The Gym Grey

 Recently a new gym opened near my home. I had just starting gym training again at another gym but because this new gym was closer to home and at my preferred shopping centre I decided changing gyms might boost my motivation. Well that was the excuse but the new gym had a special deal going which meant lower subscriptions and no sign up fee which certainly encouraged the change. Another big advantage of a new gym is low membership. It is working out well because I never have to wait to use a machine, there isn't a lot of talking within earshot, and having sub-clinical ADHD the lack of distraction keeps me focused. 

A New Gym in the Same Town

The new gym suits me for now but in time that will probably change. The ambience of the place is not endearing. At the old gym there are some big men and while I'm not one to engage in social banter when training it is nice to be acknowledged by people and engage in some quick chit chat. I am by no means big but my appearance attracts attention for reasons entirely oppositional to the idea of building the body beautiful. Didn't matter at that gym, there I was respected and allowed to push my relatively tiny weights while the big men groaned through their power sets. 

At this new gym I'm incommunicado but oh the heads that turn. That's good because the current membership is mainly teenagers, young adults, and middle aged people. There are no big men, I should have taken that as a warning. I am an alien in this gym which is a good thing because I probably would find most of them to be boring little tits. I don't know why they are so ignorant and spend so much time doing aerobics after resistance training because that is a bad idea. At the old gym they would have looked pathetic with their refusal to push themselves, not knowing how to use the gym equipment properly, and their constant preference for doing lunges because they want big bums.

I never trained in a gym where there are so many teenagers training. Watching them train reminds me of all the mistakes I made at their age. That's disappointing because when I started resistance training I had to drag out some rusty weights from under the science building at high school, the squat rack and bench were made out of wood and somewhat shaky. There were no gyms in the nearby suburbs, the closest one was half an hour away, and the very idea of resistance training never even entered the mind of most people. The quality of information was so appalling with nonsense magazine and that wretched Ben Weider character selling all sorts of snake oil. He and many others made a fortune out of desperate souls seeking that last millimeter of muscle to add to their biceps. (The same manipulative lying assholes permeate the online world of fitness and health today.) My desperation for better information was so pronounced I subscribed to the Journal of Australian Sports Medicine. 

Today a teenager, for $14AUD a week, can walk into a fully equipped gym with air conditioning, personal trainers, and open 24 hours. They learn more than enough from various very carefully selected Youtube channels, or decent books and blog posts. Sadly though, it seems most of them haven't learnt enough. They haven't even begun to explore the full potential of the shiny new gym. 

The Young and the Reckless

I'm the strange old man with the grey hair and solid build who after each set clicks his watch to start the countdown for a 90 second break and then keeps his eyes focused on the floor contemplating the meaninglessness of existence and why drugs are more fun than this. I make no attempt to communicate with anyone and I think most don't train hard enough. I'm the oddball, the old coot who trains with more intensity than most, who won't do lunges because he prefers deadlifts, and whom after a set picks up his phone and records weight lifted and planned weight for the training session on a spreadsheet rather than scrolling through social media. I feel sorry for the teenagers there because it obvious they are very much peering through a glass darkly and have made the fundamental mistake of relying on what someone has told them but never bothering to keep thinking about training. What they should be doing is learning more, being more time conscious, and not skipping leg days. 

I watch the teenagers stumbling through and am tempted to offer some advice because I made many of the same mistakes. They probably won't listen to me. In these days, if I was in their shoes, I would avail myself of all the excellent information available to anyone wishing to undertake resistance training. Even on Youtube there are some excellent channels but admittedly a huge amount of dangerous nonsense is being peddled there. The channel, Shredded Sports Science, has many videos dedicated to highlighted the nonsense channels on Youtube.   The lack of knowledge on how to train properly is reckless because it means they will experience high injury rates, will not progress rapidly, and may develop muscular imbalances which could be problematic in latter years. 

I have seen one teenager in this gym who knows what he is doing. He trains by himself, he trains with intensity and good form, and doesn't waste time in the gym. There probably are others but the sad truth is that far too many people walk into a gym and leave their brains at the door.

Legs are for Getting Somewhere preferably on Shiny Days. 

While many people think resistance training is only for the young and\or vain recent research is highlighting that it may be better than aerobic training. I'm not going to argue the finer points, I think both forms of exercise help, but it is true that when most people think of exercise they think of aerobic exercise and believe resistance training is for some athletes and the vain who want bulging muscles to show off at the beach. 

A consistent mistake people make is doing aerobic and resistance training in the same workout. Not a good idea. I don't even understand why people prefer all those running in place devices. When the sun is strolling across across the sky so should we be running under it because that will boost vitamin D, lower your blood pressure through microbiome+sunlight mediated nitric oxide production, help stabilise circadian and hence sleep cycle dynamics, there is even the possibility of increasing serotonin production arising through sunlight exposure. "Gloomy days" is a justified appellation because serotonin is associated with contentment. 

If you want some insight, a beginning for understanding why the modern aversion to sunlight might be doing us more harm than good(because skin cancers are easy to detect and treat if caught early) this account by a neurosurgeon is a good start. I first came across this issue long ago when I read studies indicating that total sunlight exposure correlated with increased longevity. This is a challenging balancing act, especially for Caucasians living in a country like Australia, but a recent study from Sweden adds further weight to the claim that we may have gone too much into the dark side when advocating such severe restrictions on sunlight exposure. The author is explicit:

Increasing sun exposure is related to lower prevalence of death in cardiovascular disease (CVD), type 2 diabetes, and other noncancer non-CVD. ... Active sun exposure habits have a dual effect; it increases the incidence of skin cancer, but also improves the prognosis in terms of all-cause mortality. In a low solar intensity region, we should carefully assess both risk and benefits of sun exposure in order to obtain balanced recommendations. 

