Rare LGM Fitness Blogging
By 
Like many people I spend a fair amount of my time working out in some fashion. It’s important to me to maintain my weight in a certain band, mostly to ensure that the clothes I like continue to fit and that my knees and feet don’t experience rapid unscheduled disassembly, but also to maintain heart health and a certain level of muscularity. I tend to be quite ecumenical in workouts, swimming, biking, jogging, weight lifting, and taking long walks over the course of a week. I supplement gym time with some weightlifting at home (a leftover from the pandemic), including Apple Fitness+ workouts.
For the longest time I resisted joining any kind of class-themed fitness club, in part because it seemed like a waste of money and it part because it seemed weird and cultish to work out in sync with a room of 25 other people. Last year a dear friend convinced me to give Orange Theory Fitness a try. For those unfamiliar, OTF offers hour long high intensity interval training group sessions (there are also 90 minute sessions and 45 minute lift sessions). These are… pretty intense, but not unmanageable. Generally speaking they’re tough enough that I regard it as a mistake to schedule sessions on consecutive days. At 49 years I am probably in the oldest 10% of participants (this may depend a great deal on geography) and I’m often, though not always, the oldest person in the gym.
What I had not understood about OTF and its peers is that the twenty or so other folks sharing the small gym (plus one or two coaches) aren’t a bug, they’re a feature; the other people you work out with constitute a community that enhances participation and accountability. Over time you get to know them and they get to know you; the creepy, chunky old graybeard always on treadmill 13 isn’t just a weirdo, it’s Rob! The guy always wearing the Bengals jersey is Craig! I also have come to understand a bit more about the complicated skill set of the fitness coach, to which sociability is as or more important than ability to keep time or demonstrate exercises. OTF doesn’t appear to be unique in this; I’ve recently joined a boxing fitness gym in support of one of my daughters (she likes to hit things) and while the details are different the dynamics are largely the same. So in a sense these kinds of exercise programs very much are cults; they reward participation with sociability and communal support. Drink the Kool Aid! It’s ever so tasty…
In terms of outcomes, I have definitely noticed an increase in muscle mass, both around the shoulders and in the lower body. I was always the sort of person to skip leg day, and as such I found the rapid expansion of my quads to be both surprising and alarming. At the same time I haven’t lost any weight or really any belly fat, although some of this must be attributed to the fact that I’ve experienced a noticeable slowing of my metabolism over the past 2-3 years or so (late middle age will do this, I’m told). In some sense, however, this doesn’t really matter; I enjoy going to class because I enjoy the coaches and the community, not necessarily because I expect certain outcomes.
Anyway, let this serve as an open thread for discussion of all things middle aged fitness related.