59 and Going Strong!

Yesterday officially marked the beginning of the final year of my fifties. To say it another way, it was my 59th birthday. Birthdays always provide a unique opportunity to reflect and take an inventory of where things are at in our heart, our mind and with our spirit. Over the years I have had birthdays that have been entirely celebratory and others that have been tinged with heaviness and even grief. As general rule though, as I look back across the story arc of the entirety of my journey, I can't help but notice how grateful I am for the abundance I have experienced in so many aspects of my life. 

One of my personal goals as I approached this particular birthday was to be able to set a new high mark for the amount of weight I could lift on the bench press. I realize that some of you out there who know me best as a yogi, spiritual teacher and overall gentle spirit may be wondering why I would be chasing such a machismo goal in relation to a milestone birthday at this stage of life. I can assure you that this particular goal has had every bit as much to do with my mental and spiritual well being as it has to do with any chest thumping, gym rat grunting, ego driven desires. 

To be perfectly honest, being able to bench press at all has been an adventure in overcoming one of the greatest fears of my entire life. That fear is the overall fear of being too weak to be able to protect and care for myself, and by an extension to be able to protect and take care of all the others who I care for and love. 

While I have been very athletic over the last three decades of my life, I had never been any kind of a weightlifter up until a few years ago. I've done a number triathlons and marathons. I've practiced yoga.and martial arts. I just never really got comfortable with the idea of heading into the weight room and pushing around plates of iron in an attempt to build muscle. Frankly I used to look at it as a bit of a waste of time given the many other things that I did to maintain an overall level of wellness and fitness. 

That all changed when I got into my mid-fifties and I began to notice that my stamina and my ability to keep excess weight off began to shift dramatically. At that time I was working with a fantastic chiropractor named Dr. Matt who told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to add strength training to my fitness regimen or else I would continue to struggle and I would gain weight and get weaker every single year no matter how much cardio or yoga I did in my other workouts. I have no idea what ever happened to Dr. Matt, but not a day goes by that I don't send him my virtual gratitude for shoving me down a path I had been terrified to go down for my entire life. 

This all happened back in 2017 when my wife Christiana was pregnant with our daughter Emma. In some ways In think it was as if I intuitively knew that I was going to need to focus on building more physical strength to prepare for the rigors of fatherhood in my fifties, so as a result, I took to the weight room much more readily than I might have otherwise guessed I would. I still remember my first day on the second floor weight room of Lincoln Park Athletic Club where I worked as a yoga teacher for over 20 years. I sheepishly sat down on one of the bench press stations in the midst of many younger men who were loading multiple plates of weights on each side of the barbell before pressing and grunting their way through dozens of repetitions. 

I started by putting a single ten pound weight on each side of the bar figuring that I would get a safe bearing on where I should start my weightlifting journey. A logical person would have probably hired a personal trainer, but I'm a bit of a lone wolf so I started this new adventure much like I have started many things in my life, with an, "I'll figure this out on my own" mindset. Imagine my surprise when I struggled mightily to finish even one set of ten reps with only the single ten pound weights on each side. Part of me felt invigorated that I had tackled my fear of lying down underneath a barbell for the first time in over 40 years (more about that later) and another part of me was disgusted that I was so weak that I could barely bench press 65 pounds. 

Over the next six months though, I steadily got more comfortable with my trips to the weight room. I did plenty of reading and I watched other trainers and experienced lifters in their own workouts. By the time my daughter Emma was born in early 2018, I was consistently lifting three days a week and I had worked my way up to 25 pound plates on each side of the barbell for my five sets of ten reps at the bench press. I dreamed of one day walking into the gym and loading 45 pound plates onto both sides of the bar and confidently knocking out five sets. Unfortunately, the demands of early parenthood and then the arrival of Covid and the ensuing gym closures in 2020 threw a huge wrench into that dream. 

