Plenty Enough
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Now that I’m 70, a whistle hangs around my neck on a chain, a beeper is fitted to a sporty wristband and at night while wandering the streets I wear blinking red reflector sneakers.
Furthermore, I’m going to the gym and you can’t stop me. My bag’s packed, I’m amply fueled, the truck’s warming up in the driveway. Laree has outlined a dynamite routine, sketched precise directions in large print to the front door of the Weight Room and prepared a chest full of food that does not require chewing. If I leave now, I should be there before the weekend.
I rendezvous with the iron twice a week. I can’t do any more and that’s all it takes. You see, as hard as I’ve tried, even with my reluctant heart, I cannot enter the gym to work out without applying myself intensely. Aware of my heart’s mitigated willingness, I gauge myself deliberately. Every exercise is evaluated, every set scrutinized and each rep studied and revised in motion according to need and ability and desire.
In other words, I don’t zip in, knock out the sets and reps, and zip out. “Oh, I think I’ll squat and bench press simultaneously… no, no, no, I’ll deadlift, cheat curl and perform Turkish get-ups with an engine block… or, I can juggle three 45-pound plates while eating an Olympic bar.”
I enjoy my current training regimen, the engagement of precise focus and tailored form in its execution, and the effectualness of the product. En route to the playpen my workout unfolds. Energy, pain, enthusiasm, wellbeing, mood, life’s heaviness and lightness are tossed in the brain’s blender. There they swirl as I assess what I’ve done most recently, which muscles are presently in need of action and which should wait and rest. Too much concerns me as much as too little.
See what happens? When you can no longer lift with credibility, you describe what little you can do in complicated and convoluted ways, using multi-syllable words possibly not in the dictionary. You make it so much more than it really is. Hey, it works.
There’s no race afoot. Supersets are still favored; the intermingling of two compatible exercises one after another is friendly, pleasurable, agreeable and sweetly codependent family (training is very personal). Time between sets in my training today is committed to restoring my not-so-matter-of-fact oxygen debt. Gasp… Pay up or it’s curtains, wise guy.
Still, a steady pace with no wasted space is heavy on my mind. I’m down to 20 sets in one hour. Each exercise is critical. If any one movement by itself is exhausting to my puny, pickled pump, I single-set it. Every workout is different, as I want to include all the valuable exercises I’m able to perform throughout the month… for muscle effect, health and strength and for interest and enjoyment.
One big, large and grand thing: The heaviness of the weight I use is not… big, large and grand. It’s appropriate to my struggle and strain… a rather minor factor in my twice-weekly bouts. If I cared how much weight I handled in my workouts, I’d be depressed as well as childish. Enough is enough.
Here’s what I did Sunday, a most noble tribute to my 200-pound structure, Effort Level (EL)=9.2:
Rope tucks and stiff-arm pullovers… 3 sets x 40 reps and 3 x 12, 10, 8 reps
Smith incline press and pulldown… 5 x 6 - 10 reps and 5 x 6 – 12 reps
Bent-over laterals… 4 x 10 – 12 reps
Not much in numbers, but plenty in effort and application… Not much for a growing child, but plenty for a grown kid. Caveat: We must eat right, stay busy, laugh more and growl less.
The sun shines brightly on happy ironheads.
Breathe deeply… God’s strength… Dave
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