By Rob Shaul
I wake up around 3 a.m., work for a few hours, and train at 6.
After 40+ years of gym-based training, a 30–45 minute session is all I can mentally tolerate now. Endurance work is different—rucking, step-ups, sandbag drags, running—these sessions can extend well past two hours when time and conditions allow. Often I’ll do 2- or 3-a-days. Strength or gym work early, endurance later … or vice versa.
The training structure, exercises, aim, intent, and modes can change based on the cycle, but the habit doesn’t. Training early is how I start the day.
Part of it is professional. Many MTI athletes are my age or moving in that direction, and if I’m going to write programming for them, I need more than theory or old experience. I need current information. I need to know what holds up, what breaks people down, what looks good on paper but fails under the weight of real joints, old injuries, and accumulated mileage. The only way I know to get that information is to test it myself, consistently, over time.
That testing happens in a body that is far from pristine. Training hurts.
I’m not unusual for someone my age with my mileage in that I live with constant joint pain. What began in my late 20s with my ankles migrated upward to my knees in my mid-40s and never stopped: hips, low back, shoulders—and outward to my elbows and wrists. I’ve tried the usual interventions: supplements like glucosamine and fish oil, painkillers, stretching, CBD, mobility work, knee injections. None of it has changed the trajectory or the intensity. I have a hip replacement that didn’t heal cleanly and a fused right foot. When I arise from bed, stiffness and pain greet me with a sinister, “Good morning, fucker.”
“Motion is lotion” is true, but incomplete. Movement helps, but it doesn’t solve anything. Training at 6 a.m. doesn’t leave me supple like a leopard for the rest of the day. Within 30 minutes of being still, pain and stiffness return like the tide. Whatever lubrication movement provides is temporary and has to be reapplied regularly. This never gets fixed.
Few training sessions are exceptional. I listen to how I feel and adjust loading accordingly, but I never shorten the work. The reps and duration stay the same; the load flexes. Overall intensity is mostly moderate. With rare exception, I avoid panic breathing. Ninety percent of the time I grind steadily from one exercise to the next – comfortable, but not easy.
I track numbers, but don’t chase them. Consistency counts, and over the course of the cycle I’ll see my numbers steadily increase. My high training age means I have a high tolerance for training volume. Generally, no matter what I do, I can recover and train the following day. But I’ll train regardless, even if I know I shouldn’t.
Then there’s affection. I love the grind and sorrowfully miss training when I don’t do it. I mostly train outside, under a canvas tent or on a deck, with a rack, barbell, plates, kettlebells, sled, sandbags. Simple. The work is clear and contained, and it hasn’t tried to become anything else.
An introvert and overachiever, fitness training has always been my welcome escape. Talent isn’t required to train hard or train well. Nor are social skills, politics, or small talk. All that is needed is effort. Effort has never been a problem.
Fear also pushes me to train daily. The pain is constant and real enough that I understand exactly why many older people fall into inactivity. It isn’t laziness or a lack of discipline. Pain makes rest feel reasonable.
I can see the slide clearly: take a day off, then two, then three, until deconditioning sets in and starting again is overwhelming. I train every day partly because I’m afraid of stepping onto that slope.
I feel the wind in my face now. Not metaphorically, but practically. The limitations are here. My replaced hip and my knees limit what I can do in the mountains, and do so more each season. Going uphill is fine. Downhill hurts. A heavy pack equals a hip ache, which equals limping and eventually stopping.
I have five, maybe eight, good years left where I can still push things with some confidence. In terms of seasons, the number is smaller still. Just a handful more DIY backcountry elk-hunting seasons, if I’m lucky.
A quiet, steady narrowing. Sad. Scary. At times, desperate.
Training doesn’t stop time. It doesn’t buy immortality or fairness. It slows the closing just enough that I can stay present while it happens, rather than waking up one day to find the window already shut.