I Lay the Smack Down on Baby Boomers
December 2nd 2006 12:33
Here are the brutal facts: As you age you lose the muscles that develop during your youth. This means that you are progressing toward a state of muscular emaciation. You will find your capacities reduced little by little until even the most basic functions like lifting a bag of groceries and even simple walking become a challenge like you would never have believed possible in your youth. You cannot help but notice this phenomenon in the older people around you. If it is not a sad reality of life, then I am unaware of any sad realities of life.
What does not necessarily happen as you age is the loss of fat. In fact the loss of muscle and the slowdown of metabolic rate to which less muscle mass contributes actually speeds up the rate at which your food intake is converted into fat. The elderly thus often appear to be growing fatter as the muscular portions of their body simultaneously waste away. This continues until that time at which the wearing out of the body's cell brings about a general deterioration of the entire body, when, so sadly, once robust and hardy people seem to shrink.
Without its muscles sending signals to the brain that they are doing heavy lifting on a regular basis the body has no incentive to maintain the density of its bones. Thus a once sturdy skeletal structure is increasingly compromised and even the structure that keeps the body erect becomes unable to maintain posture. The discomfort of this and the difficulty of movement give the individual little joy in movement which exacerbates further the muscular and skeletal deterioration.
As unpleasant as this is to see in one's love ones and friends it is the human condition, which means you are heading in that direction and to an extent you cannot avert the diminution of your body. Yes, to a certain extent this process is inevitable. It can be seriously compromised, however, by a determined program of weight training stretching over a lifetime.
Yes, I said over a lifetime. That means you (Get over yourself: you're OLD!) old dogs still do the weight lifting long after you are leave behind the bloom of puppyhood, when training was so easy I want to cry just thinking back. It means that weight lifting goes on after reality lays a death blow at the root of your youthful vanity and you are no longer a gym hotty or stud -meister. It means that long after you stopped believing that you could be Arnold's rival or you faced the fact that your bikini was going to stay at the bottom of the drawer, you are in there fighting.
I just showed why you drag your no longer so lust- producing, aging body to the gym and mingle with the beautiful (and really naive )youth on the lifting floor.You are focused on Father Time and if you want to age with a grace you need to be in there. You can retard every awful aspect that I outlined above- bone loss, muscle loss, fat gain, mobility restriction -and the emotional effects of time's abuse of you. Putting up a fight will not only buy you time in the struggle with decline it will also yield self-esteem that money etc. cannot give you.
Now, to conclude with total decades- long gym rat radicalism:You will not fight Time with running, aerobics, treadmills, or ellipticals. The are the Ravager's allies.Build,not tear down! Weights, Baby Boomers, Weights. Your servant,Beverly,as always.
What does not necessarily happen as you age is the loss of fat. In fact the loss of muscle and the slowdown of metabolic rate to which less muscle mass contributes actually speeds up the rate at which your food intake is converted into fat. The elderly thus often appear to be growing fatter as the muscular portions of their body simultaneously waste away. This continues until that time at which the wearing out of the body's cell brings about a general deterioration of the entire body, when, so sadly, once robust and hardy people seem to shrink.
Without its muscles sending signals to the brain that they are doing heavy lifting on a regular basis the body has no incentive to maintain the density of its bones. Thus a once sturdy skeletal structure is increasingly compromised and even the structure that keeps the body erect becomes unable to maintain posture. The discomfort of this and the difficulty of movement give the individual little joy in movement which exacerbates further the muscular and skeletal deterioration.
As unpleasant as this is to see in one's love ones and friends it is the human condition, which means you are heading in that direction and to an extent you cannot avert the diminution of your body. Yes, to a certain extent this process is inevitable. It can be seriously compromised, however, by a determined program of weight training stretching over a lifetime.
Yes, I said over a lifetime. That means you (Get over yourself: you're OLD!) old dogs still do the weight lifting long after you are leave behind the bloom of puppyhood, when training was so easy I want to cry just thinking back. It means that weight lifting goes on after reality lays a death blow at the root of your youthful vanity and you are no longer a gym hotty or stud -meister. It means that long after you stopped believing that you could be Arnold's rival or you faced the fact that your bikini was going to stay at the bottom of the drawer, you are in there fighting.
I just showed why you drag your no longer so lust- producing, aging body to the gym and mingle with the beautiful (and really naive )youth on the lifting floor.You are focused on Father Time and if you want to age with a grace you need to be in there. You can retard every awful aspect that I outlined above- bone loss, muscle loss, fat gain, mobility restriction -and the emotional effects of time's abuse of you. Putting up a fight will not only buy you time in the struggle with decline it will also yield self-esteem that money etc. cannot give you.
Now, to conclude with total decades- long gym rat radicalism:You will not fight Time with running, aerobics, treadmills, or ellipticals. The are the Ravager's allies.Build,not tear down! Weights, Baby Boomers, Weights. Your servant,Beverly,as always.
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Comment by Curt
Robert Kennedy wrote a similiar piece in a recent issue of his one magazine - MuscleMag International, basically lamenting the fact that we all become old and saggy.
Such is life. Won't stop me from hitting the weights, however. It's obvious you have the same philosophy.
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by JohnR/Nomythfitness.com