My Hero Tells It Like It Is

(From Christina: It’s no secret that I have great admiration for Arnold Schwarzenegger and that I train to his amazing app four days each week (I am obsessed with it). I read his daily newsletter for information on nutrition and fitness and I admire his philanthropy. I read this piece by him and it hit me hard so I thought it might hit some of you too.)

“There’s a Teddy Roosevelt line I love: “If you rest, you rust.”

And in one of my Terminator movies, I said: “Old, not obsolete.”

So it’s probably not a surprise that I get pissed off when I hear someone my age, or even younger, who has bought into the most dangerous lie in fitness.

Five words that have stolen years from millions of people: “I’m too old for this.”

It’s not true. It’s not even close to true. And today I’m going to prove it to you with research that should make you angry, too — angry that anyone ever let you believe your body had an expiration date.

I know, you hear me tell you that you can train at any age, and many of you say, “Of course you say this, you’re Arnold.” But the science backs me up.

Researchers took two groups of people, one group aged 65 to 75, and another group aged 85 and older, and put them through 12 weeks of resistance training. The 85-year-olds increased their quad size by 11 percent and their leg strength by 46 percent. That was the same as the younger group. No difference. Your muscles don’t check your birth certificate before they decide to grow.

And it gets better. Starting in your 50s, your body loses about one percent of its strength per year. By 70, that adds up, and you’ve lost roughly 20 percent of the strength you had in middle age.

But research on heavy strength training found that older adults can reverse that decline and recover years of lost strength in just a few weeks of training. Not months. Weeks. You’re not going to out-deadlift a 30-year-old. But you can get back to where you were years ago. You’re not just slowing down the clock. You’re winding it back.

But here’s the part that really fires me up, and I think it should fire you up too.

A study published this year put older adults through six months of weight training, twice a week. The lifters improved their memory, and their brain scans showed less shrinkage in the exact regions that Alzheimer’s attacks. The group that didn’t train? Their brains got worse. Same amount of time. One group picked up the weights. One group didn’t. And the difference showed up inside their skulls.

Separate research found that women with an average age of 70 who did strength training improved their cognitive performance. The women who didn’t train? Their cognition declined. Think about that. Training didn’t just protect their minds. It made them sharper. At 70.

I know some of you are reading this and thinking, “That’s great, Arnold, but I haven’t exercised in years. I missed my window.”

You didn’t miss anything.

Research on people who were sedentary through middle age shows that starting a new exercise program in older age still leads to significant improvements in health and brain function.

A major review of the “very elderly”, which honestly feels like a personal attack because the scientists defined that as people 75 and older, found that resistance training increased both muscle size and muscle strength, even in people over 80. Even when they had spent a long time on the couch.

And here’s the number that should get everyone’s attention: physically active people have a 30 to 35 percent lower risk of dying from all causes compared to inactive people. That translates to roughly 3.5 to 4 extra years of life.

But the kicker is that it’s possible that the protective effect could get stronger as you age. There’s some evidence that older adults who meet basic activity guidelines get a bigger mortality reduction than younger people doing the same thing. The older you are, the more it matters.

This isn’t about bodybuilding. This isn’t about six-pack abs. This is about getting out of a chair without help. Carrying your own groceries. Playing with your grandchildren. Remembering their names. Research shows that after strength training, everyday activities like walking become significantly easier because your body becomes more efficient at everything.

That’s not a small thing. That’s your independence. That’s your life.

So don’t let anybody tell you your window has closed. Don’t let some voice in your head, or worse, some voice on the internet, convince you that you can’t get better every day.

It might be true that you aren’t a spring chicken anymore and you won’t beat the kids in the gym, but it will NEVER be true that you can’t be the best version of yourself at every age. You can get a little closer to that spring chicken you remember.

The science says you can.

I say you can.

Your body is sitting there right now, waiting for a signal. And it will answer. At 60. At 70. At 80. At 85. It doesn’t care how long you waited. It only cares that you start.

I’ve seen members of the Pump Club app start competing in powerlifting in their 50s, 60s and 70s. You probably don’t see yourself stepping onto a platform. Guess what? Neither did they. They started with their bodyweight, discovered the joy of seeing progress, and they were hooked.

I’m not asking you to compete. I’m asking you to embrace progressive resistance training to improve your life and prove to yourself that you still can get better every day.

Pick up some weight today. A dumbbell. A resistance band. A bag of groceries you carry up the stairs instead of making two trips. I don’t care what it is.

Just start.

Because you’re not too old. You’re not obsolete. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you rust.”