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Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 17, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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They weren't strong

Often, they were extremely strong a decade (or two) ago, and are now in a chill, but meticulously managed decline. Especially if they managed to avoid long injuries, their muscles might not be bulging anymore, and might be covered by a layer of fat, but the muscle mass is still mostly there. Advanced age and sinking testosterone levels makes building muscle much more difficult, but careful maintenance is doable.

It's even more apparent in the endurance sports. If you look at 10k/half marathon/marathon times of senior/grandmaster division runners, they often maintain impressive amateur times into their sixties. The real performance cliff only seems to come in the late sixties.

but they knew how to leverage what strength they had.

This is, of course, also true.

I have an old guy at my gym, 70's, was a Navy Frogman back in the day, then a roofer for years. Climbing ladders, hefting materials, swinging a hammer.

His grip strength is unbreakable. Might be combination of rough, callused hands adding friction and muscles that are extremely specialized as holding things tightly for long periods of time. And probably less concern about squishing things, so fewer mental blocks on squeezing tightly.

I dunno. Its not that he's stronger than a younger man is... but he's stronger than you expect and, as stated they have to utilize their leverage as best they can so if they bothered to develop technique, that will still work for them.