To the Inexplicable Strength of Old, Out-of-Shape Guys
Dear Dad Strength,
You: 47 years old. Saggy, paunchy, balding. Knee, ankle, wrist braces. Horrible sweat stench.
Me: 20 years old, extremely fit, athletic. Relatively muscular. Avid gym-goer.
The average observer would place me in the prime of life. To most, you look unable to ascend a flight of stairs. We’re playing pickup basketball, and you’re my man. A shot goes up, I go to box you out and get forced underneath the basket. One mottled, flabby arm pins me in place, and I cannot move. You get the rebound and putback, I get an elbow to the face. Are liver spots contagious?
Next trip down, I post you up. I’m taller, so I figure I have the advantage. As I receive the ball, I feel the brunt of your soaked, brined bulk squelch against my body. You are like a brick wall, relentless in its immovability. Your enormous belly is comprised of something otherworldly, something that isn’t fat and isn’t muscle. It’s huge and unsightly and probably contributing to some sort of debilitating cardiovascular disease, but it’s rock solid. Fat kids don’t have this; their bellies jiggle (see Chunk’s Truffle Shuffle) and inspire derision and schoolyard pinches. So I get low and really push with my well-muscled quadriceps — nothing. A single forearm to the back halts what little progress I’ve made.
What the f*ck.
After the game, I watch you walk away in your tiny running shorts and marvel at what I’ve just witnessed. It has many names: Adult Power, Old Man Strength, Dad Strength. We’ve all seen it. At parks, during wrestling matches with your father, or that one time at the gym that old skinny dude benched like 300 pounds. It’s the reason your dad can probably still wipe the floor with you, and it’s why your grandfather has a handshake that can crush bone. But for most young athletes, it is no less mystifying for its ubiquity.
How does a man, 20+ years our senior, with bad knees, creaky elbows, a sagging gut, and a terrible body-mass index consistently outmuscle, outwork, and physically dominate much younger, fitter, and healthier athletes, no matter their musculature? It’s not like the old guys of today were once farmers baling hay and roping steer. For the most part, they’re normal guys with desk jobs and families and poor dietary habits. Our generation is far more fitness-conscious than any before us, so what gives?
Dad Strength, I’ll never understand you, but you make old age worth it.
By Erik C.
April 17th, 2008 | 08:12 am | Raves
6 Responses to “To the Inexplicable Strength of Old, Out-of-Shape Guys”
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April 17th, 2008 at 8:56 am
I used to play ball all the time at this gym frequented by mostly old dudes. And they were effing strong, man! I don’t get it either.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:56 am
whatever. you’re just weak.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:52 am
HAHA! My dad always crushes the hands of the boys that come over to pick me up for dates. I pretend to be annoyed, but actually I love it.
April 19th, 2008 at 3:53 am
oh misty. you are evil!
May 17th, 2008 at 5:14 am
[...] a people search (or a doggy search!) and figure it out. Until then check out this HIGH-larious rant to the inexplicable strength of old out of shape guys. Yeah, it would be more funny except that it’s true. Now where did Francisco get off [...]
July 20th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I dunno. Sperm counts in America have gone down, significantly, for the past 2-3 generations. Lifestyles have changed — my mom’s dad made his own blood sausage from local hogs, and sauerkraut in his cellar, raised his own chickens, grew most vegetables in his garden rather than buying them from a grocer… He never spent time in front of the TV as a young man. My dad never sat for hours in front of a computer, or played video games, or drank homogenized skim milk (his family drank whole milk delivered by a milkman in the early morning). Trace amounts of benzene, chemical byproducts, various pharmeceuticals, and The Pill wasn’t in the water my dad drank as a youth, and certainly wasn’t for either of my grandfathers.
Just as the facts about asbestos were made public far too late for people who had already developed lung cancer, so too the effects of this generation’s lifestyle and environment are going to be acknowledged only in retrospect, far too late for the men (and women, although their problem is breast cancer rather than reduced virility) whose mothers fed them modern disasters like margarine and soy milk.
My prognosis is that while men tend to gain some endurance and “slow” strength in their 30s and 40s as they lose speed and flexibility, they don’t magically gain strength as they become elderly. The mistaken assumption is that the average 20 yr old American is as strong as his grandfather was at 20 — which I believe to be absolutely not the case.
Yet another reason I’ve contemplated moving to Germany or Denmark — they’ve got their act together in terms of reducing the endocrine disruptors in their environment to protect future generations.