name, age, and total meters on the white board. There is a column for men and one for the women. Talk about exposure - but it is highly motivational. If you repeat the test (which everybody does to try to improve their score), your highest score goes on the board.
The reason this is a good general fitness test is because it is cardio fitness combined with maximum power (power= strength x speed) demands from the entire body. I felt like puking for 10 minutes afterwards which I feel is evidence of genuine effort.
I managed to just break the 500 meter mark this week, but there are guys with over 600. The women are mostly in the 300s. A 74 year-old guy had a 545 so I feel I definitely have to beat that codger. I have a week to get there.
In fitness, you mostly compete with yourself but it's fun to see how you measure up once in a while. Reality hurts, but truth is good for the soul.
The sad answer is "Not really." Only moving the heavy weights can improve strength efficiently, but some calisthenics can at least maintain strength, prevent muscle decay, and maybe build a little strength too if not just muscle endurance.
That post mentioned some of those key lower body exercises.
Below the fold, good video tips on often-neglected Side Lunges and correct technique for Body-Weight Squats (We believe in "Ass To Grass").
With help from friends and readers. Let's face it: people will avoid hard things unless they work up some self-discipline.
Please feel free to add more loser excuses in the Comments
It's too early
It's too late
I have too much to do
I'm right in the middle of something
I'm having trouble getting going today
I just ate
I'm too hungry
I think I have a cold coming on
I feel too tired today
I have errands to do
I'll start in the New Year (Right! Meaning in 2019)
I need to lose some weight first (Right! Meaning never)
I have a morning appointment (right - probably "early" - like 8 o'clock, by which time most people have exercised, showered, dressed, checked their emails, and are at work or on the way to it)
I might just go for a nice walk instead
I'll get to it later (of course you will)
I had a hard day yesterday
My stomach doesn't feel right
I hate the gym (It's a playground for adults seeking health and vigor. What's to dislike about that?)
It's (snowing, raining, too windy)
It's too cold out
It's too hot out
I deserve some rest time (Really? Convince me that you deserve anything)
I feel a twinge in my (foot, leg, knee, hip, back, shoulder, etc)
I didn't sleep well last night
I'm too distracted/upset about (whatever)
I know I ought to...
I'm just a lazy low-energy SOB by nature, and that's not my fault.
Finding excuses for everything in life is just my nature - and my nature is not my fault.
Walking, jogging, running, and elliptical don't do anything to build lower body strength. Those things are about cardio and endurance - which are also useful things to pursue with exercise.
Strength for full functionality is something different. It's not easy to build lower body (hips, glutes, legs) strength without heavy weight exercises like deadlifts and barbell squats, but there are some exercises that can help get in shape for skiing, mountain hiking, etc. - and are good cardio too. I generally do 3 sets of each of them once weekly in addition to my heavy weight regimen:
- Mountain Climbers - 50-100/set (left+right = 1). They toughen your core too, because it's a dynamic plank.
- Body weight squats. I combine them with 90 degree 10-second squat-sits every 10 squats. It burns.
- Squat and press, with lighter hand weights - a good full-body calisthenic. Or Step Up and Press.
- Lunges - forward, backwards, sideways. I do them with lightish hand weights, like 10 lbs.
- Kettlebell swings. Don't use your back - use your hips.
- Box jumps or jumping squats
- Stairmaster machine, at whatever speed you can handle. Your body adapts quickly to this demand. People say it's a fat-burner too but I doubt it unless you go for 45 minutes at a brisk pace. (the first 20 minutes of any cardio exercise burns zero fat)
Yesterday we had some agreement and some disagreement on the topic of the value or the role of "Long, slow, " aka aerobic, cardio workouts in a fitness or conditioning program.
My Conditioning program, which I hope to continue until something knocks me out of the ring, includes some pure cardio but it is a balanced and varied program designed to address all of the aspects of physical fitness.
What's the rationale, and what's that program? (Somewhat lengthy post below) -
Unless you are deconditioned, geriatric, or have a heart problem, extended (40-60+ minutes) of pure aerobic activity offers minimal fitness gains. For some people, though, a morning 3-mile jog is a pleasurable wake-up, and pleasure is good. That's recreation, not fitness-training.
