Thank you Sully and Andy! The Barbell Prescription book

[Mark E. Hurling]

I chuckled when I read the passage in question and wondered if that might raise some other eyebrows than mine.

OTOH, it isn't easy to get one's spouse to get serious about strength training. Dearly Beloved keeps talking a good game, but has yet to do something about it other than an occasional trip to the indoor pool at our gym. We've been together for 40+ years and I have learned to know when to hold em and when to fold em with her.

[David Clark]

I chuckled when I read the passage in question and wondered if that might raise some other eyebrows than mine.

OTOH, it isn't easy to get one's spouse to get serious about strength training. Dearly Beloved keeps talking a good game, but has yet to do something about it other than an occasional trip to the indoor pool at our gym. We've been together for 40+ years and I have learned to know when to hold em and when to fold em with her.

Which is how you stayed married for 40 years.

[Mark E. Hurling]

True. She has some real physical burdens to bear. A right hip replacement, multiple left foot surgeries, an attendant set of left knee problems from the hobbling, a spinal process bone chip in her neck and arthritis in nearly every joint, including her wrists. The hip and neck problems stem from gymnastic misadventures before I knew her in high school and college. She told me she kept playing intramural basketball with a neck collar after her neck injury on the balance beam. She was a multi-sport athlete and is now paying the price for never having held back.

Watching her hobbling up from a chair the last few years is both sad and scary. So I try low key persuasion now and again.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

I've been on the Heavy/Light four day a week program for about eight weeks. This past week I broke through my old max lifts and for this 60 year old who weighs 173lbs (yes I have to gain weight) I'm really liking the program. I was able to OHP 125 and BP 203 and I have never been able to achieve that even in my youth. I have ways to go yet with the squat and DL but I'm sure it's going to work for them as well. Now on to my goals of OHP at 135lbs and BP of 225Lbs. Thank you both for such a well written and researched book.

Thanks Steve! Glad we could be of service!

[Jonathon Sullivan]

Thanks!

You can't have it both ways, Amy. A 20-year difference in lovers between the 7th and 9th decades is either "age-appropriate" or it isn't. Withdraw your objection, or send the boy-toy packin'.

Wellness Will is based on somebody I knew once. He and his lady love were separated by years....and nothing else. I found them very "appropriate."

[Amy-in-PHX]

[QUOTE=Jonathon Sullivan;1650309]You can't have it both ways, Amy. A 20-year difference in lovers between the 7th and 9th decades is either "age-appropriate" or it isn't. Withdraw your objection, or send the boy-toy packin'.

I simply thanked Blues for the joke, and the friendly intention behind it. I did not adopt the substance of the joke, or try to "have it both ways," as you put it. I thought it was already clear from what I wrote in my first post in this thread, that I think your chapter 1 would be more likely to persuade more humans of both genders to adopt barbell training as a way to combat the sick aging phenotype, if the Wellness Will illustration included TWO people in their 80s who were both capable of hiking in the Scottish highlands at that age, as a result of their training history. I did not think it necessary to re-state the point in response to a joke. But to be clear, I'll state that the imaginary "Ageless Amy" (a fictional character, not me) would have no interest in treating any man as a "boy toy," or in a man who would allow himself to be so treated. That would not comport with her values. Now that we've sucked all the humor out of the joke, I'll move on . . .

Wellness Will is based on somebody I knew once. He and his lady love were separated by years....and nothing else. I found them very "appropriate."

To paraphrase Rippetoe, "You don't get to change the exercise and then tell me I'm wrong." My criticism was solely about the words you wrote and published in the book, and the impression those words may make in the minds of readers who don't know you, let alone any of your friends and acquaintances. By throwing up extraneous (to the book) info about a real person in your life, you are attempting to change the subject and thereby throwing up a smoke screen, not showing that my criticism of the book is off the mark.

I expressed no opinion on the appropriateness of your real-life friend's actual choices in life, because I did not know he existed at the time I wrote my comment. To form an opinion on that subject, I would have to know a great deal more context. But I have no interest in forming that opinion -- as stated above, my comments are limited to the book you published.

A good example of how to do this better can be seen in this Alan Thrall video, from 15:40 to the end:
YouTube
In the video Alan contends that people with different body types can all use the low-bar squat exercise, as taught by Rippetoe. Alan illustrates the point by drawing sketches of two lifters. He names one imaginary lifter "Jack" and the other "Jill," thus including lifters of both genders as people he is addressing and equally concerned about, and by doing this he displays no condescension toward people of either gender. An excellent example of my point. I hope it's now clear enough, as I don't intend to say more about it.

[Amy-in-PHX]

[QUOTE=Mark E. Hurling;1650245]I chuckled when I read the passage in question and wondered if that might raise some other eyebrows than mine.

Thank you for that comment, Mark. It's good to know mine were not the only raised eyebrows in the room. You the man.
I'm saddened by your wife's physical troubles, and I hope things will improve for her. Be well.

[Jonathon Sullivan]

There was no condescension to you...or to the readers. Just an example of a guy who took care of himself and lived the way he wanted. Since all human examples will use a person of one gender or the other (or the other-other), and since I had a particular individual (and his significant other) in mind when I wrote about Will, and since Will was XY, it was most emphatically not a snub to half the human race...just a reflection of the fact that Will was, you know, a Dude, who had no trouble keeping up with somebody he cared about even though she was about 20 years his junior. The example seems relevant to the topic, and even the most obtuse reader would not take the book as a whole to be a "Get Fit-Get Chicks" tome. For Chrissake. Moreover, the astute reader will note that the book contains examples of females participating in the program and getting strong...and so does my coaching practice, which is 60% female. Indeed, the text, and my body of work, makes clear that I think women have the most to gain from training.

Also, it's clear that a casual discussion of our divergent perspectives on this one innocent paragraph and one grinning post isn't getting either of us anywhere. You make clear that you took the first "boy toy" post as lighthearted or as a joke...but did not extend that same reasonable consideration to my post, which was every bit as friendly and lighthearted (or so it was intended). A classical rhetorical conundrum has clearly obtained. I'll just say that there was no hidden patriarchal or other cultural agenda anywhere in my post or my book, sexist or otherwise, and I stand by my position that no serious offense can or should be reasonably taken from the examples set forth in the text...unless of course, somebody wants to be offended, which is unfortunately often the case (and I'm NOT saying that's you).

I'm really on your side, Amy.

Jeez.

[LarryLohkamp]

What a wonderful way to muck up a great thread about two guys that have helped us old farts get healthier. At 69 I'm stronger than I was after basic training and healthier than I have ever been Thank you Dr. Sullivan for helping me escape polypharmacy.

Larry

[Mark E. Hurling]

Yeah, that's me. A regular social justice warrior and feminist fellow traveler looking for the slightest thing to take umbrage with. You miss the "chuckled" part?