$680 per year is about what I pay for the Charger Hellcat, but if I’d have gotten the 2-door Challenger it would have been $200 more dollars per year. (Some of my coverage is lumped into my Prowler’s premiums for multi-car coverage. Being old helps with car insurance premiums.)
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Which power plant? I am involved in nuclear power in south florida, which is why I ask
I worked for the city owned electric power and water system. I don’t like to mention them by name, but it is easy to figure out, as it is the only one in Jacksonville. I worked in generation, mainly steam generation.
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Before my surgery there were some pre-op medications and supplements that I was required to stop taking. Those that thinned my blood out too much made the surgery more difficult. Those same substances were anti-inflammatories. So let me go back a few years. I was using one Aleve (220mg) every morning and another Aleve just before weight training on workout days. At one of my family doctor visits, I told my doctor my Aleve treatment. She talked me into only taking one a day. And I complied.
My surgery date was set for Wednesday, and I was to stop those supplements on the Thursday before surgery. Friday went okay, but by Saturday my left hip was throbbing. Sunday night I could barely sleep at all. Monday morning I called the orthopedic surgeon and said the pain made sleep impossible. What made sleep different from awake hours is that if my hip stayed immobile for more than 30 seconds the muscles seemed to spasm and the ache intensified. But if I moved my hip slightly to pain would stop. This worked okay when awake, but if I were asleep, I’d be awakened by the pain, which I then moved my hip slightly. And that was the vicious cycle all night. He prescribed some opioid. That helped greatly.
I had never believed that NSAID’s were all that great of a pain reliever. How wrong I was!
I made it to Wednesday morning and was prepping for the operation. The anesthesiologist dropped by to see me before the surgery. He started out his conversation by saying, “I saw your X-rays, and I don’t have a clue which one he’s doing. They are both shot.” He started the IV anesthesia. And shortly thereafter…
I woke in a daze, barely knowing where I was. I cannot recall ever feeling that “drugged out.” As soon as became somewhat conscious I was told I would be taking a short walk with a walker. The skin on my hip felt numb. That Wednesday night was the worst pain-free sleep I can recall. I kept waking and falling back sleep, and had strange dreams. The next morning I was well lucid. I got my brain back. They had put put motor driven stimulating socks on my feet to aid in circulation, because my history of blood clots. I walked with walker down the hall to a rehab area. The most notable structure was a mock of a car with seats. I needed to be able to get in and out of a car seat to be released. It was a challenge.
A funny aspect was the limited knowledge of some of the nursing staff of the limitations of post-op patients of the anterior approach. With the posterior approach the patient is told to never cross their ankles, for fear that the ball would come out of the socket. I was crossing my ankles and on three separate occasions was told that I was not to do that. Each time I told them that I had the anterior approach. I got the impression most hip replacements were the posterior approach (2015).
On Thursday evening I was told that I needed to have a bowel movement to be released from the hospital. A male nurse brought in MiraLAX and a cup of water. (I had taken MiraLAX as a prep for a colonoscopy in Gatorade where I mixed a medium size bottle with 1 liter of cold Gatorade, with plenty of time for it to dissolve.) The nurse mixed it in cool water and immediately gave it to me. When I began to drink it I quickly noticed that it was gritty. I figured he had never taken MiraLAX, but was just following orders.
As time neared for release I was about to attempt to earn my escape papers. I “walkered” into the bathroom and looked at the elevated toilet seat. It was rather small. My thighs were swollen, particularly the left thigh, and it was very difficult to get everything into the hole of the seat. After I was successful, I was on my way home. For two weeks I was to have no more than 25% of my weight on the left hip.
I wanted to go to the gym Saturday, but my wife talked me out of it. I quit all the pain medication and was back on my supplements and Aleve. Sleep went fine Saturday night and every night thereafter. When Sunday came around I was much more insistent that I was going to the gym…
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Slightly delayed response, but most racks have numbered holes for the J-hooks and safeties. I repurpose these to count sets if I’m liable to lose track.