You will often see people swimming half-miles of laps, on the elliptical for 45 minutes while reading the newspaper or watching TV, jogging on the treadmill for 60 minutes. If viewed as recreation, that's fine and it might feel good but there are minimal fitness gains to it. Why?
- Aerobic cardio doesn't build strength or burn fat with any effectiveness. Anyway, you don't need to get rid of any fat, do you? - However, extended cardio does release endorphins so you feel good after. That's not fitness, though - If you can do a vigorous hour of laps, cycling, elliptical, or jogs, you basically have that down and don't need "slow endurance" work more than once a week or every other week. If you can't do an hour of things like that, you are deconditioned and probably ought to work on it as a component of your conditioning program. - If the purpose of "cardio" is to build or maintain cardiovascular and pulmonary efficiency, then the long slow cardio does nothing for that. The stress on those organs is too minimal to build stamina.
To improve cardio effectiveness and endurance (except for those in the deconditioned, geritatric, or heart-disease categories) you need to up the intensity and reduce the time spent. That means sprints and other HIIT-style efforts which are anaerobic stressors. Another cardio thing you can do is to vary your cardio work-outs. Doing the same thing repeatedly (eg jogging) becomes useless as your body adapts to that one thing and it becomes too easy.
I say that if you can breathe or talk, it isn't exertion: it's recreation.
My preference for cardio/endurance fitness is to combine it in high-intensity calisthenics classes or high-stress machines like Jacob's Ladder or Stairmaster. I'll do rowing or running sprints too sometimes, but I like those things that address full-body muscular conditioning along with difficult cardio. It's time- efficient to combine the conditioning with the cardio.
This is the best, easy, at-home calisthenics routine I have found for beginners, male or female. After a month of this routine daily, anybody would be ready to advance to a more intense calisthenic routine or, preferably, a more intense general fitness program. Still, this is not as easy as it looks. Gals, get your guy to join you in this every morning, and keep up with the gals on the video even if parts of it seem silly.
I am a believer in calisthenics for flexibility, athleticism, cardio, agility, vigor, sexuality, and mental health. A great way to roll out of bed and begin the day by getting the blood moving and to wake up the brain. (Their virtual jump rope is good but real would be better.)
It is a memorable tune. I think this cute tune was written by the deplorable Pete Seeger, here done by Dulcimer Dave.
Be brave. Even sturdy people have to summon up some courage sometimes to do what has to be done. Be bold and try a cardio/calisthenics class at your local torture center gym. It's much more varied, relentless, and challenging than whatever you might do on your own. A good thing about cardio/calis, unlike weight training, is that they need no recovery period, except maybe a catnap.
Let's face it. Some people are high energy, some low. Low-energy, though, is remediable even if over age 50. It takes courage to go the first time. After that, you get to know all the nice people, get the idea of the routines, and it becomes a kind of terrible painful fun. There is no expectation that you can do everything that is demanded by the Boss. He says "Give me 30 slap push-ups." So you do fifteen with your dance partner. I have a great partner for the pairing exercises with a maybe-60 year-old gal with the most brilliant smile in the world. Beware, Mrs. BD. Well, you just do your best, sweat up a storm, learn some humility, and limp out of the place after 50 or 60 mins, all pumped up and ready for a quick nap before you begin your day. Most people are still lolling in bed so you get to feel morally and spiritually superior.
As I have said, we have athletes in their 20s, and a bunch of men and women in their late 60s, and everything in between. Some are heavy, some are perfect. It's friendly with an upbeat feeling, but there is little time to talk because you can never catch your breath. Still I do my best with wise-ass commentary as you might expect from me.
OK, so we were outside for 20 minutes at 29 degrees (F) for the warm-up in the parking lot. Shorts and t-shirts. We warmed up quick with sprints, jogs, jump rope, before we went indoors. Wonderful to work up a warm-up sweat in below-freezing weather. To make it more fun, we tossed little beach footballs around during it all.
Anything beats sitting. Get-up-and-go has to be practiced and nurtured, like everything else. Just three of those cardio/calis sessions a week would do anybody a lot of good for energy, balance and agility, and general joie de vivre, even though it's not what our serious fitness recommendations are. It's not about strength as much as about preventing deterioration, decay, and laziness. Good for your sex life too. Let's not forget that detail.
