The Official Gym & Fitness Thread

Love the shirt! I’m a big fan of evolution athletics! Shaw has some great products.

 

I love the quads

 

Looking good.
Like a Chris Long, Ryen Russillo vide with a beard.

 

Hey @Travish325, is it WidthWednesday again?

 

Damn bitch! Looking huge.

 

I know you guys in here are mainly into the weight lifting realm, but I have seen @PackCon mention running sometime. I am 64 yrs old, and 6 weeks into a 10 week ramp up for a half marathon. Sucks that I'll be 64 yrs 11 months day of the race. Literally the oldest guy in my age group.

5 yrs ago I achieved bucket list item of 24,500 miles total running. In case that number doesn't ring a bell, that's the circumference of the Earth at the equator.

I was first in my age group 2019 in the race I am prepping for, then covid. 8:03/mile pace. Not fast, but for my age grp, good. For reference, I ran about 6:30/mile in my late 20's. I have run in 25 or so half marathons and it definitely gets physically and mentally harder every year.

When I tell younger guys I finished 1st in my age group, they chuckle and say "yeah, but you have no idea how competitive it is in my age group at XX-XX years old". Guess what. The guys you are competing against now will be the same ones in your age group at 64.

Point I am making is as you age, be prepared for adjusted expectations of your body and mind. Don't quit just because you can't do what you did as a 30 year old. Be in it for the long haul.

 

Nice! As I've gotten older, I've significantly changed my training from heavy lifting to high reps and flexibility. While my mind still wants to train like I'm 24, my body says differently. Through diet changes, I've dropped close to 30 pounds and feel really good most days. I've added some gymnastic exercises and, at 54, have added some additional muscle which is just awesome!

Keep on truckin'!

 

Hey man thats awesome!

We can always get down on ourselves when it comes to paces, but in reality we are out there when most people are at home on the couch. So we already win by showing up.

I’m no speed daemon and not sure I ever will be. I only win top 3 in my age group when only 3 people in my age group are racing.

If I just hang onto my current fitness level I’ll BQ by 70 is how I look at it. So maybe I can avoid seeing a decline in fitness as I age?

Congrats on the mileage goal thats pretty awesome. I never kept track but I know I’m over 10,000.


@St. Swervus is another bad ass oldER (read: not old) endurance guy.

 

I started running pretty regular in my 30's and was tracking mileage to have an idea about when my shoes might start breaking down. 6-800 miles and mine are about shot. At some point I got the idea to track it with a distance goal in mind. I kept extending it like "to the East coast", then West coast etc.

I used to travel a lot for work and jogging in new places is always fun. Got lost a few times in Japan. Learned to always carry hotel card and cab fare. Got lost in Rome and ended up a really scary neighborhood. When I showed the taxi driver the card, he got pissed. Couldn't figure out why until we only went 6-8 blocks and were at my hotel. Low fare = angry cab driver!

On your comment about 'hanging in until your 70', believe it or not there are still usually about 50 guys in my age group (60-64). Of course only 20-25 of them run at <9:30 or so per mile. That's out of 1500-1600 entrants.

 

I know many older guys running. In fact I don't actually think I have any friends who run ultras my age now that I think about it. Most of them are 50+ (I think because of kids/time/money).

There are plenty of masters out there that whoop my ass in all the races I'm at.

I say my goal isn't to be a bad ass 31 year old runner, it's to be a bad ass 55 year old runner. A buddy of mine will still get near a 26 hour 100 miler at 55. And I'm over here wondering if I can make cut off LOL. If we can go for a run and I can keep up with him, I'm feeling pretty great about myself.

Of course it comes down to me wanting to run for life. And if my ass is tearing down a trail at a 7 minute mile, I'm eating shit and braking my face or my leg. I may still be young but I think I'm too old to become a Killian Jornet and be ridge running at road paces.

 

Well, I mean that all makes sense. Size and strength have a finite limit, at least naturally. The limiting factor for endurance running seems to boil down to how well your joints hold up. I’m not saying it’s easy by any means, just that obviously the age participation will be biased towards an older group. I’m personally fascinated by all forms of maximum human performance and am always striving to see where my own limit is, knowing full well that my peak strength period is closer to an end than my endurance period would be. I agree you running guys fundamentally though.

I have friends who bug me and ask when I’ll take up golf or cycling… I jokingly tell them I will when I can no longer do badass things like climb mountains or eat smoke

 

The average age of English Chanel swimmers is 44. Time, money, kids all come in to play but as an older guy I'd say that maturity, patience, calm, and experience all play a big role as well. And speaking of swimming if you want to stay fit long into your later years you might want to think about joining me at the pool. I'm headed there shortly to do a shakeout swim after climbing mountains with the mountain goats yesterday. Washington State kicks ass. Take care y'all!!

 

I'm not sure why people hate on running for joint damage when that's never been supported by the literature. In fact runners have a reduced likelihood of OA and joint replacement.

If you are wearing on your joints, you are causing yourself quite a bit of pain. You won't be doing damage to your body unknowingly. Running is a high impact sport that lends itself to easy over use injuries when a person isn't well trained. As long as you slowly enter the sport and sufficiently weight train and develop strength, then your joints have the support they need to remain protected.

Being over weight is more harmful to joint health than running, even if that weight is pure muscle.

All of that is to say that joint break down is not the reason why endurance dwindles. That does come down too VO2 Max and aerobic capacity as one ages.

I do think strength sports have lower peak ages though. Men don't usually start to lose endurance fitness until age 55 and women mid 40's.

I will say I know very few people who are elite level at 40-60 and weren't at a higher level in their 20s. But you can still certainly set very respectable PRs in your 40s and 50s as a runner.

So even when I see people say that their ability to set PRs is dwindling in their 40s... technically not true depending on where you are in relation to reaching your maximum genetic potential.

I could set some crazy PRs if I wanted to... I just don't want to. Older I get the more shit I want to do with my life than train 4 hours a day yah know? But I really have no scientific excuse to not do better.

 

Ran my first 3 miles yesterday and 4.5 miles today after 2 weeks on crutches (well... Dr. said crutches but lets be real that didn't really happen super diligently) and 4 weeks on a boot.

Nice to get back to it

 

Glad to hear recovery went well. When ramping up milage try the 10% rule

 

10% rule is for amateurs.


In all seriousness, I've found in my experience 10% rule is more for beginners or serious prolonged time off. I did use the 50-100% rule coming back from my knee surgery and I didn't die (keeping in mind I was rucking 7 miles a day before I was released to run). Just use your brain and common sense. You feel good, you are fine, you hurt, back off.

My sports doc words exactly: "Come out of the boot, get back to 25% of your normal routine, if you feel good the next week, 50%. Then after that don't be a pussy and do 100%. You aren't going to hurt yourself."

I'm not doing trails right now though because I'm scared I'll trip... maybe in a couple weeks that fear will pass.

 

Was able to hit the trails this weekend for a 8.5 miler.

My nightmares did come true and I did trip on my newly recovered foot and ate shit.

But all was good!

Glad I got it out of my system and passed the ultimate test.

 

Hell yeah!! Back on the horse. Good for you. Belt that felt great despite the hitting the ground part.

 

Looks like shit on here. It's crystal clear on my end. Guess you get the jist of it. Amazing day up there.