Before I was born my dad was an aspiring runner, but never went professional or anything like that. When I was young he began working out with weights. He was really into it, but I get the feeling he jumped around from routine to routine a bit, and his diet was never super tight. But he loved it; squatting/leg day was always his favorite. He collected a weight set from odds & ends and bought a bench & rack from a friend and put it in the cellar. I remember one time he wanted to make a cable cross, so he drilled holes in the basement rafters and ran a cable through it. When he would use it the whole apartment would shake and the cats would scream and go running for cover.
Anyway, as I got older I did the whole teen not wanting to be like his parents thing. My dad kept working out, now at a gym, and he would walk/run at a local track in the evening sometimes. I didn't want to be like him at the time though so I never went to the gym or ran with him. He'd always try to get me to shoot hoops with him, and that usually worked. But other than that we never exercised together; again doing the whole teenager thing.
Then came the day I wanted to graduate a couple years early from high school. But I needed a gym course to finish off, so I started working out at the college's gym and having the trainer sign off on my workouts. It was brutal at first. I was 5 10 133 lbs., and couldn’t bench press 95 lbs., in fact I could barely push 65. But I still remember my first workout. I was always worried if I worked out I'd be 'just like my dad' which of course went directly against my teen-oppositional attitude. The thing was with my VERY first set on my very first workout...I just FELT awesome. It was on a chest press machine actually, I remember wondering how high I could get on the weight stack. So much of life can be effected by others, here's something that is 100% you, and something you can improve on from only your efforts. The thing was it was deeper than that, working out just felt right.
So anyway I continued on through highschool and college working out. My dad was so enthusiastic about it; we started talking about it a lot, and overall talking more. He had over a decade of ideas and knowledge he had been waiting to share with me. We ended up talking about Arnold, squats, deadlifting, anything you could name with regards to fitness. Every time we spoke he would ask how my workouts were going. As the years went by and I got to my mid-twenties and got my diet together I eventually passed most of his personal records. He never really went for one rep maxes or things of that nature; he seemed to keep things mostly in the 5-10 rep range, whereas if I’m doing 5 reps on something I start getting antsy. Instead of being wistful he encouraged me and spurred me on. Last year I benched more than he had squatted. He laughed his ass off. That’s a dad for ya.
Unfortunately over the years he started to get away more from working out; an injury here, a knee scoping there, nothing major, but he'd take time off, and every time he'd start it'd be harder to get back into it. Currently in the cellar of the house he has with his girlfriend there's an elliptical machine, and a squat rack. He uses them occasionally, but nothing like he used to. He's always worked in autobody & mechanic type of jobs, so that's physically demanding, but I feel bad he doesn't work out more. I've been starting to spur him on lately the way he used to with me. I've encouraged him to eat better, talk to his girlfriend about cutting back on the piles of salt, white rice, and butter that she puts on everything. He's eating better, taking fish oil, and finally getting a hernia repaired that he’s had for years. After that I'm going to be on his ass to start hitting the weights for rehab, and past that. I’d like to see him back close to where he used to be. Heck, studies have shown even 80 year olds can gain muscle mass, there’s no reason someone more than 25 years younger than that can’t do it, especially with the knowledge he has.
I'm so lucky he always encouraged me; I said at the beginning that the gym is somewhere that's 100% you, and I believe that. But sometimes it helps to have someone else enabling you to give that 100%, to encourage you, to help you set goals. And just like he did that for me in my late teens, early twenties, I hope to be doing that for him in his mid-50s. Just telling him flat out, if you want to have more energy, look better, feel better, DO this. I always leave little hints here and there on my blog for him, since I know he reads it, about prehab/rehab/mentioning him. Still to this day, every time he calls he mentions seeing a video I had posted, or a workout I had posted and we talk. I know this really wasn't on topic, but I love my dad and I owe so much of what I've accomplished in and out of the gym to him, I wanted to immortalized it on the internet somewhere.
As a post script: One record of his I never beat, and don't think I ever will: seated cable rows with the full stack for sets of 10. Apparently he made that motion over and over and over at work all day long, and it translated well to the rowing.