A balanced fitness program at any age has to include Strength (resistance, mainly the powerlifts for time-efficiency), Calisthenics, and Cardio. (As I have said, 5 1/2-6 hrs/week is all it takes to get into fighting shape - 2 hrs of mostly heavy wts, 2 hrs of calis, and 1 1/2-2 hrs of cardio.)
Cardio training is for general energy and endurance - but it is also to help you survive your first heart attack and to fend off senility. Weight training and Calisthenics do not require any age adjustments, but cardio training generally does because your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) tends to decline with age (or in my case, is actually suppressed by my BP pills).
You can actually spend $250 on a jump rope. That's not necessary. Those are for the jump rope experts, the show-offs, pro jump teachers, and advanced jumpers who can do triple-unders.
As we have posted in the past, jumping is an excellent almost zero-impact (you land on your toes with soft knees) cardio stressor (roughly equivalent to sprinting depending on your turn speed), and there are countless step variations to work on to keep it fun (one-footed, spread-leg, running man, split jumps, skipping, etc etc). Varying the speed and extending the duration also keep it interesting. If you can do a minute or two of double unders, I tip my hat to ya.
Jumping is not just for guys, but it's mostly guys who do it to train their athleticism. Watching a skilled jumper vary his steps and speeds seemingly effortlessly (it's not), as if almost weightless, is a thing of beauty. I use jumping as an HIIT component of my Cardio or Calisthenics days. I only go for a few minutes per set, but good jumpers go for 10, 20, or 30 minutes. I just do not have that kind of endurance....yet.
We recommend the Rx Smart Gear ropes. You have to get the right length for your height, and you have to pick a cable weight.The lightest ones are not for amateurs, and the heaviest ones are a bitch but a heck of a one-minute cardio workout. If a beginner, go for a beginner rope.
They call it "Ultimate," but it seems like just a good fitness test for 25 year-old men.I can do a lot of it now and I know guys older than me who can too. Problem is, as you get older you get joint problems. Thus, no burpees for me anymore. Shoulder agony.
I got 100 in on most days but I was not perfect. I do my best physical work in the gym, not home. Got my 100 today, sets of 15, 20 and 25.
There is no doubt that your chest and shoulder muscles respond to this sort of abuse demand. Plus it is a core exercise, like planks. Great for women. Women cannot grow visible muscles with resistance exercise due to relative lack of testosterone, but they sure can firm up and tighten up and that is rewarding.
From now on, I am probably going to plan on the 100 mostly on my Calisthenic Days, not daily. These weeks were a good start for my push-ups, for sure. I find the first set the hardest. I will now do a set of 15 as a warm-up set, then they get easier.
I had planned the next 4 weeks to be a 100-Burpee/day Challenge, but I can't do it. It just kills my injured shoulder to the point that I can't sleep on my right side. Maybe 100 Mountain Climbers? Or is that too easy? With Mountain Climbers, it's all about the speed. Mountain Climbers are HIIT Cardio/Calisthenics, not strength-building but definitely fitness-building.
There are several reasons why calories- in and calories- burned equations are too simple for the complexity of animal physiology. For one thing, the calories in protein are handled differently from those in fat or in carbohydrates. Another reason is that our metabolism adapts to our nutritional intake as best it is able to.
Other than hibernating animals, few animals are adapted to handle the sort of abundance that humans have remarkably produced with brains capable of entirely changing the planet's surface and modifying nutritional sources for its own purposes. Humans are nutritional outliers, and it is not "natural." In a sense, humans are not natural animals because of the extent to which they remake nature for their convenience.
It means you have trained your body to adapt to a plentiful flow of fresh carbs and sugars (sugar is carbs and vice-versa) so it takes the burden off using fat as a fuel. Intake trains the body that way. Thus what we term the "False Hunger" of overweight people. Human physiology will never adapt to modern abundance of food because fatness tends to kill or disable people after child-bearing years.
Among other reasons, Fat Adaptation is one of the reasons heavy people feel more hunger and end up consuming food more avidly and in higher volume than trim people. In fact, overweight people have zero dietary energy requirements and minimal nutritional requirements despite subjective hunger.
You can be fat and very strong, but unable to hike a mountain vigorously for 6 hours. You can be a fast runner or swimmer but unfit in most ways other than cardio endurance.
To participate to the maximum in all that life offers or demands, we preach a doctrine of "Fitness for Life." This is not training for a specific purpose (ie a specific sport, pure strength, or aesthetics), but just to maintain or, preferably, improve fitness after age 30 or 40 or 50 or whatever for people with relatively sedentary (less than 5 hrs/wk of physically-challenging or strenuous effort - not walking). Balanced, general functional fitness for strength, endurance, and athleticism builds energy, attractiveness and sexuality, effectiveness - and the mental toughness that comes from the discipline of physical training.
First, some terms:
Conditioning, or Athletic Conditioning, usually refers to your overall athletic preparedness. "Conditioning" can focus on retrieving or building your speed, agility, endurance, muscle fitness, body composition, and the like. General conditioning-specific activities, like calisthenics, often just use body weight and some light weights with very high reps (20+), and no rest. Burpees, lunges, box jumps, ball slams, roll-ups, and step-ups are classic conditioning exercises but there are tons of them.
Cardio/endurance training is one compnent of the above. An hour of intense, no-rest calisthenics is powerful and exhausting cardio/endurance training, as is HIIT cardio. If you aren't short of breath, it's not "cardio." (It's not "exercise" either. "Exercise" refers to exertion.) For naturalistic HIIT, a tough tennis lesson where coach runs you ragged, or a basketball game.
Bodybuilding is an approach to balanced muscle improvement. It entails about 5 sets of semi-high reps (8-12) of 50-70% of your max weights, with only a minute rest between sets. Contrary to the sound of it, it's not primarily meant to look good at the beach (but nobody wants to look nasty with lots or all of their clothes off).
Powerlifting is an approach designed to improve brute strength and power. This entails lower reps with higher weights, and more rest between sets. Often, out of shape newbies need a good period of powerlifting before shifting to bodybuilding. Experienced people often alternate between the body-building approach and the powerlift approach every few months to maintain muscle function.
All of the above play a role in general fitness.
I'll review our recommendations for people in half-decent health below the fold. Feel free to offer comments or critiques.
Since we're on a month of our push-up challenge, a few ideas:
- go as low as you can - squeeze your glutes and tense your belly. Perfect plank. It should be a total body exercise, not just chest and triceps - don't let your elbows flare out - keep them tight - to vary it a bit, do them with your feet on a bench, chair, or box of whatever height. The higher, the better, with the ultimate being handstand pushups. I am going to do half of mine on a decline now.
My genius trainer thinks these are ridiculous, but they are a routine part of the calisthenic classes I take. All I can say is that they keep your heart rate up and your body in explosive and fatiguing motion. Basically, explosive jumping jacks.
100 is getting easier already. I had to take one day off, though, for "recovery". We did a 3-hour woodsy hill hike instead. Well, now I am doing sets of 15 instead of 10, and next week it will be sets of 20. Raise that efficiency despite the burn. One thing I notice is that the quicker you do them, the better.
Also, I do not do the push-ups on my bench press day. That would not be sensible.
Two years ago, I could hardly do 3 pushups. My shoulder pain problem didn't help (it has improved a lot with exercise), but I was weak too. OK, I do not have a muscular build but I am somewhat fit for my age and build at this point. Plenty of guys my age are fitter than me and I still suck and can't do pull ups. My goal for this 100/day challenge is to do 50 in one set with good form. I'll be satisfied with that. Or maybe I won't be.
A good part of fitness is that you can pursue it even if you have no special athletic talent and are not highly coordinated. The only sport I can play with any competence at all now is tennis, but fitness can be a sport or hobby of its own and it's good for mental, spiritual, physical, and sexual health. We all want to approach life with as much vigor as we can muster for as long as we can.
How are our readers doing with this game? The gals too. Any cheaters? Any quitters?
Mrs. BD and I are back in weekend hiking mode. I really do not like vigorous hikes when it's above 75 degrees F.
Let's talk about non-winter hiking pants for men and women. Water-repellent, not waterproof. (For waterproof, you can roll up those light-weight REI waterproof overpants in your daypack. With a good long zipper, they are easy to pull over your hiking boots if you are a cat and hate getting wet.)
Hiking and trekking pants are for long hikes with serious terrain, not for two-hour walks in the woods in nice weather when cut-off blue jean are perfect if there are no bugs. I've tested out several pairs of hiking pants. To be comfortable on hills, they have to have a little stretch to them. They also have to resist tears from brush and to be rugged enough to hold up to rock scrapes and random falls. Plus it is nice if they are light-weight, not baggy, and comfortable.
