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I think this is a sane recommendation for any person: work out sensibly for one hour, every day of your life! Not too extreme, and not wimpy- you need this hour for strength and flexibility training, not mindless cardio, where you run like a brainless chicken. Such “training” only drains you, diminishes your muscle, not build it, and ignores strength building (the essence of truly working out!).
A true workout is very mindful. You need to ‘think into’ your muscles, flexing them slowly, and intentionally, throughout each exercise. This can be using weights, barbells and dumbbells, or bands, calisthenics, or a myriad of machines. What you use is not really that important at all- sales people will tell you otherwise, but trust me: it’s the intensity that matters. Time under tension, if you will.
I use a combination, gymnastic rings hung up high are actually a near genius exercise device! Instantly scalable, from very easy, to superhuman level. All in a rather cheap, portable package that never wears out, and can target every part of your body. Pushups, pull ups, rows, one-legged squats, dips- you have it all in the rings! Plus, it’s silent, and actually kind of fun, in a way…
You can also add in other things, like heavy deadlifts (on occasion!), along with Jefferson curls, also called stiff legged deadlifts for the lower back- very effective, and very SAFE! As I have aged, I have stopped doing a full routine, and instead do upper body one workout, and the next workout do lower body. Full body, at least at age 72, is too much; better to split the workout for recovery.
To workout for one hour per day should not seem onerous- it is well worth it to spend one hour out of 24, when by doing so you make the other 23 hours far more enjoyable and productive! You will make yourself immune from awful joint replacement operations, and bypass endless diseases of disuse that clog our medical clinics!
Each day, what works for me, and has for many years, is to get up, and stretch and do what I call ‘virtual resistance’ in front of the television. This is simply flexing your limbs, for repetitions, as if you were lifting weights. You supply the resistance from within as you move. Try it with curls: just curl you arms, as if you hold weights. You can make it as hard as you like, simply by flexing! Do it with curls, military presses, shoulder raises- every exercise there is. Cover the whole body, and you will be drenched in sweat if you did it intensely enough, and on top of it you will feel energized, rather than drained as if you had used actual weights.
Do this for about 1/2 hour, while you enjoy your TV program. Then, later that day, go to your rings and weights. Mine are in the basement, yours could be outside, or anywhere really. Rings at least!
I also add in, besides ring pushups and pull-ups, etc. : Superslow pull-ups, dips, and military presses! I watch my big clock on the wall, and do military presses with a dowel, slowly, as I resist my super slow movement up, and then down, for one minute, to a minute and a half. You need a power rack for this, but you could do the super slow pull-up slowly on the rings, bending your legs on both the upward, and the lowering portion. Just make it as hard as you can, for both up and down!
Then, the super slow dip needs a dip station: I made mine out of plumbing pipe years ago. Just go slowly up, and down, for at least a minute.
The beauty is, that there is NO danger of injury, and you are strengthening not only your musculature- but your tendons and ligaments as well! This whole routine should only be anothe
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