Listen to your body, feel your body, trust your body. That is all.

Greg and Aaron, You guys make good points, which I agree with. My personal opinion is, exercise and diet wise, if it works for You and You enjoy it keep doing it. Sometimes we can be going good, then someone comes along and says it's the wrong way. If we're getting results why do we listen? I don't know. Maybe it's human nature or just wanting to see if something else is better.

Exercise wise I know the things I like, can do, and work for me. But you're always going to have someone who will ridicule Your training style. Diet wise what is crazy is all the people who throw out these studies on different diets. Don't get me wrong I don't mind reading the science behind diets for health reasons. Everyone is different, there is no one way everyone should eat. Some like myself have food allergies, some dislike certain foods, and people just react differently to certain diets. What I do is depend on my doctor, blood work and experience.

Wow complex and great question. We have Science, opinions and often the doctrine of an organisations that may have the under riding motive of finacial gain. Looking at heavy weight training as an example its the quivkest way to build strength and solid muscle. Many sports need the mass and strength development and impact on the force end of the power equation from this. Certain people will tell you all the benefits which are proven by science. But not always the negatives. So the truth is often spread around. When it comes to it whats the truth for you? By your own experiance is really what counts.

greg at 69, i agree with you on this

That is all so true. Our body is our main adviser.

Greg, you are right on target. The injuries and experience you have had pretty much track my own. As soon as I got to the part about Hindu squats and quarter squats it became like reading my own injury/limitation biography. Heavy lifting - no way. One arm pushups? I don't think so. One arm pushups are for me a vestige of what once was - in the 1980s. Not since. But what I especially enjoyed seeing in your comments above is the recognition that while you (and I, and many others) have paid a price for what we have been through and learned as a result we have not given up or raised the white flag of surrender, We do what we love, what fulfills a need in us, not to gloat or feel superior to anybody else but simply because we enjoy doing so and value the results that we get. I do sometimes wish that I would have trained smarter, but its only in the past ten years or so that there has been the kind of information that is now available to people who want to learn, compare and pass along their experience to others. S0 - we're perhaps limited by injury, age, whatever but quitting, getting overweight or just "letting ourselves go" isn't an option. There is real accomplishment in that as well as satisfaction - a life well lived.

Boy, that one was loaded. Here is the thing though. Ultimately we have to listen to our own bodies and trust what our own body tells us. Not Ken Leinster, Ellington Darden, Brooks Kubrick, John Peterson, Charles Atlas (Doc Tilney), Swoboda, Arnold, Brad Steiner, etc and etc. It doesn't matter who. It has to boil down to what works for you. Over the past few weeks for example, I tried a few exercises that I hadn't done in awhile and that came highly recommended. They were a no go for several reasons, and they did have positives, but ultimately, they weren't doing what I needed them to do, so I quit doing them. It all boils down to your individual genetics for recovery and for building whatever aspect of strength and health you want.

Now, having trained for a lot of years, having owned a gym that several hundred people came through, you get a feel for what works and what doesn't. If you read a lot you see the same training advice cycle through every decade or so as the latest and greatest.

Basically you have to look at several things candidly. First, what is your genetics for building muscle and strength? There is a limit that can only be pushed past with the use of drugs. Second, what are you wanting out of your training? Third, and this ties into your genetics, diet and lifestyle, but what is your recovery ability like? Last, how old are you? In every decade of life, energy becomes more and more precious, and we become more and more fragile. That is a truth many refuse to face.

Based on those criteria, I can tell you what are negatives for me personally at 57. Hindu Squats or any squatting that goes past a quarter squat. The knees and lower back cannot take it anymore. Sit-ups of any kind. Even though I used to do a lot of them, my structure is just not built for them and they can be rough on the lower back. Heavy weight training or any exercise like one armed push-ups that puts a heavy load on the joints are out. My joints have to last a few more years, and they've already had quite a few decades of abuse.

Also, any training recommendations that involve high intensity or going to failure is definitely out. I beat myself up too many times on the super duper programs with not that much to show for it, other than beat up joints and chronic fatigue. That goes for the high intensity calisthenics programs as well as weight training.

So does that mean I am a beaten up, decrepit wreck who can't do anything? Hardly. I can still do a lot of things many half my age can't do, and still retain a fairly high degree of strength, flexibility, balance, and coordination. But, as I age, I have to pace myself, and work with my body and not against it.