Well, it’s not much different from what I did at 28.
Except.
I think (hope) I’m a little smarter now about the foundational stuff. Now that I know I am not immortal (a common misperception of the young), I warm up more carefully. I go to bed earlier. I eat more nutritiously. I stretch more faithfully. I go easy when something hurts and go to beat hell on days when the planets align and everything goes right and I feel strong as an amazon and my arms and chest are pumped up to there and my legs are so fatigued that I have to grab the handrail to walk down the stairs in the gym. Is there a better sensation in this world? I can think of a few . . . but just a few.
Being 48 isn’t bad, and it had better not be because I hope to be here next year and the year after and the year after and so on, God willing.
One side effect of training with weights and generally being in shape is that I have energy to burn. It’s still hard to get out of bed at 5 to walk the dogs, and I still yawn my head off at night. But in the intervening hours I’m the Energizer bunny. Last Monday night at a choral rehearsal one of the women in the alto section said to me, "I’m 24, and I don’t have half as much energy as you." And she was a healthy-looking young thing.
In other news, I managed six unassisted reps with 95 in the bench press on Tuesday.
I also reduced the amount of assistance I’m getting from the assisted pull-up and dip machine. Man, do I love that machine. In the old days the only way I could get pull-up assistance was to have my friend Jim McKairnes stand under me, grab my knees, and heave, heave, heave as needed to get me up to the bar. Can’t wait for the day when I can do unassisted pull-ups and dips again.
All in good time, my pretty. All in good time.