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Also very smort! That way I won’t steal six plates unnecessarily
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I’m very good at lying to myself to get out of doing sets I don’t want to do, so I have to find ways to keep myself honest.
Fortunately, I have no first hand experience with hip (or knee) replacements, and hopefully I will make it through the rest of my life without needing one. But I do recall reading Clarence Bass’s stories about his hip replacements, both of which were done using the anterior approach. He is a big fan of that approach, based on his own experience, plus the research he did leading up to his own first surgery. On reviewing one of his articles, he says the advantage of the anterior approach is much less trauma to muscles and quicker recovery. But the approach is more work for the surgeon and apparently involves the use of a very expensive custom operating table. (I’m sure there are a lot more nuances than that). But that is what stuck with me from reading his story.
I believe the anterior approach involves robotics and exotic apparatus.
My orthopedic doctor brutally states that surgeons who do the posterior approach are just lazy.
Through all the times I met with my orthopedic doctor, including in the hospital after surgery, he never mentioned to me any specific physical therapy. I suppose through our conversations he thought that I would not need any professional rehab help. I was on my own and that is how I wanted it. I was given a set of black forearm crutches (sorta manly looking), which I familiarized myself with the last day in the hospital. Those looked fairly nice, but fell to the floor often when wanting free use of my hand and arm and I tried to lean one of them against a wall or counter.
Sunday, after surgery I finally convinced my wife that I was going to the gym. She asked what I planned to do. I told her that I would decide that once I started. She insisted on driving, though the doctor said I was okay to drive (I didn’t have a manual transmission). I felt right at home when I crutched through the door of the gym. I couldn’t wait to get back at it.
I went directly to what was the upper body machine room (one former handball court), that had Cybex and some other selectorized weight machines, Matrix, I think. There were no weight plates in that room. I decided to start with a seated overhead press. I started where I normally warmed up, which wasn’t heavy at all. I could barely get 3 reps!!?? I dropped some weight to be able to get 8 reps. Was I ever weak!! And pretty much exhausted already!! I took it light from then on, working out about 30 minutes on various upper body exercises.
Clearly, the trauma of the surgery had sapped most of my physical capabilities. I went three days a week for the next three weeks, getting back my upper body strength fairly rapidly.
I then had a follow-up appointment with my doctor. He had X-rays done to see what the ball and pin looked like that was driven into my femur. He then told me that my bone was extremely dense and difficult to drive in the pin. (So much for osteopenia.) He mentioned women’s bones are much easier to drive in the pin. He told me I could begin to put 75% of my body weight on the left hip. That was the “okay” to start doing leg presses, albeit light.
Back at the gym I began leg presses and leg extensions. I tried a real light leg curl and that felt very wrong, like my hip was about to dislocate. So leg curls were off the table for now. My bodyweight was about 205lbs. 75% of 205lbs is ~150lbs. If I pushed equally with both legs I could theoretically leg press 300lbs. There was a selectorized seat leg press machine at the gym. To account for inaccurate weight indication, I figured I could safely work up to 200lbs for sets of 10 reps. Of course, I started at the lightest weights and slowly worked up to 200lbs. Over the next two weeks I worked up to 250lbs for sets of 10 reps.
A couple weeks later and the orthopedic doctor told me I was good to go 100% bodyweight on my left hip. He said it is like a brand new hip. I am thinking it is time to add deadlifting back into my program. Next day at the gym I began deadlifting 135lbs for 3 sets of 10 reps. (I remember that at 185lbs my right inner thigh is seizing, so I need to stay below 185lbs until I get the right hip done.) In addition to the deadlifts, I gradually increased the weight on the leg press to 300lbs.
