Adding size and/or strength are almost irresistible motives at some point in our lives. Much later, just feeling young again becomes the main goal. A bit later still, just reaching the finish line without needing other people's assistance is your prayer.
The trick is to decide where/when your sweet spots are as to guiding yourself through training, dieting, and supplementing schemes as smoothly as possible from cradle to grave. Being a swole beast with all the attendant euphoria you worked so hard for before your 40s - 50s don't count for shit if you spend your remaining years pathetic, and painfully aware of it. Look at some older relatives if you have that option, or do a brief volunteer gig in a local nursing home if you can stomach it ... "perspective" is easily available if you look for it.
To start, I have a nearly 90 years old gym friend who goes by the nickname of Buddy.
He has a past history of being a competitive powerlifter during a day when everyone in the world was watching the likes of Paul Andersen and such.
Whilst still competing, he took on the job as a football coach at a local high school and later, after his competitive days were over, as a Pastor of a small church.
When I first met Buddy about 8 years ago, he was still squatting 350# and outwardly, he seemed happy about it although I could see that he wasn’t really content, probably due to the fact that his past numbers were considerably higher.
The thing is, now that he’s almost 90, he feels safe going at about a hundred pounds lighter than just 8 years ago but he says that at least he’s able to do what others his age cannot do.
The bottom line is that he can still look at his wife and say to himself that he’s still the protector, he’s still a man and he will continue to have a quality of life that his peers probably do not have.
Most recently, as of about 6 months ago, I started a regimen of dead lifting with a trap bar and before I did, I asked Buddy for some advice.
Man……ya’ll should have seen the look on his face! He had a grin on him that I hadn’t seen in a long time and when he told me that he’d be happy to and agreed to meet me on the next Tuesday, I couldn’t have been happier either.
Since then, even though we have our own gym agendas, we still meet on Tuesdays with me spotting his squats and he coaching me and urging me on. * last Tuesday, my last lift was 375# x 8 and it felt fantastic!*
I think what I’m getting at is that Buddy has helped me reach better goals and in some ways, maybe his quality of life has improved also.
Long and short of the matter is that whilst age definitely does have ability to strip away some of what you used to be able to do, but it can’t take away the knowledge and memories that can be passed on to others………maybe to even an aging 74 year old aspiring bodybuilder.