hospice dr told me about 10-20% of men die peacefully...the rest in pain - was the hospice caregiver for both my folks and there was no gentle "fading away" with either one...the "we can control the pain" is also bogus (with cancer) - best advice came from the hospice dr who said (re: morphine) "you can't hurt them"
am with you - prefer the bears (or al oerter's squat rack)...
sorry about your wife - 42 is just way too young
So, all us geezer lifters fear a slow death, mostly after watching a loved one endure a protracted one; and, motivated by a clear understanding of "compression of morbidity", and the counteractive power of weightlifting, we choose to fight back aggressively by hardening our bodies and stockpiling reserves. That's easily 60% of my motivation, with a mix of vanity and current vitality making up the balance. How do you rank it?
Last edited by Bestafter60; 05-17-2017 at 02:59 PM.
Oh, the vanity is there. I have a hard time walking by a store front without cutting my eyes to see if my gut is showing too much. I also got married 2 years ago. and I married a woman who is pretty much out of my league. So I am always trying to keep myself up. I will never be handsome, but with some effort under the barbell, I can be masculine.
Vanity is definitely at play to some degree. Staving off mortality is the major reason though.
Still, I was just at my youngest's college graduation two weeks ago, and it was pretty awesome getting side long glances and open stares by the other parents and college grads as I was introduced by my daughter as her Dad. Those kind of ego pumping incidents are part of what keeps me going...
Even my kids made comments to the effect of "Wow Dad! You're looking pretty buff!" and "Yeah, we could tell you've been working out when you walked in the front door of the restaurant."
When the college baseball team is in the next set of tables over, and they openly assess your physique as you walk in, it's pretty gratifying that this old fart can still turn some heads...
Last edited by MarinePMI; 05-18-2017 at 09:08 AM.
Strong, healthy people are beautiful.
Just stumbled on to this thread. I'm 42, so am probably not quite belonging here. That said, I have seen enough of life and enough death to know that I am living on borrowed time. I train for several reasons:
1. Because I am lazy and training is the bare minimum that let's me off the hook
2. I need goals and work in a profession where goals are fleeting and often not under my control
3. I fear being soft
4. I want to stave off a creeping death and refuse to go quietly
5. I'm proud and I will not be beaten without a fight
6. I like being big and strong. There are few people in this world that are truly, truly strong. When you're strong, you can speak very quietly and still be heard. When you're strong, the women want you and the men want to be you. LOL
7. Reading Dr. Sullivan's chapter on the SAP is the newest reason to continue on this path.
Keep fighting ladies and gents!
All the things that Crookedfinger listed above. But for me, another wonderful "side-effect" of strength training is what it does for my mood. I've suffered depression the last 6 or 7 years on and off. Especially during the long, crappy, endless Michigan winters.
I was on an SSRI for a couple of years for depression and didn't like the side-effects. I remember when I went off it - slowly weaning myself off the SSRIs. After a few weeks I started getting brain zaps. Literally, it felt like I would get an electrical shock to the brain for a second. Then I'd be fine. For a while during my "detox" from SSRIs, I'd get more than 10 zaps per hour. Luckily, thanks to the internet, I found it was not unusual to get this kind of reaction when coming off SSRIs and they would go away. They did. Took about a 6 weeks. Never again...
A couple years later is when I started strength training after getting the blue book. I noticed during that winter when I'd normally get deep into my depressive hole that I just didn't feel bad at all. And on training days, I actually felt very good! No other "exercise" (cardio) did that for me -and I had tried that in the past. There's something about strength training that is different for me than lsd training in this regard.
Now, I look at every training session as a "dose" of anti-depressant, so even on days I don't want to train, I get down to my basement and take my "dose" of meds. The effectiveness of this medication is excellent for me, and the side-effects (being strong, looking strong, and feeling strong) are a tremendous bonus.