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Mickey Crawford performing a bicep curl at Tone House, a sports-performance studio in New York\u2019s NoMad district. Jutharat Pinyodoomnyachet for HuffPost<\/p>\n
Themostpervasive myth about aging in our culture is that your body is winding down and the best you can do is manage the decline with grace. People love to say you should slow down, take it easy, and swallow the bitter pill of mortality without a lot of fuss. And by people, I mean the wellness-industrial complex and their cadre of barely postpubescent personal trainers who lower the weights if you tell them you\u2019re over 30. <\/p>\n
They mean well.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, at Tone House gym in New York City, Mickey Crawford, a 61-year-old substance abuse counselor, is dragging a 115-pound weighted sled across the floor while his coach, Alonzo, secretly covertly sandbags. Afroditi Lishman, a 52-year-old New Yorker, is sprinting and bear crawling her way past 20- and 30-somethings.<\/p>\n
And this is just the warm up.<\/p>\n
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(L-R) Afroditi Lishman and Crawford lifting weights and doing arm and leg exercises on the bar at Tone House. Illustration: HuffPost; Photo by Jutharat Pinyodoomnyachet for HuffPost<\/p>\n
Tone House, a sports-performance studio in New York\u2019s NoMad district, is infamous for its brutal conditioning workouts<\/a>. Think pro football training meets bootcamp with a \u201cYou can do it!\u201d ethos. Founder Alonzo Wilson built it to make elite training accessible. It\u2019s become a kind of accidental laboratory for debunking bullshit ideas about aging and what older people can do, physically and mentally.<\/p>\n Because here\u2019s the real story: Aging isn\u2019t about decline. Or at least, it\u2019s not just about decline \u2014 not unless you\u2019re actively neglecting your mind and body. Or, you know, actively being neglected by a medical and cultural system that treats older adults like they\u2019re doddering and breakable.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s my therapy,\u201d Lishman says. \u201cTraining is a great booster to one\u2019s confidence, mentally. That\u2019s one of the main reasons why I work out.\u201d Jutharat Pinyodoomnyachet for HuffPost<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s ageism,\u201d says Teresa Liu-Ambrose, a physical therapy professor and Canada Research Chair in healthy eating at the University of British Columbia, when I ask her about the idea that people over a certain age should only do easy workouts. \u201cAnd a misconception,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n Liu-Ambrose should know. She\u2019s been studying aging for decades. Her Brain Power Study<\/a>, published by the Archives of Internal Medicine journal in 2010, found that older women who lifted weights once or twice a week for a year improved their executive function. Even seniors showing early signs of cognitive decline saw better outcomes from resistance training than those who didn\u2019t lift.<\/p>\n In other words, lifting weights helps your brain. And this, in turn, is crucial for overcoming the mental hurdle that rewriting the cultural script about aging and exercise requires.<\/p>\n Crawford, for example, spends his work days helping people. \u201cAll day long, I listen to other people\u2019s problems and try to help them out,\u201d says Crawford. \u201cThe gym is my outlet. Training helps me do my job. I\u2019m a lot calmer, I\u2019m a lot more empathetic.\u201d<\/p>\n Lishman agrees. \u201cIt\u2019s my therapy,\u201d she says. \u201cTraining is a great booster to one\u2019s confidence, mentally. That\u2019s one of the main reasons why I work out.\u201d<\/p>\n The mental clarity Lishman and Crawford are finding isn\u2019t anecdotal. Liu-Ambrose has seen it in fMRI scans and cognitive tests. \u201cAfter targeted exercise training, you can see actual… changes in brain function and also an increase in volume,\u201d she says. That\u2019s right. Lifting weights doesn\u2019t just make your muscles bigger, it makes your brain healthier.<\/p>\n Crawford and Lishman performing agility drills. Jutharat Pinyodoomnyachet for HuffPost<\/p>\n So if you\u2019re worried about cognitive decline, working out is a no brainer. Most of us want to maintain the health of our bodies and brains as we get older, but we\u2019ve also sort of collectively accepted the idea that we will all get weaker as we age. What if that\u2019s not universally true?<\/p>\n Crawford, for example, says that he is now capable of things he wasn\u2019t when he was \u201cin his prime.