Reflections on turning 82 and still powerlifting

I turned 82 this past week and am getting ready to participate in Bull Stewarts August 20 Bench Press-Deadlift meet at Alki Beach in Seattle. That sounds strange even to me.

Im truly blessed to still be able to lift heavy stuff.

How did I manage to last so long?

There are a lot of reasons, but probably the general one is that I took care of myself so that I could keep playing. Most of the articles I see tend to emphasize that if you lift weights, etc. that will keep you healthy.

I tend to look at it just the reverse. I deliberately did things to help me stay fit and healthy so I could continue to lift heavy stuff.

Without exception I have enjoyed the camaraderie with the other folks who participate in powerlifting. We are all unique but, in many ways, we are all the same.

We all share a passion for our sport and love the process of training as much as anything.

Decades ago when I was a competing in running events, I looked forward to each workout as much as any of the races. I realized that no one could possibly keep up the level of training I did unless they were doing it because they loved it.

It has been the same with weightlifting and powerlifting. It is something that all of us passionately enjoy and almost nothing could prevent us from working out.

 

Methods to keep improving

Even I cant fool Mother Nature into believing Im 25, but I have been working on some methods to help me stay strong and even improve a little bit. Im treating these training approaches as experiments and if they appear to be successful, Ill be writing about them in the future.

One thing that I believe has been a big help in staying fit this long is being a little compulsive about training. I have been diligent about getting in at lest four workouts a week for decades. Perhaps we can just call this being regular and not call it OCD.

I will share one OCD workout story that I believe to be true mainly because the perpetrator told the story on himself. (It is not yours truly).

Seems the hero of this story was flying from LA to Australia (nonstop) and got antsy about not getting his running workout in. He apparently had a string of consecutive days that he wanted to keep intact.

Not having the benefit of a treadmill in the first-class cabin, our hero went into the restroom and locked the door. He then jogged in place for an hour.

I have no idea how all this went down with the other passengers who may not have been able to use the restroom for an hour. I suspect not well. The story also did not include details of how the person sitting next to him reacted when he emerged from the toilet chamber soaked in sweat.

Oh well. He didnt break his string of consecutive days running.

My stories are not quite that off the wall.

Hope you all have a great week.

Lift Big!

Richard