I encourage you to read an article in Vogue Magazine by Lara Solla entitled The Exercise That Takes Off 20 Years you can also Google this article.
On Our Website Age-Defying Lifestyle, I been Focused on Strength Training
The Vogue article highlights WHY I focus on Strength Training not just for the 20 or 30 somethings; but for us 60 through 80 somethings!
For those over the age of 50, like myself sitting at 68, do yourself a huge favor and lose the idea that Strength Training is for the young. If you are among the 60 somethings DO NOT just focus on aerobic/cardio training. If you follow that physiology, you will forfeit the biggest part of an age-defying lifestyle ability to enjoy life.
The Age-Defying Advantage of Pumping IRON
I have been writing for the past eight (8) years on my website: https://agedefyinglifestyle.com/ how pumping iron doesn’t just burn calories and pounds off but actually burns years off the appearance of your age. I realize that pilates, yoga, aerobics, and cardio fitness get the lion’s share of attention, but strength training is where you can tone and firm your body and improve balance, stability, and stamina.
There are several health and fitness advantages to including strength training in with your daily workouts. I am not talking about power lifting like a body builder uses. What I am referring to is doing light to medium weights like dumbbells between 10 to 45 pounds and do reps within a few sets. The biggest advantage isn’t the weight or inches that you are going to drop off, but the years you’re dropping off by defying your age NOT by just a few years BUT by decades.
Strength training does something unusual within your body, when muscles are worked under resistance, they release a natural growth hormone that contains collagen that NO SUPPLEMENT CAN SUPPLY to your joints and skin. The replacement of our cells, especially our skin cells, starts to slow down by our mid 30’s then stops by our mid to late 60’s. This is what causes us to start aging after our late to early 50’s.
Promote MAHA during your daily encounters with the IRONCLD-150 T-SHIRT the best way to drive down health cost, especially with Strength Training:
NOTE 150 represents working out 6- Days per week for a minimum of 25- minutes each day for 150 minutes per week recommended by the American Medical Association.
Strength Training Your Fountain of Youth
But you can reverse this process just by including strength training into your weekly workouts that no expensive makeover can match or provide you, that is only at best temporary. I am talking about the Fountain of Youth. We are talking about pumping iron to drop pounds, inches, and decades off your appearance.
In the featured image above, I am 68 years old, taken at our hangar in April of 2025 for an upcoming Memorial Day Classic Car & Airshow that we were promoting. I am appearing with Tiffany who is in her mid-20’s. If you want two challenges do this, appear before a camera first, then appear with a model 40 years your junior. Those are challenging enough; but then do an AB Challenge at age 68.
The photograph below was taken while we were preparing for the Memorial Day Classic Car & Airshow in early April. I refer to this photograph as an AB Challenge where again I am 68 years old. Guys that is only two years from age 70.
Below, I have summarized the article that appeared in the Vogue Magazine on October 04th, 2025 that was written by Lara Solla entitled The Exercise That Takes Off 20 Years reinforcing my position on why strength training is superior to just performing pilates, yoga, aerobics, and/or cardio exercises. There isn’t a better age-defying treatment out there compare with Strength training. Strength Training exercises are beneficial that I do as part of my 60- minute IRONCLAD Workout that I do six- days per week.
But if you incorporate strength training into your workout regimen, you are not just burning calories and pounds in the after burn what we call it, you are burning years off your age. Here is WHY–
Summary of Vogue Magazine Article by Lara Solla Published 04Oct2025:
The article Lara Solla wrote was from a transformative lecture at the Buchinger Wilhelmi Clinic, Solla spotlights strength training—not as a punishing grind for aesthetics, but as a profound investment in longevity. Forget endless aerobic/cardio marathons; this is about rewiring your body at the cellular level to defy the relentless march of time, or the ravages of aging that can be avoid.
At the epicenter of Solla’s revelation is Felipe Isidro, a professor of physical education and CEO of Physical Exercise & Health Consulting. Isidro’s wisdom cuts through the noise: exercise isn’t merely about shedding pounds but fortifying the “little batteries” within us—our mitochondria. “When the mitochondria work well, we feel strong; when they deteriorate, we feel fatigued,” he explains.
Redefining the Old Concept of Ageing
These powerhouses fuel every cell, and as we age, their decline saps energy, accelerates fatigue, and invites organ-clogging fat. Strength training, Isidro argues, supercharges them, slashing biological age by up to 20 years. In my case, I did by 30 years, to look and feel as if I am in my mid-30’s. Imagine a septuagenarian boasting about the vigor of a sedentary 50-year-old—cases like these abound among consistent trainees.
