FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH, 1

It was a few years back if I recall correctly. A large publishing group approached me to write a book on “middle-aged fitness.” Their proposal came with all the standard little vows of “love” and platitudes of how, with my age-defying lifestyle I truly was the only professional in the industry who could write the book. Time, negotiations and the inevitable discovery that I wasn’t the type of person to put my integrity up for sale, curtailed the development of this book and I hammered the deal shut.

Of course there was a simple and honest series of problems related to this topic. Simply, I have no common denominator to the mainstream fitness media in their understanding of what constitutes “middle aged fitness,” nor have I bought into this notion that aging is a limitation and relegated life to an impressionistic painting. To some “middle aged fitness” is acceptance of time “marching on,” the body decaying like a fallen leaf on the ground and opportunities for healthy activities are a distant memory and to be looked at like that same leaf pressed lovingly between pages. While I spoke of challenges met and a youthful virile lifestyle met with a lustful passion, they talked of adding fiber to the diet, that hot new cardigan for chilly nights on the schooner and life with a 9pm curfew. Of all the flaws in the exercise world’s ridiculous claims…the notion of more sedentary training needs for middle-aged users, the very notion of our development and goals is misguided from the very start.

For the mainstream consumer of today…fitness/health and whatever you want to call what has been sold as “something you do within a gym,” is like an answer to the game-show question of “how to get little benefits from exercise,” our society has lost the entire notion of healthy activities in their day-to-day existence and bought into this notion of driving to the gym to walk on a treadmill. Enter a modern gym facility and what we have is not the evolution of training but the perversion of what has been sold as “exercise” as well as dysfunctional concepts of body imagery. It is a marlowesque tale of the primping Barbie clamoring for mirror space in front of the strutting peacock that we know as the modern male. Is it any wonder why so many people abandon the exercise industry as they are able to see through the facade because it is simply sizzle without any meat. The entire thing from start to finish is off base and unrelated to cultivating a fit and healthy lifestyle.

Of course, the public is merely an innocent pawn in the maniacal windstorm created by the street corner pimps of the health and fitness media that has tortured virtually every notion impacted by its broad swath. For the most-part these rags, which are best served for training that cute new puppy, twist virtually every fact, whether it is the ill-conceived notion of what constitutes an attractive fit physique, gender confusion with the perversion of male and female body-types, the mundane and consistent bantering of hypertrophy based training targeted towards the easily impressed self-esteemed starved teen and of course endless streams of supplementation and dietary complexity that yes…help create that “perfect body” that they deemed “perfect” merely to sell whore the parent company’s supplements. But how could we expect more from the an industry run by soft, limp middle-aged men…sitting alone in precious ivory towers, looking out the corner office, reviewing their investment portfolios, wondering where the time went but unable to experience the joie de vie and continue their perverse contamination of the exercise game. How can we expect more from mature men only capable of penning literature geared towards angst ridden youth and continue to unmask the “genius” of another bicep and calf training session. And yet of all of these comments one thing is definitely clear, they have been incredibly successful at twisting the above ideas and what is left is a public never so far from enjoying a healthy lifestyle and with many of these notions firmly entrenched in the industry now for decades, change is no small task.

If you’re feeling like a victimized pawn in this plague…you should, you’ve been duped and paying for it dearly. Lives have become more sedentary and coupled with over-indulgent dietary habits, general health has created a plethora of problems and yet while difficult to hear, if not more insidious to state…this beast called the modern man is well not a beast but a soft little lamb…a lamb that clamors for the blue-pill to find a taste of youthful passion.

The evidence is clear, absolute and irrefutable. With a society that has never spent as much in the broad fitness market, there has never been equally a population with such weight management problems as this one. The modern “evolution” of strength and health looked beyond this for its own self-serving financial interests, came up with its own ludicrous ideas and ultimately lead us where are where we are now. And before the boisterous and bravado laden fitness markets seeks its high and mighty perch…the failure is laid firmly on the industry because it forgot that one thing that needs to be remembered:

Fitness, health and exercise by nature needs to be designed or better said, organically cultivated such that it adds value to your life in terms of general health, activities, stress management, appearance and yes, sexuality.

Of course…that being said the true facts are as it relates to this magical idea of “middle-aged fitness” is that it isn’t merely an idea of accommodating age limitations…that’s preposterous because what age provides us is the experience and physical maturation to really profiteer with our training and live a healthy, active and yes virile life. Fountain of youth? Possibly, but that’s hard for me to understand just the same…because twenty-somethings still can’t keep up, anytime, anywhere.

And with that…off to the attic and time to uncrate your fountain of youth…the Renegade plan of attack for “Middle-Aged Fitness”….

Editors Note
“Fountain of Youth” part 2 upcoming shortly….