It happened about 25 years ago, as I was approaching 30. I entered a 10K run with expectations of a personal best and finishing easily in the top third of the pack. I was in good shape and the run was going according to plan – well behind the elite runners - but feeling so good, that about five miles in, I picked up the pace. And then it happened! First one, then two, then four guys blew right by me. No big deal, except I noticed these guys all had something in common: each was thirty to forty years my senior! I stared ahead, incredulous, as they continued to pull away and eventually vanish from my sight. After the race, dejected and confused, I made a point to seek them out. What I soon realized was that I had nothing to be ashamed of. These guys were all dedicated runners in incredible shape. And it was at that moment that all the thoughts and stereotypes that I held about aging and about people over 50 being “old” changed forever.
That experience and my reformulated thoughts have stayed with me as I’ve aged, even as I’ve experienced first-hand most of the symptoms of the loss of youth. (Think pulled muscles, torn ligaments, back and hip pain, sciatica problems, chronic aching, etc.) And now, well into my 50’s, I find myself questioning the seemingly inevitable physical deterioration long associated with aging. Is it really attributed solely to age, or is a gradual change in lifestyle that’s been doing me in? After all, in my twenties, I fed my body a steady diet of tennis, racquetball, basketball, mountain biking and jogging, with regular visits to the gym mixed-in. Seems each year as I’ve grown older, some form of activity has fallen by the wayside, victim to a shrinking quantity of free time and growing responsibilities that seemed to chain me to my desk and computer. So then, was my noticeable decline due entirely to the natural aging process? Or was it more a consequence of my self-imposed sedentary lifestyle? (Translation; sheer laziness?)
In search of answers, I decided to embark on a bold experiment. One late night a few weeks ago, impressively multi-tasking (channel surfing while downing a pint of Ben & Jerry’s), I stumbled upon an infomercial that I’d come across before but always clicked off. But this time, I kept watching. Tony Horton, founder of the Beachbody series of exercise videos, was hawking his “mother of all workout” programs, the P90X (“X” stands for “extreme”). The first thing I noticed was that Tony is no spring chicken, maybe 45 or 50, but he’s got a physique that any twenty-year old would trade up for. His message has a powerful hook too: “P90X will get you in the best shape of your life”. But he doesn’t lure you with false promises. He straight up tells you you’ve got to work. Hard. “Bring it” every day for 90 days. The results are flaunted on the screen in a series of before and after photos of program grads (regular folk) who had undergone undeniable physical transformations.
So what? We’ve all seen this before. What got and kept my attention was Tony’s theory of “muscle confusion”. Stop doing all the same exercises day after day, he said. Whoa! That’s me, I thought! Doing the same routines 3 times a week in the gym had gotten me nowhere. Any muscle I had left was now buried under a growing layer of flab around my midsection. I had duped myself into a false sense of fitness, convinced that showing up at the same gym every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday and going through the same motions on the same machines for 10 plus years was somehow enough to keep myself in tip-top shape. My muscles weren’t confused at all. They knew exactly what to expect. Even though I kept doing the same thing every time, I kept expecting different results. The classic definition of insanity! So as I sat there on the couch that night, suddenly everything made total sense. It was time to mix it up, to shock my body with alternating doses of yoga, aerobics, pull-ups (could I even do one anymore?), push-ups, stretches, weights, plyometrics and core exercises. In a nutshell, replicate the kind of lifestyle I had in my twenties when I was in good shape. I was genuinely inspired and actually looking forward to the inevitable torture.
Just before beginning my very first workout session, I was hit with an ominous disclaimer….”There are many fitness alternatives if you have weaknesses or are prone to injury, but P90X is not one of them”. I briefly hesitated, taking inventory of my many weaknesses, but decided to forge ahead anyway. Needless to say, the workout sessions are challenging. My breathing is labored and the sweat pours off my forehead in buckets. Yet something about the energy, the honesty and the encouragement packaged in each DVD makes me come back day after day, with a passion I haven’t felt for years. And Tony keeps things interesting with a unique combination of inspiration, comedy, corniness (there’s lot’s of this) and philosophy. Most of all, his enthusiasm and optimism is contagious. Halfway through the Kenpo X workout, he pauses briefly between sets to share his mantra: “I don’t believe in age. I don’t believe in aging. I believe in moving and eating good. Take care of your body and it will take care of you. You keep getting older but you can get better.” Wow! There it was. Tony Horton, a giant in the field of physical fitness, fully embracing the NOT DEAD YET message, an unknowing ambassador of resilience, spirit and wisdom. My excitement over this workout regiment became so infectious, that before long I had Frank, my fellow Original NOT DEAD YET Guy, ordering the DVD’s and courageously committing to the program.
I’m about halfway through the 90 days now and already feeling sensational. My daughter called the other day to remind me of the upcoming community 5K/10K run. Maybe with a few more weeks of P90X under by belt, I can pull off a personal best. And maybe, just maybe, I can shock a few twenty-somethings down the homestretch.
