It’s my blog, I get to be self-indulgent. I want to brag a little. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep this up, but for now it feels good to be able to make these claims.
I’m 55. I am amazed at that fact when I stop to think about it. I don’t feel 55. But having never been it before, I’m not exactly sure how it’s supposed to feel. In any event, I am, as I say, 55.
This morning I went to the gym.
I went to the gym after walking the dog—about a mile, that’s what we usually do—during which hegira I had to run a full block twice to avoid loose dogs. (Coffey will not back down, no matter what, and the last thing I need is to have fighting dogs at my feet.) I’ve never been a great runner, but I can run a city block full out and not have to sit down.
At the gym, I went through my new routine, briefly as follows:
Crunches, curls, tricep extensions, leg curls, extensions, calf raises, bench press, dips, shrugs, straight bar curls, cross-overs, legs press, flies, rows, pectoral flies, shoulder raises, latimus pull-downs, and a few assorted other motions totaling 19 separate exercises. It took about an hour and twenty minutes.
I’m benching 205 (which is down from my best, but still), the bar curls run from 45 lbs up to 90 lbs, lats at 180 lbs. Everything else falls within those parameters.
I weigh about 170 to 175. I’d like to drop ten pounds, but I really have little to complain about. Bit of a spare tire, but overall I’m pretty solid.
I’ve started doing aerobics on the mornings I don’t do the gym.
What, do I want to live forever? No, not really, but I while I am alive I want to be able to physically do what I want.
I am tired often, but it’s more mental than physical. My knees bother me a bit and occasionally my left elbow complains, but nothing incapacitating, just annoying.
I know men half my age who are incapable of a quarter of what I do.
To an extent, this is an unfair comparison, because as we all know the United States is in the throes of an epidemic of obesity and lack of exercise. Couch Potato Syndrome had taken root. True, a lot of it has to do with the nature of work—more and more of it is behind a desk, at a computer, and even the work that does require some physical activity has far more machine assistance than ever before. But a lot of the problem is self-inflicted.
Anyway, I wanted to take a few minutes, on my own blog, to do a little bragging. One of these days it’s going to fall apart on me. Things fail. But until then…