Fit at 58: At Empower We Age Differently
My favourite Eleanor Roosevelt quote goes something like this: “Beautiful young people are an accident of nature; beautiful old people are a work of art.”
Substitute the word beautiful with the word fit, and this quote perfectly encapsulates my philosophy and my mission.
The other day, as I drove home late after seven hours spent in the ER with my mother for the second time in eleven days, I vowed to myself that I would do everything in my power to avoid becoming a health burden on my son. That I would continue to invest in life choices that will pay dividends later.
Because my outcome twenty years from now is determined by the choices I make today. That’s the trap so many of us fall into. Pleasure is immediate, consequence is delayed. Present you gets to benefit from irresponsible life choices while future you pays the bill.
Well, right now I am watching someone I love pay the bill for choices made decades ago, and her health is too far gone now to rewind the clock. For her, there is no opportunity to course-correct, and she is trapped in a living hell of medical interventions. Her health no longer permits her to live independently, let alone do the things she wishes to do. It is heartbreaking to watch. It is a stark reminder that our actions have consequences. That the choices you make today matter.
You Don’t Have to Be Born Athletic
I was not born fit or athletic. I was not one of Eleanor Roosevelt’s beautiful youth. But looking around at my strong, fit, athletic peers, I knew I wanted to be. And I worked for it. Even before my aunt first introduced me to the gym at age fifteen, I had bought a rowing machine and skipping rope for exercising at home. Fitness did not come naturally to me. I can’t honestly say that I enjoy working out. But I do enjoy the outcome.
Because forty years into my fitness journey, the accumulated effort, the time spent in the gym, combined with the care taken at the kitchen table and other health-supporting life choices, has built a strong, healthy body. And for a man in my mid-fifties, I am reasonably fit and athletic. What didn’t come naturally to me, I earned through consistent effort.
What Eleanor Roosevelt was trying to tell you is that genes are not your destiny. Some of us are born beautiful, some of us are not. But with time and effort, all of us can become beautiful. In fact, over time, only those who put in the effort will remain beautiful because if not cared for, beauty will be eroded by the passing years.
It’s Never Too Late to Start
The best time to start was twenty years ago; the second-best time is today. There may be no better proof than my wife. She loathed exercise more than almost anyone I know. She was not born into a physical culture. In fact, in her culture, strong women were an affront to feminine ideals. She did not go to a gym until we found CrossFit. By then, she was already in her forties and very unfit.
But somehow, though she hates working out as much as I do, buoyed by the amazing community, she found the will to stick with it. And today, at age 58, she is a remarkable athlete. Here’s her action-actor highlight reel shot only a few months ago:
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi4107258649/?ref_=nmvg_vi_1
Thanks to CrossFit and Original Strength, she not only lifts weights, climbs ropes, jumps on boxes, and performs pull-ups, but she also does kickboxing, sprinting, judo, and Brazilian jujitsu. She’s loving her life, living in an incredible body, performing athletic feats most twenty-year-olds could not.
After forty-plus years of sedentarism, she has blossomed into a beautiful athlete. Watching her move, it is hard to believe that she and I are fast approaching the age at which we get lumped into the demographic category labelled “senior.”
In contrast, we have watched her three younger sisters, born with similar genetics and raised in the same environment, struggle with their health as they age. Every one of them has suffered major health concerns requiring medical intervention. My wife’s strength and vitality are not an accident of nature. They are evidence that she has taken charge of her health.
What We See Every Day at Empower
And she is not alone. If you come to Empower, you will find our group classes populated by an amazing cohort of 50-and 60-something athletes performing at levels most of us only dreamed of in our 20s and 30s. Not because we were born gifted, but because a lot of us have been working at it together for 10+ years. We’ve invested the time and the effort, and now we are reaping the rewards.
Like discovering the fountain of youth, we’ve found a way to turn back the clock. While everyone else is getting another year older, we’ve gotten another year fitter. Looking around our community, you quickly realize that at Empower, we age differently.
We’ve discovered a fitness life raft, and we want you to join us. We want to rescue you from the ravages of aging. Don’t worry, we’ve no judgment about where you are starting from. Most of us came to CrossFit broken, out of shape, and unhealthy. We know from firsthand experience that where you start matters less than where you are committed to going. It is not the most gifted who excel; it is the most dedicated. Time and effort are the currencies that count.
A Different Way to Age
A future of illness and decrepitude is not inevitable. It is a choice that you make today for your future self. If you want a stark reminder of the consequences, come join me standing around the ER for several hours every few weeks and look around at folks whose health has deteriorated past the point of no return. Compared to the pain and suffering on display there, the pain and suffering of my daily workout feels inconsequential. Especially because I know that my pain and suffering ends the moment the workout is over. For a lot of the folks in the ER, like my mom, the pain and suffering has become a life sentence.
Aging can be cruel. But on the corner of Alma and 5th Avenue on Vancouver’s Westside, there is a small beacon of hope for an alternative ending. There is a small, warm, welcoming community challenging the conventional notions about what aging needs to look like. If you want to author a different destiny for yourself, we welcome you to join us on this journey into healthy aging. At Empower, we age differently.
