I’m actually 47 now, but when I started with 5x5 I was 44 and had never touched the bar in my whole life. I wasn’t conventionally fat, just your standard, average height and weight doughy white dude, with very high blood pressure, low testosterone, 26% body fat and borderline hypoglycemia. My BP is 123/70, BF is sub 12% and all my blood values are normal.
Now I stand as one of the fittest people in my circle of social and professional acquaintances, and someone who is proud of taking off his shirt at the beach. I made it. I wouldn’t consider myself ripped/shredded, although my wife refers to me as such - but I look damn good in my birthday suit. I do have a “lifter’s physique” now.
I’m posting this because when I started looking around for information on how to get started as a first timer old fart there simply wasn’t much to be had. I started with Starting Strength 5x5, and did that for two years till I went to splits etc. It can be done. It takes a long ass time - and you need to watch your diet. AND DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND GET A MALE HORMONE PANEL, the results may surprise you.
3 years of hard work from zero. If you have the will there is a way. There is no fast way to do it. You have to want it.
Hope this post serves as motivation for any of you old farts just starting out. Obviously the younger you are when you start the better you’ll fare and the faster you’ll gain. I just wish I’d started lifting in my 20’s, given the way I look now I’d be a freaking fitness model if I’d been lifting for 20+ years…
Thanks for the story. Mine is somewhat similar in that I had never done anything athletic in my entire life (nope, never played sports growing up) until one day I decided to run a race right before my 38th birthday. Started lifting at 40. Did my first powerlifting meet at 43.
Taking the first step and just staying with it. That’s the key. The rewards are huge. I love being thought of as an “athlete” now that I am approaching 50!
[quote]threepercenter wrote:
I’m actually 47 now, but when I started with 5x5 I was 44 and had never touched the bar in my whole life. I wasn’t conventionally fat, just your standard, average height and weight doughy white dude, with very high blood pressure, low testosterone, 26% body fat and borderline hypoglycemia. My BP is 123/70, BF is sub 12% and all my blood values are normal.
Now I stand as one of the fittest people in my circle of social and professional acquaintances, and someone who is proud of taking off his shirt at the beach. I made it. I wouldn’t consider myself ripped/shredded, although my wife refers to me as such - but I look damn good in my birthday suit. I do have a “lifter’s physique” now.
I’m posting this because when I started looking around for information on how to get started as a first timer old fart there simply wasn’t much to be had. I started with Starting Strength 5x5, and did that for two years till I went to splits etc. It can be done. It takes a long ass time - and you need to watch your diet. AND DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND GET A MALE HORMONE PANEL, the results may surprise you.
3 years of hard work from zero. If you have the will there is a way. There is no fast way to do it. You have to want it.
Hope this post serves as motivation for any of you old farts just starting out. Obviously the younger you are when you start the better you’ll fare and the faster you’ll gain. I just wish I’d started lifting in my 20’s, given the way I look now I’d be a freaking fitness model if I’d been lifting for 20+ years…[/quote]
Yep, everyone on my team is overweight and has multiple health issues, some 10 years my junior. The only guy that is thin is a 27 year old that is just a skinny fat dude by nature. As I became fit I started to notice how many people are actually unfit - it’s astounding.
My son is coming of age and we sat at a cafe in a trendy downtown area in Norcal the other afternoon and watched people for an hour. In the whole time I think we saw 2 women and 6 men that were fit out of hundreds - and I don’t mean athlete fit - I mean carrying normal weight.
It’s flipping ass-tounding I simply never realized how bad I looked - I look back at pictures of my self and I look like a slug. Embarrassing.
We just have to show those NoCal folks how it’s done 3%.
This area is such a huge melting pot of different countries/cultures, that it represents the world at large. So overall, the world has a very small percentage of visibly fit people. Those that are primarily do exclusively cardio, i.e. running and biking; so very little LBM. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
As a matter of fact, most of the people that were not overweight were Asians, with the freshman college dude/girl thrown in here and there. It would seem that those a bit older - approaching mid twenties the masters and phd students (I was in a college town) already are headlong into fatassedness. I fear for my boy’s mating options .
Speaking of which I need to research at what age I should get him started on lifting…
I have a similar story. In my early 40’s I quit smoking and joined a gym for the first time in my life to ‘get in shape’. Now, 8 years later I’m heading into my 23rd meet and my second as an M2. I’m not soft a doughy but, as I was discussing with someone this morning, as we age, life just aches. You can choose to veg on the sofa and ache or lift and ache
As for your son, the earliest age you can compete in IPF affiliates is 14. I’ve been involved in our provincial high school program for several years with kids in grades 9-12 (14 to 18). It seems like 13-14 is a good age to start. I wish I could get my daughter interested.
[quote]threepercenter wrote:
I fear for my boy’s mating options .
Speaking of which I need to research at what age I should get him started on lifting…[/quote]
Amen to that! WE spent hundreds of thousands of years strengthening the gene pool through natural selection and it’s only taken 100 to undo all of our progress. I fear for what the human species will be turning into with weak breeding with weak.
How old is your son? Mine is fourteen and lifting already. He’s also competed in several PL meets as well.
I simply never realized how bad I looked - I look back at pictures of my self and I look like a slug. Embarrassing.