Strength and power workouts have always been my favorite (see the video below). I love feeling strong and, I admit, I’m a fan of big muscles.

At the ripe old age of 47, I’m still feeling strong. Actually, I feel stronger than I have in a few years. In this video I dead lift 300lbs. That’s the best I’ve done in years. It took me 5 weeks to accomplish. Now I’m working on my next goal – one rep at 350lbs.

Setting and reaching goals like this has been a part of my routine since I started. Competing with myself is a source of motivation. I strive for continuous improvement and track all my workouts. Being able to monitor my progress over a long period of time is very helpful.

The older I get the more motivated I am to keep training. I’m inspired by people like Clarence Bass and others who continue to look great and stay strong well in to their 60′s and beyond.

As we age, we do experience a natural reduction in some aspects of our physical abilities, and there is a natural loss of lean muscle tissue, but we don’t have to settle for that. While we can’t stop the aging process, we can certainly slow it down and lessen the negative effects.

I believe my best years are still to come.

P.S. Any of you young guns are welcome to come to a boot camp class and try to keep up with me.

My newest favorite exercise is rowing. The Concept 2 Indoor Rower provides a great all around workout.

We use the Concept 2 Indoor Rowers quite a bit in our fitness boot camp classes and our trainers are using it more and more with their personal training clients.

Here are the benefits the manufacturer describes on their website:

• Low-impact (easy on the knees and ankles)
• High calorie burner (because it uses so many muscle groups)
• Great for joint health (joints move through a wide range of motion)
• Upper body (completes the stroke)
• Lower body (the legs initiate the drive)
• Works the back and abs too!
• Superb aerobic fitness (great for cardiovascular fitness)
• Relieves Stress (for overall health and well-being)

Good technique is important to avoid injury and get the most out of the exercise.

I take pride in the quality of training we offer at Fitness By Design. If we are going to offer a new kind training to our clients we take the time to learn how to do it correctly. Yesterday we had a training clinic for our personal trainers with rowing experts Eric and Deborah Stoll of Fitness Concepts. They have years of experience coaching and training rowers. Eric was director of the Indianapolis Rowing Center.

Rowing Class at Fitness By Design

As someone who’s done his fair share of spinning classes, and who loves to ride, I think rowing is a better total body workout, all the major muscle groups are involved. The “kick ass” factor is definitely present.

Fitness Bootcamp Class Workout

Everyone was glad to see the power wheel on the list. We used the med ball in today’s workout as well. For another med ball workout video check out Josh on YouTube.

Here’s a boot camp workout from earlier this month:

AMRAP, 40 minutes

• Rowing 500m
• Burpees 10
• Jumprope 100fwd,100bkwd
• Explosive step-ups 30 (watch a demo)
• Wallball 10
• Running 200yd

*AMRAP = as many rounds as possible

I put a lot of time into creating dynamic routines, variety really helps. Each day’s workout is written out on a whiteboard in the boot camp room. Here’s one of our boot camp routines with a strength training focus :

Boot camp strength workout

From one of our Saturday boot camp classes, this is a routine I put together based on a workout I saw at Monkey Bar Gym. It combines strength and conditioning.

For those of you spending time on the sand this week, here’s a great beach vacation workout from my friend Kevin.