When I went back to the orthopedic doctor for a pre-op visit for my right hip, I told him how much I enjoyed the new hip. I was doing 135lb deadlifts and felt plenty strong enough to go up in weight. He said I was to hold no more than 100lbs. Only 100lbs?? I was 35lbs over, and I felt like I was just starting. Well so much for “brand new” hips…
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I prepared to have my right hip replacement with the experience of knowing firsthand what to expect. (Providing no complications.) Once again I worked out right up to the last day before surgery. The few days before surgery on my right hip were much more comfortable than the left. I suppose it is because the right hip wasn’t aggravating the nerves nearly as bad as the left hip did. There was some pain sleeping the final nights, but I didn’t need any medications for sleep.
The orthopedic doctor had asked me if I could have gone home sooner before he did the right hip. I told him that if he hadn’t drugged me so much that I thought I could do with one overnight stay. He tried less drugs and the experience was more to my liking. I have always liked to feel in control of any situation. I didn’t have any increase in pain over the left hip, so all was going well.
The surgery was Wednesday morning and I was released late Thursday afternoon. And as before I waited until Sunday to return to the gym. This second time didn’t seem to weaken me near as much. I was beginning to cope with the idea that my hips would never see real weight again. If I followed the doctor’s 100lb holding limit my squats would be limited to 100lbs. If I were to do squats for reps, my erectors would be “lit up” far before my hips or quads. To get remotely close to quad failure I had to do very high reps. To do high rep legs, I felt I had to do leg presses. And that I started as my major lower body movement.
But now the focus turned to sarcopenia (muscle wasting)…
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Going forward from the hip replacements my focus was slowing down sarcopenia. But I wasn’t 3 months into my post-replacement hips before I found that my gym had closed. The gym story is a somewhat interesting story.
When first joined the gym (in the 1990’s) it was owned by a guy who had some knowledge of working out with weights. He was fairly wealthy as best that I could tell. He drove his Viper most of the time he came to the gym. But his biggest knowledge was that weight trainers purchased a lot of supplements, particularly protein powder. He started buying large quantities of EAS protein powder and sold it for $1.00 over his cost. He got a lot of traffic from other gym members who began hearing by word of mouth.
One popular local gym owner in town who had many gyms throughout town scoffed at the idea that he needed to drop his “high” protein powder prices just because someone had greatly undercut his prices. He said he would never drop his prices, and that the members would pay his full for it because he had it there available when they were at his gym. Well that didn’t last for very long.
The gym owner of my gym soon got greatly involved in internet sales and leased another area for just his internet sales. He hired a bunch of very pretty high school girls to answer phones and take orders. At that time he sold everything for $1.00 over wholesale. I talked with him quite a few times when he was at the gym. The more I learned about him the more interesting I found him to be. There was even a rumor that he was laundering money through the business. That made the $1.00 over wholesale make more economic sense. I never knew the facts.
Around 2012, or so, he sold the gym to a guy who owned a couple hair stylist salons. That bozo knew absolutely nothing about the gym business. His idea was to convert the gym to a “one-stop” grooming and health salon. There were already two sunbeds upstairs. and added a hair stylist upstairs, and was planning a nail salon too, but was talked out of that, lucky for the gym members.
He was always on the quest to find a gym manager to do what he was totally incapable of doing. The AC’s were a continuous drain on his funds, breaking down about every month. I suppose he wondered how the former owner paid the bills. (I had a guess.) He was convinced by one of his manager choices to buy a few pieces of new equipment. But that manager was a terrible people person and drove away quite a few members. I liked him, but he had no business working with the public. The gym struggled along until the early spring of 2016, when I went to the gym to lift and found the doors locked and a note on the door. He had arranged to “sell” our memberships to a major gym chain a few blocks away. I moved my membership there.
The “new” gym, my new hips, and sarcopenia with a firm grasp on me…
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Getting acquainted to the new gym: There is some good equipment and some not so good equipment. What I missed initially was the seated shrug machine. My “lightweight” hips cannot support what I can shrug standing. They had absolutely no accommodating equipment: no chains or bands.
