Thing is, good reader … what he says, his five points, are actually quite nail on the head … I did sit through it and they’re definitely points you might consider if planning to take on this ageing process.
What concerned me, and I don’t wish to inflame the Brit or youtube thought police, let alone that youtube doc … was that he hardly followed his own advice, looking at those shoulders and listening to that soft beta voice … I mean, it was hardly like these chaps below, was it?
I was pushed by my then gf in Russia to train at a gym … her notion was to get the paunch down to a six pack, whereas mine, and those of all the gym rats I met, was to beef up legs and upper body … a very useful thing as it turned out because decades later, losing muscle mass, circulation and overall functionality … it meant I had twenty years head start. So I thank my erstwhile darling for that, plus the new gf after the old left me and she was just as “with the plan”.
I am thinking, dear atheist readers, that maybe I was being kept alive by Someone Above. ✝️ian readers already know it was so.
Anyway, I digress. Were I to be asked what you should build up first, I instantly say quads and calves. Through biking, walking or training … do it! Talking chaps here … chapesses have a different regime to a fair extent.
The second is upper body … bis, tris, shoulders, neck. I’m well aware that there are other body parts but those are the ones to constantly hit.
All right, a trade secret … remember that, like Simon, I’m quite mad. I have no washing machine and want none either … they break, plus it involves dumping the old, broken ones … no thanks in 2026 Britain. So I handwash, even sheets, other bedding. In the bathtub sit two builders’ black buckets full of water and after each visit to the loo, one arm lifts a bucket out and it’s tipped in … much better than the (many times) breakable handle on the cistern. Then the other hand lifts out the other bucket.
That’s a useful number of lbs in each bucket … that’s ongoing biceps toning and it’s mightily useful for the upper body. As much done manually as possible, dear reader. Thinking no woman would put up with such eccentricities but the bod likes it and it means I can keep this blog up for our readers.
Last thing for now on’t … if you test those things the good youtube doc suggested and are found wanting … it’s not too late … also check out Steve at NOWP in his daily health advice. It really does help, reader, it really does. Also Sama Hoole screenshots now and then. Plus the X docs.
I’m a bit late to comment on this as the day is almost done, but I thought I’d say it anyway.
Many years ago, a friend of mine came across some exercises in a Readers Digest – ladies strength exercises. She didn’t do anything except tear the pages out. Years later she found them and showed her doctor who said they were brilliant for ladies from 8 to 80. She gave me a photocopy, which I still have and few months ago I started to do them. (I’m over sixty years old….)
They are things like sitting on a chair and standing up (slowly) without using your hands to help. Or standing on tiptoe and back down (slowly) or slowly lifting hand-held weights (or baked bean tins – full ones) to work various arm muscles, and so on. You do these exercises every other day. On the days you don’t do the strength exercises, you do some aerobic exercise (walking, swimming etc). I used to go on lots of long walks, but now I work in a charity shop my walking is up quite a steep hill to get there. When I’m at the shop, I’m up and down the steep stairs into the basement, where all the donations are kept and sorted, to bring up full boxes and bags of stuff to put out in the shop. (And at home, my craft room is at the top of the house, in the attic. Up two flights of stairs).
I have noticed that whereas I used to have to stop half way up the hill on the way to work, I can now get all the way to the top of the hill, and even then I’m hardly puffed out at all. I certainly don’t need to stop. And I walk quite fast. And I can stand on one leg for more than 10 seconds.
So I feel that I’m getting there with fitness and strength. Thanks for the good encouragement to keep going with it.
……
JH: Keep at it, Isilme.