A few days ago I watched a video-clip featuring a woman gymnast. She was pretty good.
But what impressed me the most was the fact that Johanna Quaas was 86 years old. She did things at the parallel bars that I probably couldn’t have done when I was 30.
But Johanna is no ordinary person. In 1954 she was a member of the handball team that took the Eastern German championship and in her advanced years she collected 11 medals in senior gymnastic.
So basically she never stopped pumping iron and that’s why she is in such a great shape.
And that’s my point. If you keep exercising regularly throughout your life, you will be able to still tie your shoelaces when you are 90, and beyond.
Many people exercise when single, but it seems that they stop when they tie the knot. Maybe it is the ensuing amount of sex that leaves them exhausted and unable to pursue the Holy Grail of body conditioning.
But I doubt it. After many years at the Playboy Mansion Hugh Hefner is still pumping.
“If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”
So said Eubie Blake (1887-1983).
The old dude was right!
Body maintenance should start at an early age and never cease.
Most of us stop exercising when we become “responsible” adults with a demanding job and a wife and children to feed.
We stop doing regular body maintenance and we treat our cars more lovingly than our own human machine. We start by skipping an oil change, neglecting the air conditioning and not replacing the tires when we should.
I have always been in awe of old Asian people would can squat like babies even in their eighties.
They can do this, because they practiced all their lives and never stopped doing it. If we never stopped exercising we would all look like Sarafian and hit “carreaux” at least once a week.
Popular wisdom says it plainly “don’t use it, lose it”.
If you want your children to be in great shape in their eighties (it is too late for most of us) tell them to never stop exercising, even when the wife nags them to spend more time taking care of the children.
Because who will take care of the children when like Tony Soprano you get whacked by a heart attack at the age of fifty-one?
Be selfish, it is good for you!
Alain