The gym membership had no exceptionally strong lifters, but a high percentage of the membership did squats, which was an unusual experience for me. I suppose the squatters over 400lbs at my previous gym scared off most all others. I did note that about as many women squatted as men. (There were many very nice looking women working with weights.) A fairly large percentage of the men had fairly nice looking arms, but were pretty weak compared to their appearance.
When I say pretty weak, I saw very few men bench pressing over 275lbs. It was extremely rare to see 405lbs on the squat bar and 315lb squats were seldom done. A fairly large percentage of people in the gym did deadlifts but a 315lb deadlift was a big feat. (I should qualify the huge deal about the strength of the membership, there were a couple gyms fairly close that catered to stronger men.)
The gym has their own personal trainers (who get a small percentage of the charged fee for personal training), most whom I wonder why they seem to know so little about weight training. They offer a variety of exercises, but their knowledge of the basic heavy compound exercises was close to nonexistent.
My workout schedule was a lower body/upper body split. Lower body: MWF and upper body TThSat. (There is definitely an argument that six days a week weight training for a 65 year old man is overtraining) Most of the machines are Life Fitness, with few Matrix. I felt that the Life Fitness was generally better regardless the machine. Please know that free weights are very near impossible with my left shoulder unrepairable injury.
I’ll start with the lower body days on this post. On Monday and Friday the first exercise I did was the leg press on a Life Fitness leg press. It is inclined a little over 30 degrees, which means it is nearly a 2 to 1 mechanical advantage. In other words, I would actually be pressing 50% of the weight of the carriage plus the plates. I guessed the carriage weighed no more than 200lbs, probably a little less. So after warming up, I put 100lbs on each side of the carriage, making the total something less than 400lbs, or leg pressing something less than 200lbs (I weighed 215lbs at that time).
I had recently read an article in T Nation about doing an exercise for 2 minutes. I decided to do two sets of 60 reps (in 120 seconds) with a three minute rest in between. Now that was a chore. I tried to keep a pace of 15 reps per 30 seconds, which I kept track with my cell phone stop watch. The first minute was fairly easy, the third 30 seconds had my quads were burning, and then the last 30 seconds my quads eased a little and my glutes burned right to the last rep. I always did 60 reps, but most every time it took closer to 45 seconds to finish the last 15 reps, with each rep getting slower. Most times I just stopped at 2 minutes on the second set, falling 10, or so, reps short of the target 60 reps.
I then waddled to the leg extension machine, doing 3 sets of 20 reps. (I still have not caught my breath) Next I went to the lying leg curl machine warm up and doing 3 heavy working sets of 5 reps. I train hamstrings as a sprinter’s muscle, considering them high in fast twitch muscle. Then seated calves (cannot have much weight on my hips). Then body weight hyper extensions and finish with abs.
On Wednesday the difference is that I substituted my Jeff King ultra wide leg press, with my toes pointing 180 degrees from one another. I used 90lbs on each side for 3 sets of 15 reps. And on hamstrings I did the seated leg curl. I like the stretch on them, still doing 5 reps per set.
This routine is still essentially what I do now, with some weight a rep adjustments. plus I have dropped Wednesday from my leg routine. Now lower body days are Mondays and Fridays.
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Upper body workouts were TThSat. Tuesdays and Thursdays I did chest and back with a single bicep and triceps exercise, and on Saturday I did shoulders and arms.
I did chest and back on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you recall my left shoulder is injured to the point that the only press I can perform is a dip machine. This is my primary, or I should say, only compound chest exercise. I use this exercise as the primary gauge of my strength. Am I getting stronger or weaker? This new gym has 3 dip machines. I use the plate loaded, Hammer-like machine, because it has the least internal resistance. (The other 2 machines have belts and pulleys, and a selectorized weight stack.) In 2016 I am able to do 8 reps with 200lbs of plates. Typically, barring not trying a training variation, I did 4 sets of 8 reps.