\u201d These days, he runs three miles after work. \u201cOnce upon a time, you couldn\u2019t get me to run one mile,\u201d he tells me. Twenty years ago, Mickey hated running. He tried cross country in high school and detested it. \u201cNow,\u201d he says, laughing, \u201cI somewhat enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n On the left, Crawford performs weighted walking lunges, and on the right, Tone House Founder Alonzo Wilson coaches Crawford on a barbell back squat. Jutharat Pinyodoomnyachet for HuffPost<\/p>\n The point is not that Crawford learned to love something he used to hate, it\u2019s that he learned to do things that improve his health even if they aren\u2019t his favorite activities. And not just in a perfunctory way, either. Crawford is considering running the New York Marathon in 2026.<\/p>\n And Lishman says her ideas about what it means to get stronger have changed, too. \u201cI\u2019ve gained a new mindset,\u201d she says. \u201cReal growth comes from being uncomfortable \u2014 and still pushing forward.\u201d<\/p>\n But no one\u2019s being reckless. In fact, the smartest people in the room at Tone House, the 50+ crowd, have an especially nuanced sense of limits. \u201cI know when to push and when to stop and when to recover,\u201d Lishman tells me. \u201cI push myself, but I know when it\u2019s time to take a step back and not try to compete with anyone but myself.\u201d<\/p>\n Lishman says her ideas about what it means to get stronger have changed, too: \u201cI\u2019ve gained a new mindset.\u201d Jutharat Pinyodoomnyachet for HuffPost<\/p>\n That hard earned wisdom is one of the beautiful ways that aging can make you more adaptive when it comes to training. And it\u2019s exactly what Liu-Ambrose calls \u201csmart progression,\u201d training hard, but with purpose and adaptation. \u201cToo quickly, too hard, and thinking that more is better is what gets people hurt,\u201d she says. \u201cInstead, you reassess every few weeks. If it\u2019s easy, you increase the load. Your body responds.\u201d<\/p>\n What most people, of any age, fear about intense workouts is getting injured. No one here is naive about the reality of injury. Lishman, for example, trains with two torn menisci and a labrum tear. \u201cI have many injuries,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I know how to work around them.\u201d A few days after a tough deadlift session, she noticed her right side, where she has scoliosis, felt tight. So she took a day off. Ten years ago, she says there\u2019s no way she would have missed a workout.<\/p>\n That kind of responsiveness \u2014 not pushing through pain, but also not shrinking from challenge \u2014 allows Lishman to keep training. \u201cCloser to your 50s, you realize you don\u2019t need to do eight workouts a week,\u201d she says. \u201cYou just need to focus and go with a purpose. Do the one that challenges you, and then step back.\u201d<\/p>\n Getting stronger after 50 isn\u2019t a miracle. It\u2019s a practice. And, as Crawford says, \u201cIf you think you can\u2019t do it, you can\u2019t do it. If you think you can do it, you can.\u201d Jutharat Pinyodoomnyachet for HuffPost<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t just good judgment. It\u2019s the foundation of long-term strength. Liu-Ambrose has seen it play out again and again in her research. In one of her early studies, she tells me, she worked with older women who already had osteoporosis<\/a> or osteopenia \u2014 conditions that compromise bone health. In case you aren\u2019t aware, bone density issues disproportionately affect older women. Women have lower bone density than men to begin with, and bone loss speeds up with the hormonal shifts that come with menopause<\/a>. Through carefully designed, progressive resistance training, the women who participated in Liu-Ambrose\u2019s study didn\u2019t just preserve function \u2015 they improved it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had participants tell us that they hadn\u2019t been able to take a bath for years,\u201d she says. They were simply not strong enough to get down into the tub and back out again. \u201cWe saw a lot of transformation,\u201d says Liu-Ambrose.<\/p>\n That kind of transformation is mental and physical, but it\u2019s also social. \u201cIt\u2019s not just Tone House the workout, it\u2019s Tone House the community,\u201d says Crawford. <\/p>\n Lishman agrees. \u201cI\u2019m going to five different weddings this year, and they\u2019re all Tone House people,\u201d she says. Through fitness, Crawford and Lishman have found belonging across age, ability, and even generation. \u201cMy 20-year-old son goes, \u2018It\u2019s a family affair,\u2019\u201d\u00a0Afroditi says.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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