The date was August 19th, 1989. As I stood onstage at my second-ever bodybuilding competition, I listened with nervous anticipation as the announcer counted down the top five placements. I was only 20 years old at the time, weighing in at a skinny but well-shaped, muscular, and proportionate 171 lbs, wondering if, after just three years of hard training, I could actually go home as the Natural Mr. Eastern USA contest winner!

“In 5th place…! In 4th!” Wow, I am still in this! They have not called my name yet! Is this possible? Am I dreaming? “In 3rd place…!” Holy moly, I’m in the top two! The other guy looks pretty darn good, though. Can I beat him? Fingers, toes, and eyes crossed. “In second place…! And the winner of the men’s middleweight division is Eric Broser!”

The crowd went wild, packed with dozens of my friends and family members. My heart is beating out of my chest, and I struggle to fight back the tears. As I grab the trophy and hold it over my head, I realize right then and there that this will be one of my life’s most memorable and satisfying moments.

I find myself reflecting upon this day often, as it never fails to bring a smile to my face and a boost to my spirit. However, as I sit here now typing on my computer, just a few weeks away from my 56h birthday, I can look in the mirror and see the reflection of a physique that is not just as good as it was on that winning day thirty-six years ago, but one that is actually superior! That’s right…I look bigger and better today at age 56 than I did at age 20 (albeit with a few extra aches and pains). That is the beautiful thing about the bodybuilding/fitness lifestyle. If you live it each and every day, you can actually get better with age – just like a fine wine.

That said, there are significant differences in how I must approach my training and diet at my present age compared to when “I was a kid.” To successfully achieve longevity in bodybuilding and fitness, especially if the goal is to continue to improve the physique over time, you must be not only consistent, dedicated and disciplined, but also intelligent and calculating in your efforts. In other words, your entire program must evolve as you move along to keep pace with the changes in the body and its systems that naturally manifest as we get older. You simply cannot expect to be able to train and eat the same way you did 20 or 30 years ago and continue to achieve the same type of progress. In most cases, this approach will cause regression and potentially cause injuries.

Without further ado, and before I forget what points I want to get across (yes, the memory takes a beating as we age), let me discuss how my physique improvement strategy differs today versus 36 years ago.

Warm-Ups

That was then:

My warm-ups were not what you would call “extensive” when I was a young buck. All I would do is walk into the gym, decide what exercise would be first in the routine and then go ahead and do 2-3 progressively heavier sets of about 15, 12, and 8 reps before launching into my first “work” set. Perhaps I would do another quick warm-up set of each new exercise after the first one to show my joints and nervous system the new movement and angle that was about to be attacked. That was pretty much it, and it worked out just fine. But that was then…

This is now:

These days, I first make my way over to a treadmill or stationary cycle for a 5–10-minute medium-paced walk or ride. I do this to get some blood pumping through my system and raise my core temperature. Luckily, I live in a warm climate, so getting my body into a light sweat does not take very long. Next, I do some callisthenic-type exercises for my lower back, including side bends and twists. I have had some serious disk injuries in the past, so this is vital to my warm-up. From there I move onto various shoulder roll and rotation movements, as well as some direct rotator cuff exercises utilizing dumbbells, cables, or both. Once I have chosen where to start my workout, I usually do 3-4 progressively heavier warm-up sets of that particular exercise and at least 1-2 warm-ups for each new exercise thereafter. I never skip or rush through any portion of my warm-up. I believe this is essential to staving off muscular and joint injuries.

Exercise Form

That was then:

While my exercise performance was usually pretty darn good compared to the average younger trainee, I still often found myself getting somewhat sloppy in an attempt to move more weight than I was truly ready to handle. Yes, there was a little of the infamous bouncing the bar off the chest to claim a more considerable bench press, some serious back arch on barbell curls, minor “body English” during my side laterals, and more than just a bit of jerking when trying to outlift a gorilla on bent over rows. I think this is something that almost all of the younger guys go through at one point or another, and that is ok…as long as the cheating is not so excessive that it causes a major injury. Of course, when you are young, your body is quite resilient and can take a major pounding without falling apart. However, if this “loose” form continues for too many years, I can tell you that it will eventually catch up with you (usually in the knees, shoulders, elbows, or lower lumbar). I still look back on those years with great affection and realize that the overload of those extra heavy weights forced upon my muscles effectively produced hypertrophy and made me rather functionally strong. But that was then…

This is now:

One thing I could tell you is this: if I tried to lift with the same loose and explosive style today that I utilized in my early years of training, I would probably end up with multiple injuries! That is not to say that I don’t lift heavy and intensely these days. Quite the contrary! I would say that the form and lifting tempo that I tend to use now is, in many ways, far more brutal and intense than ever before, but at the same time, also safer. On most exercises, I would say that my form is “textbook,” with a full range of motion and slower lifting speed, especially in the eccentric (negative) portion of each lift. This forces the resistance to be moved solely through muscular contraction rather than momentum, with the force falling squarely on the target muscles instead of the joints and connective tissues.

