So, you want to be a Super-Ager?

It’s not only what you do; it’s how hard and tenaciously you do it.

For those of us on the wrong side of age 50, antiaging modes and methods, health and fitness strategies, diets, and supplements become increasingly vital as we hurtle ever deeper into our golden years. We seek to delay our ultimate demise. Hi-tech billionaires are spending massive amounts of money researching life extension and how best to improve the quality of an extended life.

Currently, the finest anti-aging system on the face of the planet is an all-natural methodology that, when adhered to for a protracted period, creates a “super-ager,” someone that looks, acts, and feels decades younger than their chronological reality. Used worldwide and consistently, hardcore bodybuilding is turbocharged bodybuilding. Hardcore denotes taking all things bodybuilding-related to the next level of adherence, intensity, and sustained effort. Hardcore bodybuilding does not just slow the aging process when executed with the requisite consistency and ferocity and done as intended. It pulls the hands of time backward.

At age 66, I discovered hardcore bodybuilding. Six years of non-stop dedicated practice has made me objectively younger by any physiological measure or benchmark you care to name, be it physique or performance. I am a far better man at 72 than at age 66. While we cannot escape our chronological reality, we can improve our body’s condition. By becoming fitter, leaner, stronger, and more muscular, quality of life improves proportionally. As Dean Wormer once noted, “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.” I paraphrase and say, “Lean, fit, and muscled-up is the way to go through life’s later stages.”

The deeper I got into the hardcore bodybuilding “process,” the more my performance in every benchmark, drill, or exercise improved. My blood profiles markedly improved, and my energy, strength, endurance, vitality, and body composition are all lightyears superior to those benchmarks at age 66. And I was not an out-of-shape, unfit 66-year-old. I was a weekly practitioner of cardiovascular exercise, fit, healthy, and not obese. I was the possessor of excellent blood profiles. I was in fine health and good condition “for a man my age.” Nowadays, I am in excellent shape for any man of any age.

Hardcore bodybuilding differs from bodybuilding as taught at the local YMCA. Being hardcore requires radically ratcheting up the degree of training intensity, improving nutritional discipline, and redoubling the overall commitment. In every exercise and drill, I pushed myself to (and often past) the limits of my current capacities. Willpower and discipline lock in a super-strict nutritional game plan to never miss a meal, cheat on a diet, or blow off a training session. There are no cheat days or off days in the hardcore world.

When I commenced my bodybuilding journey, I knew nothing about bodybuilding. I had never weight trained in my life. Initially, I decided to commit to a 90-day “periodized cycle” under the supervision of an expert bodybuilding coach. I would commit to a three-month process. If the results appeared as promised, I might continue. If results were subpar, I would end my fledgling bodybuilding escapade and perhaps take up pickleball or golf. My 90-day results exceeded my wildest expectations. I was intrigued, fascinated, and beguiled. I was hooked.

I am now six years into this journey. My progress has been steady and continuous. Two years ago, I won my IFBB pro card. I won my division at the IFBB Professional World Championships earlier this year. Guided by my incredible coaches, I have cracked the bodybuilding code: building muscle and burning off body fat. The good news is the realization that an effective and proven pathway for transformation exists. The bad news? The degree of time, pure effort, precision, and unrelenting repetition make this path too challenging to transverse for most of those who try.

The reality is harsh: the body must be stressed to a herculean degree to build muscle and shed body fat.

80-years old hardcore bodybuilder: redefining age and aging possibilities

What does that mean? I have learned how to exert 100% of my momentary capacity without hurting myself. This is where the hypertrophy gains and fat-burning reside. A submaximal effort is insufficient. I go all out in my near-daily weight training and cardiovascular sessions. I lift weights for an hour six days a week. Every single day, I wake up and perform 30 minutes of sweaty “fasted” cardio.

Glycogen is low when coming off fasting and sleeping. My morning aerobic session burns residual glycogen and commences mobilizing and oxidizing stored body fat. My predetermined aerobic pace is 80% of my age-related heart rate maximum. This is for the entirety of a 30-minute session. At age 66, I could not attain and maintain the pace I now routinely use. My cardio conditioning at age 72 is vastly superior to when I began my bodybuilding journey.

Hardcore trainees coordinate sweaty, fasted cardio with strict eating to roast off body fat. During a competitive phase, I will eat six meals per day, forty-two meals per week. I consume nothing but “clean calories,” lean protein, fibrous carbohydrates, and MCT fats. Starch carbs are modulated. All refined carbs, sweets, sugar foods, alcohol, baked goods, empty calories, and fast food are long gone. Every 2-3 waking hours, I eat a small, balanced mini meal.

One unexpected side benefit for those who embrace the bodybuilding nutritional approach is chemical detoxification. Hardcore bodybuilders consume a limited menu of natural foods. By eliminating chemically laden foods, detoxification occurs, resulting in newfound energy, vitality, mental clarity, and dramatically reduced inflammation. Nutritional supplements “fill in the gaps.” Supplements are meant to supplement, not supplant, the expert use of regular food. Intense, consistent exercise combined with unrelenting, disciplined bodybuilding-style nutrition is the key to body composition management. There are no half-measures or compromises in hardcore nutrition.

Results? By the end of the second week of full hardcore adherence, the detoxing causes energy to skyrocket. The trainee experiences improved sleep and a newfound mental clarity. By the end of the first month, measurable gains in performance and physique become apparent. By the end of the second month, friends and family express wonderment. A dramatic physical transformation occurs after three months of uninterrupted and tenacious adherence. It happened to me at age 66. There is wisdom in those old clichés, “age is only a number” and “it is never too late to start.”

Only a formidable effort will grow muscle or melt off body fat. Learn how to push to the limits of your current capacities consistently. Seek to extend resistance training boundaries and limits safely and repeatedly. Ditto aerobic training: break a sweat and try fasted cardio. Make room for continuous, rugged training underpinned with the expert use of regular food, augmented with select supplementation. Settle in and make hardcore a lifestyle. With 90 days of strict adherence, you trigger your very own dramatic physical transformation. Simultaneously, become a super-ager and pull those hands of time backward.