The baggy ones are not pleasant to wear, and flap like crazy in wind. Most of the ones that are convertible to shorts are baggy. I like my Prana hiking pants, which are also great for weekend chores.
Many regular mountain hikers like Montane (example in photo). I guess REI has most of the ordinary things that outdoor active people might need.
What sorts of things do you use for rugged hiking?
It is a general term for all of these things: being pleased with the way you look naked, feeling energetic, and having well-developed strength/musculature, cardiovascular endurance, and athleticism (agility+speed+power).
I pretty much follow something like the Maggie's program of a combination of weight-lifting, calisthenics, and endurance cardio. About 5 hours weekly but I also play sports one night/week and on weekends. I watch my nutrition carefully because many middle-aged women have a tendency to get sloppy regardless of their exercise program. (No rational amount of exertion can produce fat loss, unfortunately, but physical exertion does reduce subjective hunger and "false hunger" - the hunger that overweight people experience.)
Regarding muscle maintenance and strength-building in middle age (40+), I want to highlight a paragraph from yesterday's post:
Research has demonstrated that low load high intensity lifting at 30% of the one repetition max (1RM) to failure can elicit similar rates of muscle protein synthesis as traditional, high load low intensity lifting at 90% of 1RM. Data suggests that low and high load lifting performed to failure yield equivalent hypertrophy over time. So exercise volume (repetitions x sets x load) can achieve maximal muscle fiber activation, including the important larger type II fibers. This is also much less likely to cause injury, an important consideration at any age.
Note that it says "to failure." That is the key, and that is the tricky part because the mental "I give up" almost always precedes the muscles giving up. Fighting that mental part is the discipline of exertion, and why trainers know they can almost always say "C'mon, give me one or two more." Women have no need to fear developing the hard or bulging muscles of their fit and athletic menfolk. That can't happen naturally with females.
To hedge your bets on the current consensus, I suggest going heavy with the weights on power lifts occasionally. You might even see your 1RM increase if you dare to check it (with a spotter) every few months.
Physical (and mental) fitness begin slowly going downhill after age 30-35 and accelerate thereafter. Deconditioning by avoiding strenuous exertion makes it worse. I am a skeptic about mental exercise, but not about the role of exercise in slowing natural physical decline.
A variety of social forces extradited muscle from respectable mainstream health. Muscularity once suggested physical labor and therefore a lower class station. More recently body builders hijacked the mesomorphic, minting steroid-fueled Rodin caricatures that were anything but a model of health.
Muscle also has been perceived as anti-intellectual. In the organ kingdom, it is the antithesis of the exalted brain, as in brain or brawn. It is our brain that distinguishes us from the great apes. Even within the muscle category one finds a hierarchy. Cardiac muscle appeared to carry none of skeletal muscle’s stigma. Academics might have jogged, meatheads pumped iron...
Skeletal muscles, and the bones to which they attach (muscle stress is what keeps bones strong), undergo continual alteration and renovation. They are both adaptive: they respond to lack of stress by weakening or atrophying, and to stress by becoming more robust. This occurs regardless of age. Those 80 year-old women I see lifting weights in the gym are doing a smart thing. Weights are good for females.
There is also growing evidence that regular intense physical exertion is good for maintaining mental functioning. It's definitely good for mental health.
In my view, physical fitness is mainly for full-life functionality, energy, and fun - not to prevent death. Delaying death is fine, of course, if the life before death arrives is full, productive, and physically, mentally, and spiritually engaging.
Deads are about picking up heavy stuff, and putting it back on the floor. A basic functional effort and good training for how to pick things up without back strain.
Yesterday we had some agreement and some disagreement on the topic of the value or the role of "Long, slow, " aka aerobic, cardio workouts in a fitness or conditioning program.
A balanced fitness program at any age has to include Strength (resistance, mainly the powerlifts for time-efficiency), Calisthenics, and Cardio. (As I have said, 5 1/2-6 hrs/week is all it takes to get into fighting shape - 2 hrs of mostly heavy wts, 2 hrs of calis, and 1 1/2-2 hrs of cardio.)
I got 100 in on most days but I was not perfect. I do my best physical work in the gym, not home. Got my 100 today, sets of 15, 20 and 25.