Then I did 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps on the pec deck machine. Following that I did 4 sets of 8 reps of the triceps pressdown (72.5lbs?, but could struggle with 80lbs).
For back I started with a seated Hammer-like plate loaded row machine. I did 3 sets of 8 reps with 270lbs of plates. (My left shoulder does not bother me doing back exercises.). I then did 3 sets of 8 reps of narrow grip seated long pulls. I followed that with 3 sets of 8 reps of wide grip pulldowns. And if I felt good I did 3 sets of 8 reps of curl grip pulldowns. Following back I did 3 sets of 8 reps on a seated selectorized Scott curl bench machine. As a curl strength reference, I was doing 3 sets of 8 reps with 125lbs.
Saturday is shoulder and arm day. I used that Hammer-like row machine with the seat in its lowest position to pull with my elbows parallel to the ground in order to target the rear delts and traps. I did 4 sets of 8 reps with 220lbs of plates. I then did 3 sets of 8 reps of seated barbell shrugs from the very end of a bench press with 255lbs, holding at the top for a second. I then did 3 sets of 8 reps on a rear delt machine (pec dec machine facing pad). For triceps I did a Life Fitness triceps machine and the same Scott curl machine (on Tuesdays and Thursdays) in 5 working super sets. Some weeks I would follow with some curl grip pulldowns to finish the biceps.
This was my typical 2016 workout. Each workout time took between 60 and 70 minutes. The initial compound body part exercise is performed to failure, or close to failure, with a 90 to 120 second rest between sets. My goal was to stay as strong as I started. But that was the challenge. Through different time periods I would change my workout strategy, which I will address in coming posts.
(Today I have reduced my times per week in the gym to 2 upper body days and 2 lower body days.)
Any ideas and/or suggestions are welcome.
I also had a supplementation strategy…
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I am going to have to point people to this thread when they come into the pharma section, and state they haven’t worked out for 4 months because they hurt their wrist, shoulder, whatever, but now want to do an AAS cycle to get back to where they were.
I tend to think the guys who use AAS, should be the type of guys that would be leg pressing with their arm in a sling. Doing what they can to hold onto gains. Not the type that sit on the couch as soon as something is sore. Finding a way to train around issues safely is a big part of the game IMO.
I’ve enjoyed hearing your creative solutions for the issues you have encountered.
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My quest to find the best supplementation to fight off sarcopenia.
Any help or ideas is greatly appreciated.
In my quest to regain as much muscle as I could coming out of the grip of dermatomyositis, I simply went back to the diet and supplementation that had been successful in my bodybuilding. Progress was pretty good. About the only changes was when I felt the addition of a life extension supplement or joint protection supplement.
(Note: I had been fighting rosacea since I was stricken with dermatomyositis. Charles Bailey mentioned that hyaluronic acid was helpful for joints. I said I would give it a try. I bought 100mg strength capsules and began taking one every morning. In about 2 months I noticed that my rosacea was nearly gone. I don’t know if it was any benefit for my joints, but it sure worked to clear up my face.)
When I turned 59 it seemed as though I quit making strength increases. I decided to try BCAA’s that everyone was claiming worked so well. I bought some online in powder form and added it to my post workout shake, which had included 30g whey protein, 5g creatine monohydrate, 5g glutamine, and 10g dextrose. To that formula I added 5g BCAA. Initially, I thought it helped, but over time, a couple months, I felt like I had a slight strength decline.
I then added some test boosters. I was already taking 100mg of testosterone cypionate, but I had noted that the test boosters claimed mainly to increase free testosterone. So, I decided to give it a try. The cypionate was increasing my total testosterone, maybe the test booster could further increase my free testosterone. It is hard to say if it made any difference.
I started Super Beets when I was 62 year old. I thought the increase in nitric acid might help with muscle retention. I cannot say that it was of any benefit. I was still losing strength. I still take Super Beets more so as a life extension supplement than bodybuilding supplement.