I'm so Vain I'd rather look in the Mirror than Talk to You. 

We know Western Civilisation is doomed because today more than ever before people are ashamed of their bodies but not their minds. 

Youtube and social media outlets are awash with influencers promoting health, how to get the perfectly shaped and firm butt, what to eat and when to eat it, how to keep looking young while the mind rots, what is the latest superfood and why you should keep paying for exotic supplements and food. 

It's sick. It's pathetic. I don't do social media. I rely on a very few Youtube outlets for advice about training and health. I prefer to read the relevant scientific literature but that is scant and individual physiological variation is not found in statistics but is very important in the world. 

Is being big and buff with the six pack and well shaped butt a marker of health? Who cares! Look at my butt it's perfect! From a broader health perspective all those muscles and very strict dieting is not health enhancing. I've long believed that too much bulk is, over the long term, a health net negative. Too much caloric intake. The most validated means of prolong lifespan is caloric restriction. Too much protein intake is required for body building and while a high protein diet is no risk for healthy kidneys as we age our kidneys are no longer in optimum condition. The strenuous nature of gym training throughout life may also have implications for cardiovascular health because a leading cause of death in body builders is heart failure but that observation is complicated by the fact so many body builders use performance enhancing drugs. Nonetheless there is a longstanding investigation into potential cardiac abnormalities for endurance athletic events. An Australian group has just launched a study to further investigate the issue. 

The problem with the body building lifestyle is that it places a consistently high metabolic loading on the body. Our bodies did not evolve to cope with continual stresses like that. If anything we were made for walking not running(aerobic freaks take note) and we certainly were not made for pumping iron. 

There has never been a single person who has gone to the gym and not sneaked glimpses of themselves in the full length mirrors. It's what we do. We're not training for our health we're training to look good. That's no more vain than all the other ways we send out the message, Look at Me!

We go to the gym to look good. There is no shame in that but don't be deluded into thinking that looking good is always equivalent to looking healthy. Being lean and strong is a more healthy state. A recent study highlighted a clear correlation between resting heart rate and longevity. For every tick over 60 for a RHR longevity decreased. Having a resting heart rate in the low 60's is a much better marker of health than butt shape. Below 60 might be problematic because it could indicate a potential problem. There is a condition known as athlete's heart. Elite athletes can have a very low RHR, in the low 50's and even lower. That's not necessarily a good thing. The jury is still out on the issue but there is the implication that a very low RHR could be because of a very large heart and the sheer size of the heart may cause nerve conduction issues due to the uneven expansion of the heart chambers. 

Why is is peculiarly vain to train for bulk but not vain to drive around in an expensive sports car that will probably never even reach 160 kilometres per hour let alone top speed? Or wear expensive jewelry to demonstrate one's wealth as a proxy for one's success? Then there are those expensive business suits and "power dressing" pretensions, as if it makes any sense at all to wear such heavy clothing in the summer sun? We all like to parade our achievements and we will condemn the way some parade their achievements as a means of elevating our achievements. Whatever rocks your boat, just be honest to yourself about it. Lie to other people to your heart's content but remember what Feynman once said: the easiest person to fool is yourself. In that regard don't fool yourself, whatever reasons you tell your friends for your going to the gym they know you just want to look good. 

The Gym Grey

I'm the oldest person in this gym. The only person with grey hair, the only person who trains like the gym junkies of yesteryear: with intensity, with a foundation on the compound exercises, exercises which invoke the larger muscle groups rather than isolation exercises which focus on one muscle group. I don't do lunges. 

I'm solid, I'm not big. Even when young I would only train up to "just tore my business shirt open again" and then stop. I've never really been a health nut. I know far too much about being healthy and far too much about having fun, the two domains constantly in conflict. I would return to the gym because it was a surefire way to keep the headaches away. Headaches so debilitating that I would end up curled up on the bed cursing existence. 

I like resistance training because it allows me to exercise with intensity. I like intensity in most things and that includes the having fun domain. It suits my personality much more than aerobic training which is the slow and steady form of exercise. I'm a sprinter not a stayer. I'm also a chronic over trainer but the judicious of some supplements(not performance enhancing drugs!) and the slowing down that comes with age will largely prevent further over training. 

What has both surprised and pleased me is the rapid progress I have been making. At my age I thought it would be a long hard struggle to climb that metabolic mountain so I reach the peak where a distinct shift in my metabolism occurs. I have no idea about the underlying physiology involved and would like to explore it but I am unaware of any available research. It might relate to cortisol or interleukins, especially il-1,6, and perhaps 17. I don't know but it is an interesting experience. Prior to climbing that mountain after a moderate to light 30 minute workout I would feel tired and just want to get out of the gym. After the metabolic switch I find myself training with much greater intensity and approaching the one hour mark, having to decide whether to keep training or stop to avoid over training. I acknowledge that many others train for much longer periods and while I am tempted to do that I am also aware that the most frequent mistake in serious gym training is overtraining. 

 My goal for 2022 is very simple. I'm going to bulk up as much as I can, which at my age won't be much. I'm then going to shave my head and have a tattoo of a brain placed on it. I'm going to have some shirts emblazoned on the front with the famous Sartre quote, "Hell is Other People" and on the back "If you can read this you are too close."   

Have a nice day. I won't. It's leg day.