Age is Not Just a Number
Age is just a number?
What a disingenuous, self-deceptive cliché.
Age is not just a number. It’s a specific point within the inexorable biological march of decline toward death experienced by every living creature on the planet. That is an inescapable, undeniable, and unrelenting fact.
It’s not some kind of philosophical or social construct created by the man in a boardroom somewhere to keep you down.
You do not have the same physical capacity and capability at 50 as you do at 20.
That is not cynicism or surrender or mental weakness—that’s about as straightforward of a biological fact as you can find.
You are going to die. The only questions are when, and to what degree along the way your physical abilities will diminish.
You cannot positive-think your way into erasing these facts because you find they aren’t convenient or cheerful.
However, don’t misinterpret what I’m saying as some black cloud of doom rolling in overhead. It should in fact be the opposite—the illumination of a better path to that unavoidable conclusion.
It means you absolutely can and should do exactly what you want, rather than surrender philosophically, emotionally or practically to the withering effects of that relentless process of life.
The point I’m trying to get across is that you can’t simply pretend this process doesn’t exist—that futile attempt is only harming you by creating a sense of infinite time to waste, and expectations that your body cannot fulfill no matter how hard you work, how disciplined you are, or how many times you smile toothily into the mirror and repeat the phrase, Age is just a number.
You have to accept the existence of these growing limitations while doing everything in your power to reduce them with lifestyle and mental choices, and take advantage of this fleeting life you have by doing with it what you wish every day.
Remember that age is approximate and individual. It is not a consistent marker of our condition—it’s a point on our own unique scale that’s influenced by factors within and beyond our control.
To what degree aging affects your abilities depends as well on the activity in question to a great extent—speed and strength will decline most, while endurance can persist far longer.
You can likely continue improving as an endurance athlete into a fairly late age, and find that your limitations are related primarily to injury and chronic pain from accumulated wear rather than underlying biological decline directly; but you will not continue becoming a better weightlifter as your age increases past your biological peak… unless you stayed well below your ultimate ability at those younger ages.
These things are also largely dependent on your training and activity history—if you’ve logged so many thousands of miles as an endurance athlete that you’ve created significant orthopedic degeneration, you’re going to find your abilities diminish due to the accumulated damage and resulting limitations of injuries and pain; in contrast, if your training has been more moderate throughout life and you don’t have the debilitating effects of that kind of mileage, you’re more likely to be able to continue improving your performance metrics past typical peak age.
The same basic phenomenon plays out in strength and power activities also. I’ve joked many times, while being entirely serious, that the best way to get stronger as you get older is to be weaker when you’re younger.
You have a genetic ceiling on performance, and that ceiling begins dropping incrementally lower over your head at some point as you age. The more space you left up there in your youth, the longer you can continue improving through training and lifestyle as that ceiling closes in to meet your ascent.
The closer to that ceiling you reached in your biological prime, the smaller that gap, and the sooner that ceiling will begin pushing you back down into the ground.
But also keep in mind that generally the more of your ultimate potential you can reach in your biological glory days, the greater level of ability you’re likely to be able to maintain as you age. That means that you may only decline after that point, but at any given time beyond it, you’re likely to be more capable than someone who waited until a later age to begin developing those abilities, and consequently has less time for that development and is also operating with the reduced rate of progress that accompanies aging.
And a final consideration that may be the most important one here: You don’t have to have world class athletic ability to enjoy training, competition, or the activity generally, and any level of it provides value to your life in multiple respects, from physical to mental to emotional. If you’re 80 years old and muscle snatching a broomstick, you are benefitting from that activity, no matter how unimpressive or inconsequential it may appear comparatively.
Recognizing and accepting your own mortality and the process of physical decline is how you combat it—this understanding should be a galvanizing revelation that inspires your pursuit of increasing life within your decreasing days.
Don’t deceive yourself about what’s happening—do what you want to do and do it to the best of your ability in the moment because that is what puts life into your years, no matter the number.
If you insist on considering age a number, fine: It’s a number that measures how close to death you are.
This video may seem to be a bit far afield for those of you who want strictly Olympic weightlifting content… but it isn’t.
Your training and competition don’t take place in a vacuum. This is not theoretical mathematics—this is life.
The sooner you recognize your training as one element of a complex system, the sooner you can begin refining that system and producing better results… and enjoying the experience more.
