My paternal grandfather died at 61 from his second heart attack. His first was at 46.
My maternal grandfather died at 73 from a stroke. He had a triple bypass ~10 years earlier.
And my dad had a triple bypass at 56. (Thank God he’s still alive - about to be 79.)
But the way of thinking of those two generations - The Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers - is/was that getting old is “just the way it is.”
Which is why I think a lot of guys over 40 today think their best days are behind them (just like their dads and granddads thought).
And you know what?
All of them are right, because the old adage is true:
“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” - Proverbs 23:7
Which is why many guys over 40 today still languish in the dullness of their later years…
Quietly withering,
Watching their bodies deteriorate before their very eyes, as if there’s nothing they can do about it …
Que sera, sera - Whatever will be, will be.
That’s just the way it is. (Cue Bruce Hornsby & The Range…)
But not me.
Am I as fit as I was in my early 20s?
Depends on how you measure strength.
Can I hit the same numbers in the Olympic lifts or Powerlifts?
No. I’m probably in the 85-90% range. (And to be honest, I no longer really stress about it .)
But... I can do things like Pistol Squats and One-Arm-One-Leg Push Ups now, and TGU’s with the 48kg, which I didn’t do back then. (And I'm not in pain all the time, which is its own bonus - quite the opposite of how most guys age.)
And from what I’ve seen firsthand with the guys I’ve been training, it’s totally doable to hit PRs well into your 40s, read more 50s, 60s, even beyond.
It all depends on your beliefs - what you personally accept .
For example, I got this response from Brett on one of my YouTube videos:
As you can see when he made this statement, he was just shy of his 55th birthday.
He reported he’s:
Never felt better
More powerful than ever
Full of vitality
Increased his VO2Max
And his resting heart rate has gone down 10 beats per minute ...
… All in only 10 weeks .
As you can see, it takes very little time to see improvements - at any age.
All you need is -
1- A plan
2- To consistently stick to that plan
That’s. It.
That’s the “secret” to getting more resilient as you get older.
So, it doesn’t matter where you are or what you’ve done in the past.
All that matters is that you can find ways to get better from your current baseline.
If you want to follow Brett’s lead, pick up a copy of “The King-Sized Killer”.
Not ready for Snatches?
Use the Clean + Press.
@mjhastings54 said this about ‘THE GIANT’ Clean + Press program -
At the end of the day, we all get to choose what we believe about getting older and how we age.
That choice impacts both the quality and the length of the life you’ll live from this day forward.
Me?
I decide to be STRONG .
What about you?
Stay Strong,
Geoff Neupert.