The first Olympic Games were held about 2800 years ago. Heracles, son of the Greek God Zeus, established the original games, at least according to legend. The games were held high on Mount Olympus, where all the Greek Gods had their summer homes. There was but a single event in that first Olympics, a simple foot race of a few hundred yards.
Events were added over the next 1100 years, until emperor Theodosius decided the Olympics were too paganish for the new Greek aristocracy and cancelled “The Games.” They stayed cancelled for the next 1500 years, until they were revived at the close of the 19th century. Athens was chosen as the homecoming location for the revival and there were 43 different athletic events.
A New Event
There are almost 8 times that many events in the present Olympic Games format and I think they need to add one more; “Old Age.” It’s a difficult event, requiring a significant amount of planning and practice. To master it, you must train hard. Maybe not as hard as a decathlete or a swimmer but much harder than anything most folks in the present age have ever experienced.
“The Olympic Games is a celebration of discipline.” ~ Sunday Adelaja
That may sound counter-intuitive if you thought “Old Age” was about retiring and relaxing in the Lazy-Boy. It’s not! Back when I was a kid, training and discipline weren’t a requirement. We all ran around like miniature Greek Gods. We could eat anything we wanted, without gaining a pound. Our immune systems were as strong as a bulls as we played outside all day, in the dust, dirt and mud. Hand sanitizer wasn’t even a thing!
The thought of getting old never even crossed our minds, and therein lies the problem, I suppose. You don’t think much about it, until one day you wake up and realize you’re old. Somewhere around the mid to late twenties, you stop growing up and start growing old. Your mind has a funny way though of not dwelling on it’s own inevitable demise. It shuffles old age and death off as an ill-fated event that only happens to others, as if you’re immortal. Sadly you’re not.
Slowly at First
From the late 20’s on, unless you start planning, practicing and training, your mind and body begin to deteriorate. “Slowly at first, and then all at once,” to quote Hemingway. As a kid I used to jump off the garage roof without a thought, but by fifty I was looking at the distance from the top of the step stool, wondering if the knees were going to hold.
Old age is a race but it’s in the opposite direction from what you’re accustomed to. Instead of racing like a “bat out of hell” toward the finish line, you do everything you can to slow down the inevitable conclusion of your race against nature. Nature’s optimized for procreation. Once your child bearing years are behind you, your biological system begins to degrade much quicker. It’s just nature making room for the generations to follow. Damn nature!
“If your gonna have fun at 80 you need to start training at 60.”
Rust Never Sleeps
The rusting away happens deep inside your body, as your stem cells lose the ability to divide and regenerate new cells. Homeostasis cannot be maintained and you shrivel up and die, just the way nature intended. Most diseases exacerbate this eroding away of your cellular biology. When energy can’t be maintained, the immune system fails and free radicals overrun your inner terrain, like a Mongol Horde.
In the “Old Age” race, the competition is Nature, and Nature always wins. So, going in, you already know you’re not going to win. Place or show is the best you can hope for, which takes some of the pressure off;>) There’s a lot to be said for a good showing though, and that takes a considerable amount of diligent training and practice. “Old Age,” requires an Olympic effort. Are you up for it?
Practice Makes Progress
Longevity is the common term now, that all the bio-hackers and fitness preachers use. It definitely has a better ring to it than “Old Age” but we heard a new word recently for what we’re trying to achieve and like it even better; “Durability.” That’s the real goal as you age, right? Create a strong, durable, long-lasting mind and body that resists rust and decay. Does that sound like a truck commercial? Sadly many folks take better care of their truck than their mind and body.
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
As we’ve worked to create a Durability training regimen, we’ve discovered two important keys for our practice – “Nutrition and Movement.” Getting quality nutrition has become quite a bit more complicated than those early days atop Mount Olympus. There were no giant food conglomerates hawking their Ho Ho’s & Ding Dong’s back then. What you eat and drink is the single most important factor to your durability.
That’s Not Food
The big corporate food companies focus on the profitability of convenient, pre-packaged, ultra-processed, shelf-stable, fake foods. It’s called food but it’s really just empty calories, lacking any of the vitamins, minerals and nutrients that your body requires. That’s why obesity has become so prevalent. The body’s not getting the nutrition it needs, so it sends a craving signal to the brain. The brain sends the body after more food but the only thing the body finds on the shelf at the grocery store is more calories. – A never ending cycle that ends in sickness, disease and death.
“If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick.” ~ William James
The body is never satiated and constantly craves more. The only way to turn off the constant craving is to eat food that contains nutrition. Find foods that are low in calories and high in nutrition, it’s the first key in the race against time. I often wonder about the ties between agriculture/food and pharmaceutical industries. It seems like one sells us food that promotes sickness and disease. Then the other one sells us medication to treat the sickness and disease but they actually cause more sickness and disease. They both get rich and we get sickness and disease.
Move
The second key is movement. Any time I sit for long, my watch beeps and tells me to “Move.” Study after study shows that movement is vital to our health and durability. Technological advancements have created a society that is so sedentary, it’s destroying our health. Physically active jobs make up less than 20% of the market in the U.S. “Sitting is the new smoking,” is a commonly heard phrase. It’s not a new story, stand up desks have been around for at least a decade but the situation has only gotten worse. Folks think they can stop by the gym, do a half hour on the elliptical or an hour of Crossfit and that will fix the sitting problem but it won’t.
Your body is designed to move and when you don’t, bad things happen. Numerous hormones in your body and brain are activated by movement and exercise. Insulin, Glucagon, Cortisol, Epinephrine, Testosterone and Human Growth Hormone to name a few. They control cellular functions and a number of physiological reactions in the body like hydration levels, energy metabolism, tissue growth and mood. Our ancestors consistently walked 5 to ten miles everyday, and that’s on top of rooting around for tubers and berries or chasing down a Wolly Mammoth for lunch.
“Those who think they have no time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.” ~ Edward Stanley
And as we age, it’s bigger than just movement. Mobility becomes a major issue. You’ve seen the commercial – “Help, help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” Do you remember when you could jump out of bed and race off on your day without any aches and pains? If you want a chance to make a good showing in your race against nature, you need to start training right now as if your life depends on it.
It does!
