Weightlifting for (Old) Dummies

I’ve been in training for the last year and a half. Training, as in lifting weights, pulling on handles connected to weights, pushing on rollers and pads connected to weights, holding weights and balancing on one foot, not to mention holding the weight of my own body on bars over my head or pushing my prone self off the floor—the various methods (and their underlying sameness) go on and on. And for a change, there are a million ways to do crunches.

Why, why am I doing this? Two reasons: I’m getting old and I don’t want to stumble, fall down, break my hip, never walk again, get a pulmonary embolism and die. At least not quite yet. And second, I want to be able to put my bag in the overhead bin of a Boeing 777 all by myself. That’s actually the real reason. I travel a lot and it irritates me that men have so much more upper body strength than women. I want to swoop my bag up there with the greatest of ease and I want people to see me do it. So there! I say.

Seriously though, the training is pretty cool. Scott, our trainer (my husband and I go together, twice a week), is terrific—when we say something is hard, he says, “It’s supposed to be hard. Everything should be hard in here so that everything else you do during the day is easier.”

My husband and I, shrimpy seniors that we are, have become buddies with the other folks in the gym—all young big body-building types. They could crush my arm between their thumb and forefinger, I’m quite sure, but they are nice as can be.

Besides, I now have a little bump on my arms—an actual muscle that mounds up quite amazingly. And the last plane trip I took? I took a broad stance. I tensed my core. I grabbed my bag, and swoop! Up it went! Maybe not as graceful as a ballet dancer lifting his partner over his head, but it darn well did the job.

Go for it!

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