Natural Bodybuilding, Fitness, and Peak Performance

Muscle Building (There’s no age limit on the benefits)

There’s an 83-year old guy who frequents the gym where I work out. Sometimes he imparts unsolicited words of wisdom when I’m in the middle of a set of leg extensions. It’s unwelcome only in terms of timing. But that’s okay; age carries with it certain privileges that translate to a person being easily forgiven for interpersonal social gaffs and violations of gym etiquette.

On a couple of occasions, he’s prattled on for quite awhile about his days of being a commodities broker on the ‘big board’ in Chicago during the 1940s. Admittedly though; if one has a particular question about finance as I did not long ago, he will dispense with enough details within that subject to assure you without reservation that his mind is still as sharp as a tack.

That says a lot about the power of staying active in to the upper years of life.

If you’re wondering about this guy’s physique, here’s my assessment: It’s probably in the top two percent of eighty-something year old bodies. Actually, it’s better from a fat percentage standpoint than a lot of people I’ve seen these days in their twenties. In addition, he’s carrying a respectable amount of muscle on his body for his age – a factor that definitely helps keep his metabolism humming along in a higher calorie-burning mode.

My point in mentioning this is simple: There isn’t an age limit for the ability to or the benefits of building muscle. As long as a fitness enthusiast is healthy and cleared by a physician to engage in weight training, bodybuilding can bestow benefits well into the upper decades of the second half-century of life.

I stress this because I’ve received a lot of emails lately in which people over sixty have asked me if weight training or bodybuilding can benefit them. My answer is a resounding "YES", with the simple and understandable caveat of consulting one’s personal doctor before indulging in any workout program.

As I outline in the book HardBody Success, the biggest trick to building muscle in the later years of life is compensating for lower hormone levels. No problem – it’s easily accomplished by increased recuperation time between workouts. This is what nobody ever tells you in mainstream fitness books or magazines. Those, along with the generic workout schedule you’re handed when you join a gym, are just a one-size-fits-all kind of deal. No wonder so many people quit training before they get anywhere.

What a great benefit to getting older: we get to spend less time in the gym in order to reap ongoing, terrific results. And remember: a synergistically effective mix of muscle building, fat burning and eating habit improvements will give you better results in less time than any of the one-dimensional fad methods that pop up every month.

You Can Utilize Fitness and Bodybuilding to Practice Rational Thinking

How many times have you been at a gym and witnessed someone performing ‘alternate dumbell curls’? You know the scenario; usually it’s a guy, grunting and seething between clenched teeth, lowering a dumbell in one hand as he shifts his attention to the other side of his body where he’s raising a dumbell in the other hand. He alternates between curls like this, using the downward momentum of one arm to assist in hoisting the equally heavy weight he’s raising with the other. A nearly ubiquitous sight for any long-time gym member.

But ask yourself this question: Does this person’s workout activity really make any sense? Essentially, he’s performing nothing other than a rest/pause between each of his respective curling repetitions. In other words, aside from unknowingly using ‘cheat reps’ through a sort of symetrically cross shifting momentum, he’s resting each arm for a few seconds between reps.

So… am I claiming that there’s something inherently wrong with doing these? Not necessarily. But I think there’s something amiss in an overall mentality that’s revealed when I ask the curling enthusiast his reason for doing the exercise this way. "After all…" I point out "… nobody ever performs ‘alternate triceps extensions’, or ‘alternate leg extensions’, or ‘alternate calf raises’. So what’s with the ‘alternate dumbell curls’?"

In fact, the only other exercise I can think of offhand that utilizes this ‘alternating’ scheme is the one where someone does ‘lunges’ clear across the gym floor. Hmmmm! Could they not get a more concentrated workout by lunging in one place with each respective leg?

The reception I get when inquiring about this is usually a puzzled expression followed by "Ya know… I’ve never really thought about it. I’ve just always done ‘em like that."

The words sometimes seem tantamount to: Ya know… I just don’t do much thinking – I simply do what I see other people doing.

This mentality might not be so detrimental in the context of biceps curls. It can be motivationally crippling, however, in the context of overall workout design and the set-up of rest and recovery days. In fact, if the alternate dumbell curl example is representative of an abandonment of rational thinking in workouts, it pales by comparison as such when juxtaposed with the stimulation/recovery ratio side of bodybuilding.

By way of example: A guy came up to me in the gym the other day and asked me what I do for my biceps. "Your biceps are getting really big at the tie-in to your forearms", he observed aloud. "What are you doing for them?"

While I felt the pressure of his expectations pushing me to demonstrate the exercises I use, doing so only led to my discomfort in knowing I was withholding the most pertinent information he needed. "The exercises you choose aren’t going to mean diddly squat if you don’t have your stimulation/recovery ratio correct", I said.

In fact, you could have a less than optimal selection of exercises for muscle building and make good gains due to a terrific balance of workout stimulation and recovery. However, a rest and recovery ratio that falls short of the mark can’t be compensated for by even the best of exercise selection.

Fitness and bodybuilding provide an incredible environment for testing and practicing your ability and/or willingness to set compelling goals and back them with rational strategies for achievement.