Legal Commentary

Ninety-Five and Pumping Iron

By Kenneth Anderson

I?m not referring to the temperature, but this man?s age.  I see Instapundit has linked to it ? but I saw it on a video at my gym this afternoon, where they were running it nonstop.  As a middle-aged guy striving only partly successfully and mostly unsuccessfully to get in shape, lose weight, eat healthy, and all that, this was inspiring.

My gym, probably like a lot of gyms in upper middle class urban professional neighborhoods, has been trending to an older and older population.  In the daytime, especially, a fair number of elderly people doing post-stroke, post-heart attack recovery.  Intellectually and morally, I?m sure I admire them ? walking with a cane around the track, sometimes accompanied by a nurse ? especially as I?ll be that age soon enough.

But ... I?m shallow.  I can?t help it.  I work out much harder, much stronger, and push myself much, much, much, much more when I?m not the youngest and fittest person in the gym.  I work out much, much, much, much, much harder when I?m surrounded by the young and nubile.  The rub, of course, is that the young and nubile also prefer to work out among the young and nubile, and not among the middle-aged like me.  The one thing I can say is I?m sure, 100% certain, Glenn Reynolds feels exactly the same way I do.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on July 08, 2010 (boomark / email).