At the Gym: 65 and Beyond

Just back from the gym (Anytime Fitness, Lakeview, N.O.). and got to thinking. Seems to be a pattern to this working out stuff.

At 9 or 10 I started noticing the neighborhood kids’ big brothers in their garages, on those cool naugahyde benches, bench pressing 300+ lbs.

At around 12 and beyond, we had class periods every year, and one with PE. It was there where my buddies and I started messing around with those barbells made with galvanized plumbing pipes attached to one-gallon coffee cans filled with cement. It is also when many boys’ right arms got bigger than their left arms (and maybe 5% of them had larger left arms). Good question for a kinesiologist. And how’s about the naked showers, and how strange it was that the coach had that window overlooking the locker room.

By high school we all had our garage gym routines, which mostly consisted of seeing how much weight we could lift- once. Or course, this came back to bite us in the arse years later.

At 18 or so it was off to college. frick the gym. Girls, booze, and some cool fraternity initiations (I DID inhale). During the late ‘60s and through the mid-‘70s we were at our peak physical capacity. For me, that helped to get my arse off the shag carpet in Tiger Town after a night of pink Floyd, Chicago, and maybe some Martin Mull.

In my case, as a college distraction, it was also a time of some boot camp fun and some Vietnam era stuff. Didn’t need any gym to stay in shape.

In my late ‘20’s it was off to a career and back to the gym (a real one). Years of some fine workouts. And then, just after Katrina, bong!, both ulna nerves blew out. And now, here I am, seven years later, after several intermittent gym memberships. I’m back into a good, solid, three-day-a-week gym workout; healed ulna nerves and a regimen of creatine and HMB. Feels so good.

So my point here, and after this story telling annoyance, what are you guys at-and-beyond 65 years old doing gym-wise? How did you crank up again? Did you push too hard at first and get discouraged? How’s about some machine, weight, and cardio suggestions. Let’s talk.