About the same time I added ZMA at night. Sleep was helped slightly, but strength still declined. As in my bodybuilding days, I didn’t have the luxury of time to determine what AAS or supplement caused to improvement. I was once again taking the shotgun approach, and maybe something will hit the target. I just wouldn’t know what worked.
When I was 64 years old I was hearing that EAA were far superior to BCAA. So I dropped the BCAA’s and added 10g EAA in my post workout shake, plus drank 10g EAA just before bedtime.
Then I am hearing that I needed nutrients throughout the workout. I had always taken creatine and coffee as a pre-workout drink. I found a peri-workout formula of Mountain Dog and added it as a pre-workout (1/3) and during my workout sipped the remaining 2/3.
Today I use Plasma before-during-after workouts and add about 20g Metabolic Drive (or other micellar casein product) after I get home. I go to the gym totally prepared to consume all of the Plasma before I get home. (I finish 1/3 of the first large scoop just before walking out the door to drive to the gym. I finish most of the 2/3 during the workout. And I added flavored water to the container and then mix with another large scoop of Plasma when I get into the car.)
From the internet I find that there are 4 supplements they recommend to fight sarcopenia:
- Protein: I have been eating in excess of 150g of protein per day for as long as I can remember.
- Creatine: I have been taking at least 5g of creatine monohydrate a day since 1999.
- Vitamin D3: I have been taking in excess of 2,000 i.u. of D3 since 1999 and increased to over 4,000 i.u. when Covid-19 came on the scene
- Omega 3 fatty acids: I have been taking a tablespoon of fish oil every morning since 1995. I used Barleans until 2010 when I switched to Carlson’s
I am open to anything I might be overlooking.
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Having now seen your full training history and experience, I am somewhat reluctant to offer suggestions. Over the course of your bodybuilding career, it seems that you pretty much have seen and done it all, and are a lot more experienced than most who post here.
Given the injuries you have, what you are doing now seems pretty sensible: use machines when injuries prohibit free weights, keep loads low to protect damaged joints, and then go to failure with whatever time under load is required to recruit higher threshold muscle fibers.
I personally haven’t found any magic when it comes to dealing with the effects of age on strength and muscle (I’m 69). What I’m about to suggest is mostly theoretical, based on various things I’ve read:
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High rep work can produce a lot of muscle damage, so maybe experiment more with trade offs involving frequency and volume. You have been training almost every day for most of your life, so that feels right. But maybe it is no longer optimal? Again, not sure how much you’ve experimented with that in the past, but if you haven’t, it is something different you could try.
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I don’t know if you mentioned blood flow restriction, but it seems to offer a way of producing hypertrophy while using low loading. I find the idea interesting, but putting a tourniquet on a working limb is not something I can get real excited about.
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Greater use of eccentric work??? That also can produce a lot of muscle damage, but it is also supposed to be less metabolically taxing, and hence sometimes suggested for seniors. Again, this is not something I have a lot of personal experience with. For me, it seems to produce excessive soreness. Perhaps you would respond differently.
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I am in no way saying to do this drug, I am not a doctor, and my knowledge of it is limited.
A lot of BBers are using the ARB telmisartan for BP and other benefits. I have been trying to read a lot of articles on the drug, as I plan on introducing it to lower my BP. I did come across a few articles examining it’s use for sarcopenia.
I am posting this more as a maybe take a look at the research, and if that looks good, talk to your doctor type thing.
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Regarding drugs for sarcopenia, I think I may have posted a link to this before. It is about 2 years old, gives you an idea of what things are currently under investigation by drug companies:
Also found this more recently. Talks about potential benefits of drugs already in use for other conditions:
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Considering a side effect of telmisartan is swelling in the lower limbs, it might be difficult for me to talk my doctor into that drug. Currently I am taking a diuretic, triamterene, and lisinopril for high blood pressure. It is keeping my BP numbers in line. She prescribed triamterene because my right leg’s circulation is compromised, and swells quickly when I am out of the bed.
But I’ll bring it up.
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