Do It Because It's Hard. That's How Life Gets Easier

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

Photo by Bluewater Sweden on Unsplash

The harder we work the easier life gets

The woman was at the end of the section, working with a pair of 25-lb dumbbells. She was doing an intricate, difficult side-to-side lunge while lifting and placing the weights in a rhythm.

Here’s what it looked like:

My guess: she’s in her early forties. Tight, strong muscles, smooth movements.

It was beautiful to watch. I needed some cool ideas for leg work. I waited until the end of her set, asked her a few questions about form.

I started doing that exercise yesterday with much lighter weights to get the movement down. Boy could I feel it: everywhere. Butt, thighs, hammies, lower back, arms, hands, triceps. It’s a power movement, combining all kinds of muscles and body awareness.

I’ll slowly work up to bigger weights as my body develops strength.

It’s now part of my workout, thanks to her. I love the movement because it’s hard.

The gym has always been a great place for me to get good ideas for my next exercise. I’ve been a gym rat for 52 years, have been a trainer, and have worked with some of the best in the business in Colorado and elsewhere.

That has taught me the difference between dangerously idiotic, which is is this:

and doing exercises with perfect form to protect the body- to say nothing of protecting those around you.

Inspiration is everywhere in the gym if we look with a trained eye.

Eighteen months ago when our brand new YMCA opened up, I was struck by watching a young woman do her ballet exercises on a BOSU ball. As I have written previously, I was convinced I had zero balance because of an accident on a BOSU when I was in my forties.

But I was inspired. I took a video of her, started with holding a staff until I mastered the mount and dismount. Then I practiced until I could let go of the staff. Then I practiced standing on one leg. Then I started doing movements and exercises.

Several weeks later not only was I able to do the same moves she was doing but much more. I keep adding more difficulty, more weights, more moves as I get better with my workouts.

One day I found her and told her she had been my inspiration. She was deeply touched- a reminder that we have no idea who’s watching, and we have no idea whose lives we’re moving.

Here’s what I’m building up to, and I’m not far off, either:

BOSU workouts, especially with weights are hard work. They demand balance, the willingness to tumble off and look like a clown, get bruises, and above all, get irritated with your body.

The work pays incredible dividends, especially as we age into our eighties and our inner ears change. With that change, our balance may suffer. While balance is driven by lots of factors such as diet, exercise, medications and more, bottom line, doing these hard things now prepares us far better than just giving up and saying, too bad.

Getting older and getting really really old are full of hard challenges. That process is made brutal if we’re not willing to do the hard work now to prepare.

I’ve had plenty of practice in that arena these last seven years as decades of lifting set me up to get through endless surgeries and rounds of PT, the loss of some fitness and body agency.

Now as I negotiate terms with a much -changed body, hands that don’t grip as well, feet that hurt 24/7 and that I often can’t feel, bones that got brittle from lack of weight-bearing activity and more, doing the hard things is even more important.

I read somewhere on line that people say that they’re too stiff to do yoga.

Janine Agoglia

would have a good laugh at that, as I did. The reason we do yoga is to combat stiffness; to say we can’t do yoga because we’re stiff is ridiculous. Yet that’s where we are.

I’m often stiff and sore and in pain. The ONLY way I see forward is to do the work anyway. It takes me at least thirty minutes to warm up, with all the spitting and cursing and bitching and complaining that endurance folks engage in before the flow starts.

After that, get the fuck out of the way. The body is warmed up, the pain subsides, the joy of movement explodes. Nothing feels so youthful, so exquisite as a strong body, forget the wrinkles. Forget the belly. Just MOVE.

Many of us can reverse damage, gain strength and vitality, balance and physical joy if we were willing to do the hard things. For a great many of us the hardest thing is to just START.

We simply have to get to the point where the natural dopamine takes over.

I strongly recommend the work of

Brad Stulberg

in this space. He writes about performance, but he does so with the kindness of a big brother and balanced view of our over-hyped wellness industry.

Here is a selection of his pieces.

My favorite of his is over on Medium about the Wellness Industrial Complex.

Just start. I know it’s hard. Over the last five years in particular, getting started again has been extremely difficult and painful.

That’s the whole point. Starting is often the hardest thing. Giving up is easy, but giving up is giving up on yourself.

Your body’s job is to get you through life, and that body deserves our best commitment, not hacks. Commitment.

Commitment to good food, exercise, rest and joy are love.

And they allow us to play.

So let’s play.

Photo by Centre for Ageing Better on Unsplash

As always thank you for reading and supporting. We need our strength during these hard times. Hard times make for strong people, but if we make ourselves stronger, the hard times can be a little easier. Please consider: