We’re getting to that age.  When Empower opened on Vancouver’s West Side, most of us were in our 40’s.  That was 10 years ago.  That means most of us are now in our 50’s.  The Empower women have a fairly tight support group that they can lean on when navigating the challenges of menopause.  But no one talks much about the challenges that ageing men face in the gym.


So, let me share my experiences.  Over the past year I have noticed a marked decline in my workout scores.  Sure, I still score a personal best from time to time especially on skill based workouts but 90% of the time I am falling short of my previous benchmarks.  As D’Knee likes to quip: “The older I get, the better I was.”

Since starting CrossFit in 2005, this is the first time I’ve seen a steady, consistent decline absent injury or lay-off from training.  More worrisome than the declining workout performances are the lost skills.  In 2021 I inexplicably lost the ability to perform a pistol on my right side.  In 2022 I began struggling with my squats for the first time since beginning CrossFit.  And this year I discovered I had almost lost the ability to perform dumbbell overhead squats.

It is quite alarming when skills you once took for granted suddenly become challenging or even beyond your reach.  And I know I am not alone in experiencing this.

What other gifts did turning 50 bring me?  In the fall I finally succumbed to the need for reading glasses.  Now I need glasses not only to see things far away but also a pair for reading things up close.

Then, over the Christmas holidays my hip problems amplified making walking difficult.  A doctor friend told me I am a decade out from hip replacement surgery. 

Next it was my tooth.  A piece came off while I was brushing.  Not a big piece.  Just a little chip in the back that no one but me would notice.  I didn’t chip the tooth eating or fighting, it just came off while brushing.  And to me, teeth falling out of a mouth are a real old person symptom.

And more recently I was inducted into the very exclusive Empower Cyclops Club with Magnum and Mufasa (look for our matching team eye patches coming soon) when I developed a retina detachment.

It’s like manufactured obsolescence and the warranties on various body parts have begun to expire and one by one.  Perhaps our eventual decline is inevitable but it is still a shock when your heretofore upward trajectory takes a swing in the opposite direction.  Some might even find it discouraging.

Lucky for me, I’m stubborn and contrary by nature and am not resigned to living into someone else’s inevitability.  Instead I prefer to heed the advice of poet Dylan Thomas as I continue to burn and rave.  I plan to resist physical decline with every ounce of determination and all the wiles available to me.  Raging against the dying of the light.  It is a battle I was born to fight. 

But how?

The internet has armed us with greater access to information than any generation before us has ever enjoyed.  Most of it is bunk of course but if you look long and hard enough you may occasionally catch a glimpse of the truth if you know how to recognize it. 

None of the recommended hip exercises I searched for months produced meaningful results until I found a video that suggested I was walking incorrectly.  And wouldn’t you know it?  By altering my gait so that the head of the femur no longer rubs on the anterior portion of the acetabulum, I magicked my hip pain away.  So if you notice that I now walk differently, that is my new manopause walk.  Yes, I have acquired a strange gait but my hip feels wonderfully pain free!

My teeth have been receiving a new regimen of oil pulling with coconut oil combined with brushing fortified with baking soda and oil of oregano.  My teeth are looking and feeling cleaner than they have in years. 

Retinal detachment?  Well, the risk of getting hit in the eye again can be mitigated with the purchase of wrestling goggles.  They will pair wonderfully with my new goofy walk.

The surgeon tells me that cataract surgery is all but inevitable after retinal detachment.  But I know that cataracts are formed by the accumulation of advanced glycation end products in the eye. So what causes advanced glycation end products?  It’s in the name.  They are proteins or lipids that become glycated after exposure to sugar.

So there is a possibility that on a low carb diet I may be able to reduce AGE’s and thereby reduce the likelihood of a future cataract surgery.  Immediately after my eye surgery I switched to a low carb (not keto) diet.  Remarkably, in a few short weeks the prescription for my good eye has already changed requiring a lower prescription! 

My body has also felt great.  Even after a 17 day layoff from training during which I was almost entirely sedentary, I felt little loss of strength or conditioning when I returned to training one week ago. 

AGE’s, I might add, are also prevalent in diabetes and the development of atherosclerosis.

So my new dietary rigour may also protect me from diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and dementia all of which plague my family and all of which are associated with elevated insulin levels typical in a diet higher in carbohydrates.

The way I see it through my one working eye, my retinal detachment might have been a warning sign of more serious health problems ahead.  A feature rather than a fault.  The proverbial canary in the coal mine if you will.  It was disruptive enough to make me take notice and motivate me to make a major lifestyle shift that may help prevent more serious future health complications.

So far the transition to low carb has been smooth and painless.

This incident may in fact be a blessing.  Will it help me avoid the health issues that plagued the rest of the men in my family?  I certainly hope so.  One thing for sure, I am not interested in passively awaiting the “inevitable”.  If there are actions I can take to optimize my outcomes, I will certainly take them.

I’ve been practicing and recovering my squats and am now working to restore my dumbbell overhead squats.  The pistols show no sign of returning yet but I have not given up hope.  Ageing offers us an opportunity to navigate our changing bodies.  As Byron Katie says:

“Life is simple.  Everything happens for you, not to you.  Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late.  You don’t have to like it…It’s just easier if you do.”

I take comfort in knowing that I am not alone on this journey.  At Empower we are all ageing together.  We are our own support group for ageing athletes.  We have the opportunity to help each other out as we navigate the challenges of changing bodies.  We do not have to resign ourselves to decrepitude but instead, have the opportunity to redefine what ageing looks and feels like.  These are our lives, let’s make the best of them!

Monday
There are multiple fun and effective movement adaptations for today’s gymnastics skills.  Your coach will help you select the best one for you.  Your front squat loading should start around 80% of your one rep max in round one decreasing to about 65% of your one rep max ij round two and, if you get there, approximately 50% of your one rep max in the third and final round.  You will be required to clean the bar from the floor as per the competition standards, racks will not be an option.

In larger classes you may need to share a barbell with a partner in which case one of you can begin with the gymnastics movement while the other starts at the barbell.

Warm Up
1 minute each:

A B
Ring Row Squats Romanian Deadlifts
Leopard Crawl Bradford Press
KB Goblet Squats Squat Cleans

Tech
Squat Clean + Front Squat
HSW or 225 H2H or 450ft Bear Crawl
MU or 15 pull ups + 15 ring dips
Wall-facing HSPU or HSPU or Shoulder Press @last front squat weight 

WOD: IQF 23.1
15 min Time cap:
9 Front Squat (heavy)
225ft HSW (9 x 25ft)
15 Front Squat (medium)
15 MU
21 Front Squat (light)
21 Wall-facing HSPU