It was in junior high that I started to daydream of girls!
At around my 16th birthday, I accidentally caught a Bruce Lee movie “Way of the Dragon” – this was the beginning of my interest in working out with weight.
Ironically, I have always looked up to Chuck Norris because of his capability in kicking ass bad guys at the same time exhibiting the virtue in humility – but it was Bruce Lee’s tantalizing confidence that sealed my “monkey see monkey do” behavior.
I remembered clearly at one particular scene in the movie that finalized my lifelong interest with working-out.
Bruce Lee was not a big guy. He was 5’8” weighed at 128lb – yet pound for pound, his physic was phenomenon.
At that very time frame, I was and still 5’8” weighed in 160 lb – yet I would have looked puny had I stood next to Bruce Lee.
Immediately after the movie, I begged my father for a weight set from Kmart that will put him back $50 on the already constraint budget of living paycheck to paycheck on a weekly basis.
A month later, I got my first weight set. It took over 30 years, worn down many personal weight sets, frequented many gyms, adopted and abandoned many workout routines along with thousands of diets and supplements confusions – finally, I was able to stand toe to toe with the master!
This was taken last year when I had a chance to visit Hong Kong – still weighed in at 160 lb.
I was euphoric with so much confidence after I met Bruce. I decided to ante up the competition with Hong Kong mystical figure.
I will not detail the workout in this article. But if you requested, I can give you the diet and workout routine for this stats – BMI 24 with approximately 14% body fat.
Let’s move on the topic at hand – why natural bodybuilding is the ultimate hobby!
Just so we will not be confused with the word natural, the definition of natural bodybuilding at 1DesignerLife.com is multivitamin, cooked foods from raw ingredients, maybe 1 to 2 scoops of whey protein and a bulk load of sweats.
Let’s get you on board with natural bodybuilding!
Most types of physical sports have their shelf-life based on the age of the person. High impacts sports football, soccer, baseball, basketball are generally not safe options for people who are retired – sixty and older.
Even golf, the once the pride sport for high income earners, requires substantial endurance to take on the full duration of nine-hole courses – I cannot imagine playing the 18 holes on a regular golf course at 65 and older.
Below is the compiling of the major sports and the oldest players in each as reference to the physical taxation to human physiology.
Working out with weights combined with jogging or fast walking, you can do the routine to the very last day of your existence. There was a rumor – Jack LaLanne (the godfather of modern fitness) died clutching a dumbbell in his palm at the age of 96.
If you need the additional motivation from an organized fashion type of competition – there are many body builder organizations cater to folks who are sixty and older.
There are approximately 90% of right-handers and 10% left-handers in the growing population of 7.7 billion as of 2019.
Physically, the left hemisphere of your brain controls the right side of the body and the right hemisphere is responsible for the other half.
Do you have to have the training of a neuroscientist to connect the dots that you brain will become more asymmetric in behavior as you age?
One of the goals for all gym rats is the physical symmetry – the left side of the body is developed symmetrically to the right.
This underline desire enforces all adopted workout routines efficient or not to have fair share of times and devoted efforts on both halves of the body – hence for the duration of the workout, both brain hemispheres are taxed with the same level of activities.
Growing up in the bottom 10 percentile family, I did not have the opportunity to play music or participate in school organized sports.
When Bruce Lee inspired me to do the first bench press, the efficacy with the girls was undeniable. But as I got older – college, family, careers and aging brought on the types of stress that more than often after an hour of rigorous workout – therapeutic and sensible solutions came to the rescue.
As a right-hander and a trained engineer, I have greatly benefited from the science and math and the analytic thought of the left hemisphere. At the same time in the 27 years of our marriage, I always feel my intuition is not too shabby in comparison to my wife.
Most scientists will generally agree that culturally, we have conditioned the strength of intuition and logic into genders – the result is displayed in statistical average, women are more intuitive and men are more logical.
Although I am not a left-hander, for most of my life, the thousands of workout sessions have successfully assisted my right hemisphere to keep pace with the left brain.
It is this added benefit of intuition that allowed me to see the world as 2 + 3 = 5ish – it does not have to always equated to five – an invaluable capability of high empathy for building relationship.
In the last 5 years, I have the opportunities in traveling extensively in Southeast Asia. With just few exercise bands, I was able to keep the internal metrics, high blood pressure, cholesterol and resting pulse rate in the optimal range – along with the maintenance of the strength and the physic of the muscle skeleton.
Manohar Aich, and Indian bodybuilder, who died in 2016 at the age of 104. At 4 feet and 11 inches, he began weight training while in jail when the country was under Britain’s colonization – Manohar went on to win Mr. Universe competition at the age of 39 (Nytimes.com).
Ultimately, you can reduce natural bodybuilding down to push-up, pull-up and cardio (jumping jack, high knee etc…) – and this minimal routine can be executed in the park, in a hotel when travel or in political jail as demonstrated by Manohar Aich.
The only prerequisite in natural bodybuilding is your mindset!
We are creatures of habit. As we get older it is harder to change the routine in foods and activities. Many older people have hard making the transition to working out from their preferred sports.
Just like everything experiences in life – it takes time for the efficacy and enjoyment to take root.
Are you convinced that natural bodybuilding is for you?
Let’s play the game of life!
