Amen brother.
I have found that at 59 I am no longer as flexible as I used to be. That includes trouble putting my socks and underwear on. Anyone reading this as a young person that wants to make fun of it, remember this thing:
As you were so was I.
As I am now, soon you will be.
If you make it.
Sometimes I’m amazed I made it through my teens. There were many nights I nearly died just from doing stupid shit.
And from what you’ve written here before, I know damn well you feel the same way.
Something I tell my wife which surprised her, is…
EVERY teenage boy does something that should either kill him or put him in jail. Just hope that ours will get away with it.
It doesn’t sit well with her at all :)
Make fun of it, heck I am taking notes though sadly I stopped being young awhile ago according to everyone younger than me.
I’m still surprised by the number of stories I hear from guys about them blacking out or a buddy of theirs, and not from alcohol either.
Indeed I do. There were times… well… that bad choices became dangerous choices. Thisclose to death. But I’m not sure that I would change anything. Because, then what would have happened? Then what bad choice would I have made instead? What I mean is that, every choice I made, brought me here. I am alive. Scars, mental and physical. Broken bones. All of the choices bring me here. Talking to you all. Reasonably intact. Maybe able to warn. But not fix. Able to signal. But not stop. There might not be a god. But I have a message I can pass on. Maybe…
Be More Careful. But if you’re not careful, Some of us have done it. And we can help.
Very nicely put, and nicely written.
Still think you need to write that book. :)
I bet all of them are true. I can say this without knowing what they are. I have never met a man who disagreed with my sentiment, in fact they usually chime in with their own stories. So far It applies to all orientations, races and countries. Its like a law of physics or something. :)
Often both, and more than once! The fact that any of us make it through adolescence is a damn miracle.
It helped that I was like a gazelle when young. I could scale an 8 foot fence in seconds and swing my legs over and leap off it and land running. Now I have to hold a handrail when descending a staircase – not because I really need to, but something wired in me makes me.
I had some foolish, scary moments. It was just a roll of the dice that saved me, I’m convinced.
I’m not so interested anymore in leading a “full life”. But I would like to lead a “fun life” with exciting people in it!
I felt great up until a couple years ago. First my eyesight got a little worse. Then muscles wouldn’t rebound from running or other activity as quickly. Then I got edema. Now I over stretched my calf / foot and my Achilles has felt weak for months. I’m still 1+ years from 50.
The muscle part blows. I’m 44 and a half years old. I’ve been back in the gym for 3-4 months now. Going 5 times a week, really putting myself into it.
Except the muscle will not build. I’m not one of these people who has some bizarre expectation that I’ll go from benching 100 to benching 250 in six weeks. But the lifts are not getting easier.
I did some lifting before when I was in my late 30s, and oh god can I tell the difference. Back then, every week or two, throw another 5-10 pounds on until you eventually do plateau a little. Now, I’m damn near stuck at my starting weights.
It doesn’t hurt (well, some slight deadness in my quads), it just will not get any easier to do the lifts at the same weights. 10 years ago, the lifts would have felt “light” in a few weeks after doing them. Now, it feels the same difficulty every week, week after week, at the same weight.
I’ve managed to take things up a tiny little bit in the last week or so (added ten pounds to the bench and curls), but even then, I can’t do a full second set of reps for the bench, and it would not have taken me three months to add just 10 pounds 10 years ago.
This is super not encouraging as both socks and underwear entail a lot of unpleasant gyrations and effort at 31, and that’s been the case for a few years already.
Then again, my back’s effectively been shot since the 8th grade for reasons that include shrug and also “Dunno” per my doctors :(
I had a surprisingly tame teenaged run. And college, too. I was in the same room as weed once!
Well, I guess I did the millennial variant of this: I downloaded something like 30k mp3s before I was 21. That is probably pretty jail-worthy, in retrospect.
But that’s pretty lame compared to the shit that Giles and Rich got up to :)
I know how you feel. I roughly remember how much I lifted years ago. Now I can only do a fraction of that. I haven’t put together a sustained streak of strength training in so long. I did recently go from only being able to do around 15 push ups to 30 push ups, but that is the only strength training I’ve done. Since I’ve been to France it dropped down to 25.
Are you doing your entire body each time you go to the gym? If so, 5 times a week is too much. If you’re splitting the workouts so you are resting areas in between it should be OK. Sometimes if you’re having trouble improving it’s because you’re doing too much, not too little. I hope you stick with it because it’s great your doing it.
No, I have looked at it somewhat scientifically to make sure I’m doing it “right.” I’m going five days a week, but while i’m doing cardio all five, I’m only doing weights three time a week (every other day) to avoid exactly what you’re saying.