Interestingly, when an exercise gets more difficult, I will usually slow the movement down even more, although the natural tendency would be to speed it up. The bottom line is this, if you want to stay injury-free as you train into your 50’s, you must eventually tighten up your form and become very conscious of every movement you make when lifting weights. Go after the target muscle for sure, but at the same time, keep the entire body tight and stable. Not only will your muscle growth be more efficient, but you will get to use more ice in your protein shakes and less on your joints.

Training Frequency

That was then:

Unbelievably enough, when I was in my late teens and early 20s I would train on a 3-day-on, 1-day-off schedule most of the year, and when I was about 12 weeks out from a competition, I would step it up to a 4-day-on, 1-day-off program! Thinking about it now, I have no idea how I did it! Nevertheless, while it might not have been the optimal frequency for my body even back then (meaning that I believe I would have progressed more quickly with a bit more rest), I did well on that schedule and thrived on it. Between the ages of 19 and 24, I gained about fifty pounds and could toss around some big weights. At the time, most of the pro bodybuilders that I looked up to trained at least six days per week, and I felt I had to do the same if I ever wanted to look anything like my “heroes.” So, with my natural hormone levels in full swing, very little pressure or stress in my life, a ton of eggs, red meat, milk, pasta, potatoes, and fruit filling my belly, and upwards of ten hours of sleep per night, I was easily able to recover from such frequent “beatings.” But that was then…

This is now:

At this point in my training career, I have found that what works best for me is a 2-day-on, 1-day-off, 2-day-on, 2-day-off training routine. Any time I attempt to train more than two straight days, I either have a poor workout on the 3rd day, become quickly run down and begin to feel old injuries rear their ugly head. It’s almost as if my body is giving me a little “reminder” that after 2 days, it wants a break from the weights…and that is fine by me! Most weeks, I am in the gym on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, giving me weekends off, which works quite nicely into the social calendar (as if I have one of those). While I might do some cardio work on my off days, depending on the time of year, this does not make inroads into my recovery ability like lifting weights does. In fact, it has been shown in studies to actually augment the body’s healing process (from training). I have been making steady progress on my current routine, have minimized any nagging aches and pains, and feel rather energetic most of the time, leading me to believe that I have found the optimal training frequency for my soon-to-be 56-year-old physique!

Training Volume

That was then:

When I was around 20 years old, not only did I train more frequently, as I described above, but I also did many more sets per body part than I do today. Although I was never one for those crazy four-hour, 30-40 sets per muscle training sessions, I could still maintain a relatively high workload without adverse repercussions. As I remember, I would perform anywhere from 12-15 work sets for the larger muscle groups like quads, chest, lats, and shoulders, and somewhere between 8-10 sets for the remainder of my body parts. However, because of my training frequency, this was done twice per week for each muscle, as opposed to today, where each body part only gets one beating per week (apart from abs and calves). Thinking about my training program from my early days, it’s a wonder I had time to do anything else…although I am pretty sure my only concerns at age 20 were getting big and getting girls! But that was then…

This is now:

As of this writing, the body part I am currently prioritizing is my back. I feel that, compared to my chest, it lacks a bit of thickness and “depth,” which gives me a somewhat disproportionate look between the two opposing muscle groups. Thus, I do more sets for my back complex than any other muscle. So, how many sets do I do for my back? Well, maybe ten. And trust me, that seems like a lot! Chest and quads are blasted in 8 sets; hamstrings and shoulders are beaten down in 6-7 sets; biceps and triceps are more than fried in just 5-6 sets; and I will hit the rest of the muscles in 4 or less total work sets! But the truth of the matter is, why do more if I don’t need more? Remember, I am currently in the best shape of my life, carrying more muscle than ever before with a very pleasing definition and separation. Most would assume that the longer one has been training, the more and more one would need to do to continue to improve, but this is not the case with bodybuilding…and there is a reason for this.

In next month’s installment, I will talk about why less is more as we get older and touch upon several other areas of my program, which have entirely evolved over my many years in the gym. Until then, remember, you are not getting older, only better (and probably a little balder).