Training at sixty

What the work actually looks like after a two-level lumbar spondylolisthesis — the training that took me from bed-ridden at 54 to trail racing at 60, and what keeps me on my feet now.

The four pillars

Exercise, physical therapy, diet, supplements. Pull any one of them out and the structure wobbles. They are not hacks; they are not optimization. They are the unglamorous daily minimums that make everything else — the running, the skiing, the life — possible at this age. Here is what each one actually looks like for me.

Exercise

The core of the week is strength work aimed at the muscles around my lumbar spine: glutes, deep core, hips, and the posterior chain that runs from ankles to shoulders. Split squats, hip thrusts, single-leg deadlifts, dead bugs, bird dogs, planks in every direction. Nothing maximal. Nothing heroic. Everything done with a bias toward control, range of motion, and the ability to get up again tomorrow. I do core three days a week. I run on the other days, mostly easy, mostly on trails. If I had to keep only one thing from this list, it would be the running.

Physical therapy

PT is the coach who reads the body. I saw mine in the beginning often enough that it informed my program to get stronger. The specific moves change. The principle does not: every exercise I do has a reason, and every reason traces back to the spine. PT is not a six-week event that ends. It is the beginning that keeps the whole system informed.

Diet

Mostly whole foods. Protein with every meal — enough to actually build muscle at this age, which is a lot more than most men my age eat. Plenty of vegetables, fruit, slow carbs around training. I still drink and enjoy desserts. This is not a diet in the capital-D sense; it is a default. When I travel or eat out, I come back to it. The goal is to remove inflammation, keep body weight in a range the spine wants to carry, and show up to training fed enough to actually do the work.

Supplements

The boring basics, taken every day. Creatine: five grams, for strength and for cognition. Vitamin D3 with K2: the dose that keeps my blood level in range, not a guess. Magnesium at night. Collagen in my coffee. Fish oil with dinner. A good multivitamin to cover the gaps. Nothing exotic. Nothing that promises a miracle. These are the compounds that the evidence actually supports for a man trying to build and hold muscle past sixty, and I treat them like brushing my teeth: they happen whether I feel like it or not.

The weekly rhythm

Three strength sessions a week, roughly forty-five minutes each. Two to three runs: all at moderate to intense pace. Short stretching every day, without exception — the spine likes movement and hates stillness more than anything else. One full rest day. Breath work stitched in before bed or in the morning, even if it is only ten breaths. None of this is heroic. What makes it work is that I actually do it, week after week, year after year. That is the secret nobody likes: you cannot skip the reps.

What I would tell another sixty-year-old

Start where you are, not where you wish you were. Lift something heavy enough to matter, three times a week. Find a physical therapist who will actually put hands on you and think about your whole body, not just the part that hurts. Eat like you mean to live another thirty years. Walk every day. Take the unglamorous supplements. Most of all, stop negotiating with yourself about whether today is a training day. The body at this age does not forgive long pauses the way it did at thirty. But it rewards honest, steady work more than most people expect, and I am proof.