During the early days of the pandemic, I did manage to acquire a nice set of adjustable dumbbells for home use, but there really is no substitute for a barbell when it comes to bench press and deadlifts, which are two of the most critical exercises in any strength training program. It wasn't long before pretty much all the strength gains that I had enjoyed from the weight room in 2017 and 2018 had disappeared and I was left back at square one. 

This seems like a good spot to take a little segue and explain more about my lifelong fear of not being strong enough. When I was 12 years old I started weightlifting in the basement with an old set of weights and an inexpensive bench I bought at Sears with some paper route money. I was always a skinny kid and although I was fast and I could jump really far, I couldn't do a pull up or climb up the rope and ring the bell for the life of me. As other boys I knew started to fill out more, I looked at my skinny arms and long legs with a sense of shame. It didn't help matters that I had been relentlessly bullied by an older boy named Jerry down the street. There are a few other factors from around age ten that contributed to my fear of not being strong enough to defend myself, but that's a much longer story for a different time. 

Relatively early in my weightlifting adventure back in 1976, I had an accident where I tipped over backwards while I was on the bench press and I wound up falling and breaking my right arm. You can check out the photo below of a very sad and deflated 12-year old Jimmy sporting his new cast and an arm sling on the way to school.

Ever since that moment 47 years ago, I have had both a subconscious and an actual aversion to everything related to weightlifting. I am only just now beginning to have an understanding of just how enormous an impact that chance injury has had on my entire life trajectory as a man. Imagine how things might have gone differently if I had not developed such a huge amount of fear and instead stuck to weightlifting as a young boy? Might I have become one of the physically strongest kids in the neighborhood? Maybe I would have excelled in contact sports and used my natural speed and great vision to have become an NFL running back or NHL center iceman? 

It's not as if I am saying that my life would have necessarily been better if I was stronger as a boy or young man, but it definitely would have been different. So let's fast forward back to present day.

About six months ago I rejoined the health club that I used to work at before the pandemic. I gradually started to add some of the strength training that I did in 2017 and 2018 back into my workout routines. Over the last couple of months in particular, I had noticed that I was really getting back into a sweet spot with timing, rest, nutrition and stamina. As a result I have been able to up my weight a few times, eventually moving beyond my previous personal bests. I loosely put a vision in my mind that on my 59th birthday I would walk into the gym and for the first time ever, load a 45 pound plates on each side of the barbell. I thought to myself, even if I could do only a single rep it would be an achievement of epic proportion, wiping out a lifetime of fear and shame. It would be something like getting one pull up instead of zero on the elementary school fitness test or zipping up the rope and ringing the bell as my classmates watched in awe and cheered. 

So yesterday on my 59th birthday, I made a power packed protein smoothie, I grabbed all the things I would need for my lunch date with my wife and I headed to the gym. I went straight to the exact second floor bench press where it all started back in 2017. I sat under the empty bar with no added weight and did about 25 reps just to get my blood flowing. After that, without even thinking twice, I loaded a 45 pound plate onto each side of the barbell and took my position underneath the bar. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I lifted the bar off of the rack. lowered it slowly down to my chest and confidently pushed it back up. The feeling inside me was an elation similar to finishing my first ever marathon or passing my first black belt exam, only much bigger. It was as if a lifetime of "not-enoughness" had been cast aside and if that wasn't enough already, I actually did five sets of eight reps! 

Sometimes we can recognize our growth slowly in the baby steps along the way and at other times we get the privilege of enjoying life changing accomplishments as they happen. Often times those lifetime achievement moments require a lifetime of effort, but they serve as a powerful reminder to never give up the dream. What are you dreaming about these days? I'd love to hear some of your personal stories about determination and dedication. 

Speaking about stories, I've set the date of Tuesday July 25th for the next SpeakEasy Social Club gathering. I'm even toying with the idea of doing a hybrid live/zoom broadcast if I can get a handful of Chicago based regulars who would like to meet up in person. Stay tuned for those details, but mark you calendar now! Also, take a look below for information about the next Water of Life Men's Community circle on Thursday July 20th at 6:30 p.m. central. 

Wishing you the best for an amazing week. Love and blessings, 

Jim