With gym buddies decades younger
Old age is not a lot of laughs, particularly in public.
(George Vecsey, Stan Musial: An American Life)
The Workout
Rebecca and I have been doing kettlebell workouts for about a decade. I’m 75, and she’s 73. The photo above shows the gym’s calm before the storm.
After greeting today’s coach behind the counter, connecting her phone’s music to the speaker, I hang my coat on the hook rack, take off my shoes, place the car keys and billfold inside one and look at the workout agenda.
Gobbledygook for the uninitiated, which occasionally includes us if we’ve missed a few weeks and have forgotten the acronyms. For example, number two in column three, TRX JSL, translated means we will use the suspended ropes you see at the top of photo one to do jumping, squatting and lunging exercises.
By the way, our instructor used to teach first grade. Can you tell? When I’m at the TRX and have to look back across the room to see what we do at the next station, I’m reminded we don’t pay our elementary school teachers enough.
This workout included 36 seconds at each of the twelve stations, 12 seconds of rest four times through and a one-minute break in the middle, about 40 minutes of exertion.
Sessions always include a combination of cardio and strength stations.
Adaptation
Five years ago, during a Saturday workout, I experienced what my doctor labeled sinus tachycardia. My heart beat faster to supply my needy muscles with oxygen and blood, causing me to feel lightheaded, so I sat down for a few minutes before resuming the workout.
A couple of weeks after the worrying event occurred, my doctor told me there were likely two causes: too much caffeine and too much cardio early in the workout. After checking out other possible causes, he assured me it wasn’t a problem but that less caffeine is better for many reasons, including this one.
Despite his reassurance, I’ve tempered my cardio work. Take burpees — please, number three in column two. It’s a continuous movement that includes jumping. For me, the take-off is fine; the landing rattles, everything.
As the source link above describes, this exercise “puts your ticker to the test.” Instead, I do high knees, a fancy term for walking in place, interspersed with balancing for ten seconds on each foot.
Strength training comes from wielding the kettlebell. In column one, there’s a Press L and Press R. In a press move, I grasp the bell with my left hand, bend my knees, drive my feet into the floor and thrust upward.
My grasping, bending, driving, and thrusting are not what they used to be, even with a 15-pound instead of a 20-pound bell. Yesterday, I hauled four 40-pound bags of salt pellets down our basement steps for our soft water heater. A few younger guys in our group grasp, bend, drive, and thrust 40-pound bells.
Sigh!
The Psychology of Belonging
In his terrific biography of baseball great Stan Musial, Vecsey writes about how difficult it can be for an athlete known for physical prowess to grow old and diminished. Imagine a 75-year-old Caitlin Clark.
What about ordinary people like us, huffing and puffing with a younger crowd? Are we accepted? Are we comfortable? In other words,
Do we belong?
At this 8:30 AM session, there were 15 regulars aged 25 to 75, with most 40 to 50. Only Jackie, at 69, is close to our age. I’m now three years into adaptation, meaning I often modify the movements by slowing down, using a lesser weight or substituting.
Sometimes, I look into that mirror pictured in the first photo to observe what others are doing. To my surprise, there are always more differences than similarities. Some are age-related, others are weight-related and for newcomers, they are experienced-related.
Last Monday, Rebecca and I arrived late, five minutes into the workout — the music was blaring, and the leader was shouting instructions. We glanced at the board and looked around to find an open station. A young man pointed to the free TRX.
I’ve never felt a you don’t belong with us vibe. I know we make a big deal about how our differences drive us apart in America, and that’s true in our politics. But that’s a galaxy away from how most of us live.
Rebecca and I just returned from Romania, where we reconnected with Alex, a former student of mine. Four years ago, we met Alex’s family: Gabby, his mother; Marius, his father; Cosmina, his sister; Mina, a stray dog they adopted; and Alex, around their kitchen table in Reșița, Romania.
After Rebecca told a story of how one daughter, Emily, converted to Judaism a decade after marrying Aviv, an Israeli Jew, Marius, looked at her and said,
That could never happen here. You Americans are thirty years ahead of we Romanians.
With all our deep divisions, more and more Americans are comfortable with differences, and the younger, the more at ease. 15% of new marriages are interracial (source), and 40% are interdenominational (source). Emily and Aviv are not alone.
Racial and religious differences don’t matter to many young people. Not like they did to their parents and grandparents. So, why would they care about a few geezers joining their exercise groups?
But what about Rebecca and me? Do we feel we belong with a younger cohort?
A few years ago, we visited a friend who lives in an Arizona retirement community. For the week we were there, everywhere we went to swim, golf, hike, learn and converse, we were with older people like us.
Honestly, that’s how we live in our two Iowa communities. We hang out with other boomers and a few of the Greatest Generation.
That’s why our kettlebell workout is so important. We like being around younger people. I could write it keeps us young, but that’s not what I mean. We’re old and getting older. Soon, even the 15-pound kettlebell will be too much.
No, I mean the sense that we are part of a world bigger than us. That’s one reason we travel: Romania two weeks ago, Mexico in January, and, we hope, Namibia in May.
And why we do bells with whippersnappers.
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