What a disingenuous, self-deceptive cliché.
Age is not just a number. It’s a specific point within the inexorable biological march of decline toward death experienced by every living creature on the planet. That is an inescapable, undeniable, and unrelenting fact.
It’s not some kind of philosophical or social construct created by the man in a boardroom somewhere to keep you down.
You do not have the same physical capacity and capability at 50 as you do at 20.
That is not cynicism or surrender or mental weakness—that’s about as straightforward of a biological fact as you can find.
You are going to die. The only questions are when, and to what degree along the way your physical abilities will diminish.
You cannot positive-think your way into erasing these facts because you find they aren’t convenient or cheerful.
However, don’t misinterpret what I’m saying as some black cloud of doom rolling in overhead. It should in fact be the opposite—the illumination of a better path to that unavoidable conclusion.
It means you absolutely can and should do exactly what you want, rather than surrender philosophically, emotionally or practically to the withering effects of that relentless process of life.
The point I’m trying to get across is that you can’t simply pretend this process doesn’t exist—that futile attempt is only harming you by creating a sense of infinite time to waste, and expectations that your body cannot fulfill no matter how hard you work, how disciplined you are, or how many times you smile toothily into the mirror and repeat the phrase, Age is just a number.
You have to accept the existence of these growing limitations while doing everything in your power to reduce them with lifestyle and mental choices, and take advantage of this fleeting life you have by doing with it what you wish every day.
Remember that age is approximate and individual. It is not a consistent marker of our condition—it’s a point on our own unique scale that’s influenced by factors within and beyond our control.
To what degree aging affects your abilities depends as well on the activity in question to a great extent—speed and strength will decline most, while endurance can persist far longer.
You can likely continue improving as an endurance athlete into a fairly late age, and find that your limitations are related primarily to injury and chronic pain from accumulated wear rather than underlying biological decline directly; but you will not continue becoming a better weightlifter as your age increases past your biological peak… unless you stayed well below your ultimate ability at those younger ages.
These things are also largely dependent on your training and activity history—if you’ve logged so many thousands of miles as an endurance athlete that you’ve created significant orthopedic degeneration, you’re going to find your abilities diminish due to the accumulated damage and resulting limitations of injuries and pain; in contrast, if your training has been more moderate throughout life and you don’t have the debilitating effects of that kind of mileage, you’re more likely to be able to continue improving your performance metrics past typical peak age.
The same basic phenomenon plays out in strength and power activities also. I’ve joked many times, while being entirely serious, that the best way to get stronger as you get older is to be weaker when you’re younger.
You have a genetic ceiling on performance, and that ceiling begins dropping incrementally lower over your head at some point as you age. The more space you left up there in your youth, the longer you can continue improving through training and lifestyle as that ceiling closes in to meet your ascent.
The closer to that ceiling you reached in your biological prime, the smaller that gap, and the sooner that ceiling will begin pushing you back down into the ground.
But also keep in mind that generally the more of your ultimate potential you can reach in your biological glory days, the greater level of ability you’re likely to be able to maintain as you age. That means that you may only decline after that point, but at any given time beyond it, you’re likely to be more capable than someone who waited until a later age to begin developing those abilities, and consequently has less time for that development and is also operating with the reduced rate of progress that accompanies aging.
And a final consideration that may be the most important one here: You don’t have to have world class athletic ability to enjoy training, competition, or the activity generally, and any level of it provides value to your life in multiple respects, from physical to mental to emotional. If you’re 80 years old and muscle snatching a broomstick, you are benefitting from that activity, no matter how unimpressive or inconsequential it may appear comparatively.
Recognizing and accepting your own mortality and the process of physical decline is how you combat it—this understanding should be a galvanizing revelation that inspires your pursuit of increasing life within your decreasing days.
Don’t deceive yourself about what’s happening—do what you want to do and do it to the best of your ability in the moment because that is what puts life into your years, no matter the number.
If you insist on considering age a number, fine: It’s a number that measures how close to death you are.
This video may seem to be a bit far afield for those of you who want strictly Olympic weightlifting content… but it isn’t.
Your training and competition don’t take place in a vacuum. This is not theoretical mathematics—this is life.
The sooner you recognize your training as one element of a complex system, the sooner you can begin refining that system and producing better results… and enjoying the experience more.
