'Should you be doing that at your age?'

I signed up for Substack with huge enthusiasm and dug out some old material to upload and get things started, then I looked at the blank computer screen in front of me and wondered, ‘what next’?

So bear with my ramblings dear reader as I try to breach this wall of writer’s block. It isn’t something I’ve suffered from before. I started as a local newspaper reporter back in 1982 and, despite a varied career in publishing, I still see myself as a hack and therefore I should be able to churn out words to order.

So, where did the Substack motivation come from and what am I hoping to write about?

So let’s take the motivation first. I love writing and because of what I’ve done in my life I have a wide range of interests and as a journalist I have a natural curiosity about people and things. Since semi-retiring back in 2017 I have, among other things, played around with developing a hyper-local news website, click here .

I’ve made some videos for You Tube that you will find here and I’m really in to my podcasting have a listen here. So, Substack seemed like the natural place to be, a platform that would allow me to share my writings but more, give me a reason to actually sit down and write.

Now turning to what I want to write about. Anything and everything really but there is one area in particular I want to write about and that’s fitness: getting fit, keeping fit and driving away the nay-sayers who ask me, “…should you still be doing that at your age?” as I strap on some boxing gloves and prepare to go six rounds with my personal trainer, or climb in to my judo gi and tie my black belt around my waist… well why not if I still can?

People who describe their gym as their ‘church’ or their second home and their fellow members as their family (bro!) make me feel a tad uncomfortable, it’s a bit over the top and frankly I’m just too old for all that. However since starting to train at Rye Bay Fitness I do feel more comfortable and confident in a gym environment that I ever have before.

I want to write about my personal experiences and I also want to get out there and meet people who are either delivering training or being trained, after all the growth in the fitness industry has been explosive! When I first tried to find a personal trainer here in Hastings back in 2011 it was really hard to locate one, now, spit and you hit someone professing to be a personal trainer! As I’ve found out and I’ve used a number down the years, the quality can be variable!

Now, for those who don’t know me, you might be thinking that with this enthusiasm for exercise I’ve spent my life as a bit of a gym-rat; that I’m all bulging biceps, shiny well defined pecs and rippling abs, alas nothing is further from the truth. I didn’t even start to enjoy sport until my late 20s. At school I was the fat kid with glasses who was last to be picked for the football team and I engineered it so I could dodge a lot of PE to go and practice my piano or ‘cello in the music department. As I got older and I’ve tried more sport I realise that I am someone who likes individual sports, team sports are not me and of course at school it’s all about team sport ­– well it was in the 1970s.

So as a fat and unfit 27-year-old I tried squash, became moderately successful at judo in my 30s and 40s and still train when I can, or feel brave enough to. I like gym stuff, I’ve run a Tough Mudder or two and then at 55 I took-up boxing and had three white collar bouts and won them all. But my relationship with sport, exercise and fitness has ebbed and flowed. The boxing training created a focus and determination I’d never known in myself before but after my third fight I slackened off and paid token attention to exercise and fitness for a couple of years. Yes I knew my weight was going up but hey, I thought, I can deal with that another day. So when I turned 60 and my GP called me in for a check-up, while the fact that my blood pressure was raised and I was pre-diabetic came as no real surprise the fact that all happened at a time when my age now started with a six was a bit of a wake-up call and I called my good mate Gavin.

Meet Gavin Broomfield my personal trainer and I like to think good friend. I’ve known him since he was 14 and I’m genuinely impressed by the single minded determination he has shown on focussing on his goals - in fitness and in business - and achieving them. He pushes me to lift ever heavier weights, run ever greater distances and he fights with me, not like I’m an old man but like I’m just one of his mates – thanks for that Gavin!

I’ve known Gav since he was 14 and I was his judo coach; he was a lovely lad and has grown in to a truly remarkable and inspiring young man, if 34 is still considered young? You’ll hear, see and read more about him in coming installments.

Anyway in the last two and a half years he has sorted me out; I’m fitter, healthier, stronger and lighter than I was and I’m feeling just so much better for it. That in many ways is probably where this first piece naturally concludes before I move to detailing my (no I’m not going to use the word ‘journey’) program over the last couple of years and how I’ve been inspired and had the fire lit beneath my competitive instincts. And I’ll touch on how many people don’t seem to think I should be doing what I’m doing ‘at my age’!

So going back to what I said at the start of this ramble, what I want to do in the coming months is speak to a range of people about why they train, what their goals and objectives are and what have their experiences been with training professionals? And I want to speak to those trainers and try to find out what motivates them?

Look around social media and you’ll see such a range; there are the Gavin’s of this world who have their own fully functioning gym, there are those that come to you and train you in your living room or garden, there are the bootcamps and there are the online PTs (how does that work?) and so many more variations on the theme.

I suppose I’ve become fed up of seeing the trainers posting videos telling me what I’m doing wrong in my life and how they can set everything right, give me an ‘unbreakable’ mindset and how I’ll never look at life through anything other than rose tinted spectacles again – oh yes! So on here let’s look at these things from the punter’s point of view - let’s be real!

And in other news

What you’ll also be hearing about on these pages:

Family – one wife of 38 years, three children 35, 32 and 28; three grandchildren nine, six and three, one Border Terrier (Max) nine.

Cars – I’ve had 55, or is it 56, and counting

Where I live – We moved to Hastings from Dumfries in 2001 and have never regretted it

Publishing – I have a passion for the publishing industry and it’s so sad to see it in such decline

Stables Theatre – the local theatre where I volunteer and for which I produce a series of podcasts, listen to them here