About 4 years ago Curtis Smitley went to the mailbox and back like he does everyday. The entire round trip was no more than 80 yards or so, and it winded Him to the point where he was concerned that something was wrong. At the time he was 54 years old and a full time SEO guy and desk surfing full time for 2 years had taken it’s toll on his body. He was over weight and pushing 190 pounds which is a bit much for a guy that’s only 5’9″ with a light bone structure. What made it worse is that only 9 years earlier he was in outstanding shape. After some serious thought about why he shouldn’t do it and hours spent trying to talk himself out of it, after all he was mid 50’s in age and all. He decided to get a membership at Planet Fitness.
3rd Person Writing Is Over For Curtis Smitley
Some things are funny until they just aren’t anymore. So I’m going to let go of the 3rd person writing now. Actually it was more of a way to humor myself more than anything else but I’m tired of it now.
So yeah I joined Planet Fitness at the age of 54 and badly out of shape. I went with the $20 per month Black Membership when I signed up so that I could use the tanning beds and hydro massage. The tanning beds? I never use them now. Did it a few times and meh.
The hydro massage on the other hand is well worth the extra 10 bucks a month, and I recommend it if you’re going to be serious about getting back in shape. It relieves a lot of the pain from prospecting for gains.
Starting Slowly and Going For Small Gains
I recommend that anybody who returns to the gym after a long absence no matter their age to start slowly with small amounts of weight. Not following this advice will cause you to gimp your shit up and then you’ll stop going all together. There are no gains to be made if you’re in a rush. Instead you run a high risk of meeting with disaster.
LISTEN TO ME OLDER PEOPLE! You especially should pay attention to this advice. If you’re over 40? You need to be extra careful. You do not heal as fast as you did when you where younger. Recovery time is longer and therefore your gains will come slower. But if you’re consistently sensible with your routines you will make gains.
Here is How Curtis Smitley Did It
Holy Cow! I need to stop that 3rd person stuff! So here’s how I did it. I started with 20 pounds of weight and 10 repetitions per set doing 5 sets. That’s right! For the first full month I used 20 pounds of weight on everything. Bench press, hammer curls, preacher curls and all the leg lifts. I also did sets of 5 setups along the way. After a month I started upping by 10 pounds of weight for a total of 30 pounds. After another month I went to 40 pounds.
The first month was the hardest, and there were a lot of times that I thought about quitting because it seemed like nothing was working. The second month wasn’t so hard and when I hit the third month was when I started realizing how much stronger I was getting. I would run into people I hadn’t seen in some time and they would ask. Dude are you working out again or something? You look different!
That’s when I really knew things were going in the right direction.
There Is No Substitute For Youth
Believe me when I say it! Once your youth is gone it doesn’t matter how much you work out, how many supplements you take, or anything else, you will not be able to recapture your youth no matter how hard you try. Youth is for the young and that’s exactly as it should be!
After about a year of being back at the gym I thought I wanted to go for massive gains and get huge. Looking back on it now I know it sounds stupid but I actually thought I could do it. And to a degree I did make some killer gains. But then tragedy struck. I was jamming on a dumb bell workout doing bench presses with 65 pound dumbbells. That’s right 65 pounds in each hand. Planet fitness’s dumb bell rack goes from 5 pounds all the way to 75 pounds. I was 2 notches from getting to the max weight and feeling like I could do it. So I put the 65’s down and grabbed the 70’s. I was probably on the 3rd pump when I felt a little something or other inside my left shoulder so I stopped waited 5 minutes or so then went back at it. That was huge mistake.
It took me 9 months to heal from a torn rotator cuff. I still went to the gym and did legs, abs, and back exercises and along the way learned a very valuable lesson. It’s better to be safe than sorry. I haven’t used over 35 pounds on the dumb bells since then.
Curtis Smitley Shares Some Unexpected Benefits
Yeah it’s true! I didn’t even notice at first but after 6 months or so from joining back up, certain things started to dawn on me. For instance night sweats. I had suffered from night sweats for a couple of years, to the point where I had to wear a shirt when I went to sleep. I would wake up and it would be soaking wet with sweat to the point where I would get out of bed and put on a dry one. They just disappeared gradually and have never returned.
Then there were the back aches. I used to live with recurring back aches. I was never able to attribute them to any given activity where I remembered gimping myself lifting something or anything like that. I would wake up with one, then a few days later it would just go away as mysteriously as it had appeared. That’s pretty much ceased happening now.
Weight loss is another thing. If you do 4 days a week at the gym and burn 250 calories at each visit. That’s a thousand calories a week, and when you calculate it monthly you get 4000 calories burned. According to health experts there are only around 3500 calories in a pound of fat. So just working out will take 12-15 pounds of fat off of you in a year. I actually restricted my calorie intake by 500 per day and lost 30 pounds during my first 6 months of working out. Shedding the weight allows your circulatory system to run much better and being lighter by 30 pounds and much stronger than before just made me feel great.
Curtis Smtiley’s Exercise Routine Now
I’m 4 years displaced from the time I started back at the gym and have reached the ripe old age of 58 now. My workout routine has evolved quite a bit in the 4 years since joining planet fitness. I still go on average probably 4 days a week and am in what might be referred to as maintenance mode.
I go in and do a mile on the tread mill at 2.5 mile per hour. When that’s done I go to what Planet Fitness has (a room all it’s own) called the 30 minute workout area. They have around 10 machines that spread out alternating upper and lower body workouts. I put everything on 20-30 pounds. A green light comes on and stays on for 60 seconds. During that time you do as many reps as you can on that particular machine. When the green light goes off and the red light comes on you switch to the next machine and wait for the green light again. This takes you through all 10 machines and takes 30 minutes. After it’s over I go back to the treadmill and do another mile or two. After that it’s the hydro massage. That’s the Curtis Smitley workout routine and he’s sticking to it! If you want to join me working out contact me through the link up top in the menu.