52 Weeks Under the Bar: How Strength Training After 50 Changed My Life
A year of small, steady habits transformed my strength at 50. From rowing to barbell training, here’s how I became stronger than I was in my 40s.
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Make the Good Stuff Happen Automatically
Passive income is all the rage in investing circles. The idea is simple and seductive: get paid today for work you did years ago. Money showing up automatically, year after year, without constant effort.
That word, automatic, has been on my mind lately.
I was thinking about it during my workout this morning. Or more accurately, while soaking in the bathtub after my workout, which is where many of my best thoughts seem to happen.
I realized that I’ve stuck with rowing and lifting for one main reason: I’ve removed the decision-making.
Once a month, I open the Row House app and sign up for classes at the same days and times. Every Monday at 11 and every Friday at 11, I row. No debate. No daily negotiation with myself. I schedule my life around those classes, not the other way around. It takes zero brain power to show up, so there’s almost no resistance.
And when I do show up, I always work hard. The coach is excellent. He pushes us to “take the bait,” as he likes to say, to go a little harder than we think we can. Automatically, it happens. I arrive, I give full effort, and I leave better than I came in. I wrote more about this idea of removing resistance and letting habits compound in my fitness journey of building consistent habits, which has shaped how I think about showing up over the long term.
The same thing is true with weight training. Every Wednesday, it’s on the calendar. I walk into the gym, open the Stronger Lifts app, and follow the plan. My virtual trainer keeps me moving forward, and makes sure I’m progressing instead of just repeating the same comfortable lifts week after week.
No decisions. Just execution.
Good systems don’t force effort. They quietly support it.
Food works the same way. In my opinion, the single best thing you can do for your health and your budget is learn how to cook. Not only will you eat better, but you’ll save a surprising amount of money. There have been plenty of times we’ve gone out to eat and left disappointed, thinking, I could’ve made this better at home. Not bragging, just facts.
Because we cook regularly, meals naturally revolve around beans, vegetables, and good extra virgin olive oil. I put it all into a simple grocery list I use as the basis for cooking healthy meals and saving money, which removes a lot of friction from deciding what to make each week. That structure alone keeps my weight and our grocery spending in check. Cooking at home makes healthy eating automatic.
Money is no different. We’ve set up automatic deductions from our checking account for savings and long-term goals. Every month, the money moves before we can argue about it. There’s no discussion about if we can save, only how we live within what’s left. I’ve written before about living well within our means, and this approach works for the same reason. By deciding ahead of time, we remove emotion and impulse from the equation.
By never seeing that money in our account, we don’t miss it. And over nearly twenty years of marriage, those small, automatic choices have quietly built a meaningful sense of security.
Not everything can be automated, though.
Relationships don’t work that way. They require attention, intention, and care, over and over again. If there are people you’ve grown distant from and they matter to you, reach out. A phone call. A handwritten note. A simple check-in. Those things still matter, maybe more than ever.
The real takeaway is this: the more you can set up habits that happen automatically and move you toward your long-term goals, the better your chances of reaching them. Having to decide every day is exhausting. It leaves the door wide open for excuses. Close that door—and build systems that quietly work on your behalf.
“Know what’s enough. Build what matters.”
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