The science hinges on muscle fibers: slow-twitch for endurance (think marathon plodding) and fast-twitch for explosive power (sprinting or leaping). We build muscle until 25, hold steady to 35, then watch it erode—slowly at first, then plummeting post-50 and nosediving after 65. We can ill afford to lose muscle mass especially past our 50’s. You are now talking about balance, stability issues along with stamina issues. Remember Falls are the largest cause of losing our independence and cause of death in people over 60.
Strength Training Torches Visceral Fat and the Ravages of Aging
Walking bolsters your cardio aerobic workout but leaves fast-twitch fibers to wither, turning us “sluggish.” Enter strength work: the sole antidote. It preserves these power fibers, bolstering bones, lungs, pelvic floor, and even deep non-REM sleep. Bonus perks? Strength training Torches visceral fat, quelled anxiety, and a metabolic boost that dieting alone can’t match. And the bonus- Your muscles continues burning calories that strength training supercharges. You are burning calories while you are sleeping!
Solla demystifies implementation with Isidro’s blueprint: quality trumps quantity. Shun exhaustion; that’s slow-twitch sabotage. Instead, prioritize intensity—fewer reps (half your max) at high speed, with generous recovery (two to three minutes between sets, enough to belt out a tune). Always workout with your favorite tunes, even those in the medical field that deal with Parkinson’s patients use music therapy to reduce the affects of urological impact of this horrible debilitating diastase. I know too many people that died from Parkinson’s.
Creating Your Own Home Gym in Any Room
Timing matters too. Mornings ignite the sympathetic nervous system for daytime drive, priming evenings for restorative parasympathetic unwind and superior slumber.
How about Outdoors? Ideal for nature’s serotonin hit and social sparks—group classes foster bonds that extend lifespans. No gym required; bodyweight reigns supreme. Adapt to your level: wall pushes for novices, pistol squats for pros. Breathe diaphragmatically to engage respiratory muscles, hastening recovery.
NOTE: On adapt to your level- If you are a beginner or rehabbing, if are you can do is workout with a 5 pound dumbbell performing 3 reps. Guess What, That is where you start and build from there. Listen to your body. On some days I can pump a 150 pound bench press doing 3 sets of 10 reps each. On other days, I can only do one set of 10 reps or less. I listen to my body. My body tells me, “Chuck, that all we are doing today!”
In my IRONCLAD GYM that I renovated over my garage in 2019, I use brick wallpaper to give me a sense of the outdoors that prevent fatigue during my workout.
To gauge progress, Solla offers DIY litmus tests. The chair stand: how many unassisted rises in 30 seconds? The stork balance: single-leg stance duration? A six-minute walk gauges endurance. Track these quarterly; gains signal mitochondrial magic at play. One element that improves balance is the Warrior Pose 3 but, on your hands, and knees and perform the Dog Pointing element that is great for back muscles.
Strength Training ISN’T Just for VANITY, IT IS YOUR LIFELINE
If you are over the age of 40, you can’t afford to avoid exercises first and foremost; but you certainly can’t afford not to include strength training; your life depends on it. If you are afraid of becoming a bodybuilder, you can ditch that impression. To become a bodybuilder, you have to spend hours in the gym per day power lifting with heavy weights and drink protein shakes and a high protein diet. There is a difference between strength training and weight training.
If you are in your 50’s and 60’s or older, PLEASE START strength training using just dumbbells between 8 to 15 pounds or elastic tubing that I enjoy working out with. In my gym I don’t have a set of dumbbells over 50 pounds that I use for bench pressing.
Seventy percent (70%) of us shun structured sweat, yet any motion beats inertia. Solla’s clarion call? Ditch the scale’s tyranny for vitality’s embrace. Strength training isn’t vanity—it’s defiance against entropy. As Isidro posits, “The important thing is that the exercises are adapted… so that you can repeat and maintain them over time.”
My Personal Strength Training Technique
This 3 X 15 training technique, that I use for my warmups as well as my strength training- I do 3 Sets of 15 reps with a 20 second break in between sets. The only variance is with my boxing bag workout where I do three- 3-minute rounds with one minute for a water break between rounds. Believe me, 9- minutes is all you want on the bag. I had an artist do a oil painting of my boxing bag workout for a book I was working on at the time, below:
The Following books are on KINDLE the ones I have written on Health & Fitness that I have benefited from. The reason I have the health and fitness I have are written in these books:
All These links will take you directly to Kindle to purchase my books in E-Book or Paperback
I have also written some action and suspense along with historical books:
