Gerald Fry
Dr. Peter Attia and Bill Gifford have recently written a best-selling book titled Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity. I have written a critical review of the book which I hope to publish soon. It is one of the most important books I have ever purchased. In the book, the authors present a novel way of defining young and old, which, of course, has nothing to do with the formal birth date on our drivers’ licenses.
If we focus primarily on thinking about the past and all that we have done and accomplished, we are old. On the other hand, if we focus on the future and what we aspire to do in the years ahead, then we are “young.” I really like this definition because personally it places me in the desirable “young” category. I was just telling my son about my personal ten-year plan. One example of an activity is to attend the College World Series in Omaha in June 2025. Hopefully, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Rice, and/or Wichita State will be there. While in Omaha I will visit Tommy Vosper and John Cleary, my wonderful baseball teammates from the La Charles Braves back in the 1950s. Another activity will be to attend World Expo 2027 in Serbia and visit cool friends there.
But the activity which I will discuss here is my plan to compete in the 2027 World Senior Games in beautiful St. George, Utah, in October of that year. This is quite the experience with over 10,000 athletes from all over the country and world participating. I will compete in five events, two basketball and three track and field. This will be my third Games, but in the past I had to compete with the “young old.” This time I will compete against the “old old.” In my last Games I almost brought home a bronze in basketball. If the rules used on Monday had been used on Saturday, I would have brought home a bronze medal.
Actually, I started my training in the fall of 2022 in Thailand when I would take speed-walking breaks while working on a book. Now sadly being in med rehab because of some nasty foot surgeries, I still work out every day and can bunny hop to a nice gym close to my room. All the bunny hopping I have done while in rehab should really strengthen my right leg. I also have a device to strengthen my grip and wrists (right). Grip strength is positively related to longevity and is good for sports like basketball, racket ball, tennis, and golf. I use this device a great deal while watching sports on TV and taking long flights across the Pacific.
I will retire “early” in May, 2025. That will give me two years to train without formal work competition. Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok has a great gym where I can work on my basketball shooting. I also have several great places to practice speed-walking in Bangkok.
For the past 10 years as part of my long-term training, I have been doing a great deal of backward movement including climbing steps backwards, jogging and walking backwards (for safety reasons I do these in a pool), and bicycling backwards (stationary bike of course). Retired Professor Barry Bates at Oregon devoted his professional life to studying the many benefits of backward movement which involve different muscle groups and another part of the brain. While all this exercise is helping me prepare for the 2027 games, it is also benefiting my brain health. There is wonderful book titled Spark published by MIT that documents all the brain health benefits of regular exercise.
While living in ecotopian Oregon for 22 years, I once had the opportunity to work for Nike and directly for its CEO and co-founder Phil Knight. What a dream job for a sports-nut like me! While there I learned to appreciate the many benefits of cross-training (“Bo Knows,” 1989). So every day I try to vary my training exercise routines. Also from our School of Kinesiology at the University of Minnesota I learned about the “orange method,” rotating between about 15’ of aerobics with 15’ of strength training. I love using rowing machines, because they are inherently cross-training and the “orange method.”
While at the gym, I normally do two other activities as well. I use dumb bell exercises to strengthen my upper body, which is my major weak point. Then when I am on machines such as the arm bike and Nustep, I include high intensity short intervals (15-30 seconds) in which I try to maximize my speed and heart rate. Normally I can rev my speed up to 10-15 mph.
In addition to my gym training, I normally exercise 10-15 minutes right after every meal so that any sugar from my meal is needed to fuel my exercise rather than remain dangerously in my blood stream.
With regard to food and diet, for the past three or four years I have been practicing calorie reduction, eating only two meals a day – a big breakfast rich with protein and fruit and then a late lunch/early dinner which often features fish or duck. This means I am practicing intermittent fasting, which a key German scientist claims is extremely healthy. As a result of this practice, my weight has dropped from 200 to 150 pounds. Given the laws of physics, this should make me more competitive in 2027 because I have far less weight to move around. Related to food and diet, I sometimes take the superfood, healthy dark chocolate, to gain energy for workouts.
As we grow older, being mindful becomes ever more important. Excessive running and exercise can be unhealthy. Four legged animals like deer and horses “are designed” to run, but we humans as two legged creatures are built to walk. Thus, I speed walk (two of my events in the 2027 games) rather than jogging slowly.
One nice fringe benefit of participating in the World Senior Games is 
that you receive a free thorough assessment of your fitness. The exam lasts about two hours and is done by well-trained medical staff from Utah universities and colleges. They test virtually everything: balance, endurance, strength, amount of body fat (a much better indicator than BMI), posture, efficiency in use of oxygen, cognition. At the end you get a printout which shows your metabolic age. This provides concrete objective evidence about the impact of our exercise and fitness regimes. The normal cost of such an exam would be about $1,000. I was so pleased in the last two Games to find that my metabolic age was 15 years less than my chronological age.
Footnote: I just ordered the new book, Ask Uncle Jack: 100 Years of Wisdom, in which he shares his secrets for joyful longevity. Should be a fun and useful read.
Wish me luck in the 2027 games and I will let you know how things turn out. I hope some of you may decide to participate.
Editor’s Note: Good Luck, Gerry – with both your training and your performance!! Gerry has written more about aging, reverse aging, and living joyfully for this website.
