Resistance Training and Aging

As I get older, it becomes more apparent to me that for every part of training that I am enthusiastic about endurance sports, I am that anti-enthusiastic about resistance training of any type. I do some core work a few times a week and have added some hip strengthening work as well. I have never felt the need to work on the lower body as I get a ton of resistance work running up and down trails.

I have always wanted to develop and maintain my upper body a little bit more. The muscle prevents injury, enhances fat metabolism, and allows more "spur of the moment" participation in other sports and activities where underlying sport specific strength might not exist. Last year I stumbled across a group of guys in NYC who are pretty inspiring. They workout on alot of bars in playgrounds and fitness courses. The group is called the Bar-barians. They are a members only group where admission is based upon completion of the following in 6 minutes

1. 5 muscle ups
2. 45 dips
3. 25 pull ups
4. 55 pushups
5. 5 muscle ups

I am no where near ready to qualify for membership. I recon that it will take most of the year if not more to get to that point. Thats ok as there is no hurry. The main objective is to get in the garage and perform these exercises three or four times a week and develop a little more muscle before I get to old to make any! Its sort of a neat adventure for me because it is way out of my comfort zone and something really new. Its sort of like the path I started in endurance sports some 15 years ago. I had no clue and figured it out as I went along having a blast. I hope this will be a similar type of experience. I will post regularly on my progress with this endeavor. For the record, I started this journey earlier in January. My baseline for one set maxes is

55 pushups
12 dips
7 pullups
0 muscle ups (havent tried one!)

My first goal is just to complete the raw number of reps in one set each then I will start to worry about time.

If you are interested in adopting some of this into your training, start easy. Do lower numbers of reps in more sets so as not to cause any overuse injuries. If you do not have a big weight lifting background (like me), the first key is to develop tendon and joint strength before worrying about muscle development. If you strain a tendon or ligament, all training will cease! So start easy and not like a weekend warrior!

Its a beautiful day. Sunny and warm!! Time to go put in a few hours on the trails!



Polyphonic Spree doing Light and Day live in Japan. This song runs on "auto-play" in mind head on the trails a decent amount of the time