A Middle Aged Adolescent (who cannot possibly be the only one)
People who know me say I have the mind of a 12 year old. Comments like these make my wife spring immediately to my defense; she pegs the age at more around 14.
Still, it's true: I'm a wiseass - though an optimist - at heart, albeit with a healthy skepticism toward the merits of behaving like a full fledged adult. So many people who do, as far as I can tell, can't be enjoying it.
It's youthful optimism - or hope - or need - that has kept me lifting weights (or working out in one form or another) since the age of 12, in 1976. I was the skinny kid who lost a schoolyard fight that Fall, and the skinny kid who couldn't make the high school football team, who went on to build himself into a successful competitive weightlifter, triathlete, and martial artist.
Much of that success owes to an old high school coach who had been an All-American shot-putter at Notre Dame. This kindred soul had the best possible medicine for teenage angst: linear progressions. Yes, in the Fall of 1979, I was doing 5 by 5's, adding five pounds of weight to my exercises every time I walked in the weight room door, and drinking a quart of milk every morning, long before some Texan dude named Rippetoe bought his gym or dreamed of writing any books.
A lot of years later, I'm a Starting Strength follower. Inspired by his October 20, 2016 article, "Why Will You Not Do the Program?" I thought I should declare, to this massive global readership, that the program does indeed work. It works so well that I feel like a high schooler again. I get up and head into every workout knowing I'm going to come out a better, stronger human being. It's an absolute scam, it's so good, and an exciting time, kind of like junior and senior year, when I realized I was stronger than just about everybody on the football team. I just recently wrote Rip a little thank you note on the occasion of hitting a 500 pound deadlift for the first time ever.
Here are my numbers, in case you're weighing whether or not to read any further: Age 51; 5'11" Male, 200 pounds
200 pound Press
285 bench
415 squat
500 deadlift
242.5 working weight, for 3 by 3 single power cleans
My wife has already been to the Starting Strength website to pick up the 200-300-400-500 sticker, but I don't get the friggin' thing until I hit a 300 bench.
Details on the program are forthcoming. An aside: a few years ago, I was a 165 pound CrossFitter wearing Vibrams. A few weeks ago, a clerk in a hardware store, realizing our transaction was dragging on, remarked, "Please don't come over the counter and kill me.'
I have lots of stories.