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    Registered User viroku45's Avatar
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    Age: 54
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    45 year old with pacemaker starting out

    I'm ex basketball player that got hooked up on working out in gym. At the time I was doing mostly olympic weightlifting stuff (cleans, jerks, squats, jumping squats...) basically anything to improve explosiveness and vertical. I injured my shoulder in game and together with some other real life stuff I quit basketball but like I said was hooked on weight training. For some reason my favorite two exercises were squats and pullups/chinups. I wasn't weighing to much, 220 pounds at 6'6, but very low body fat, decently muscular and very strong. At that weight I could do 25 full wide grip pullups.

    So 17 years ago out of the blue I had heart surgery, they had to put me artificial valve on my aorta. After that I kind of stopped training, would do some stuff here and there but it was almost nothing. Than 8 years ago I had another procedure where they installed me pacemaker. After that I completely stopped with any sort of training and only activity I did was walking. When I was in training I was eating crazy amounts of food, so when I stopped I had to adopt and at least with that part I'm proud off. Last 20 years my weight would wary between 214-220 lbs. I wasn't really watching what I was eating, just how much. So if I stand on scale now and compare myself 20 years ago, scale would say the same but difference is huge. I was very active back than and had extremely low body fat (never really measured but some bodybuilders were saying I was probably 10% ore below), and very muscular. Nowdays muscles have vanished, there is some belly fat, love handles and if I can judge by pictures I would say that I have around 21-25% body fat. To be honest its not bad for 45 year old but for me personally its horrible. Not the looks as much as the fact that I have become so weak.

    Few weeks ago calisthenics park was build close to my place and I got sick of just doing sitting job and walking bit so I decided to start training again.
    Big issue with calisthenics and pacemaker is that there is danger when stretching to much to break the lead in pacemaker so to battle with that I'm basically not stretching fully at the bottom of the movement and doing very strict and controlled movements.
    my routine is this:
    Warmup with 2 sets of lat pulldown using bands (very slow and controlled)
    3 x 8-10 supine rows, tempo is what I focus here, lower myself for 5 sec, no rest down, 2 sec up, 2 sec hold. Must say that I feel good mind-muscle connection and it burns like hell 😃
    and finish training with 2 sets of 4-6 reps doing negatives of lat pullups with jumping to upper position

    elevated pushups 3 x 5-6 (I'm doing these on big tire to warm up also doing them slowly but not to careful of tempo)
    dips with band assistance 3 x 6-8 (again tempo is 5 sec on negative part, I could probably do lot more if I don't focus on tempo but for the time being I'm sticking to this)

    2 x 15 body weight squats (warmup, doing them really slow)
    3 x 8-10 bulgarian split squats (tempo is 4 sec on negative part, no pause, controlled lift) I must say I really feel them.
    2 x 15 calf raises on bar

    I finish training with few sets of hyperextensions and hanging leg raises.

    I do it 3 times a week, for 2 and a half weeks now. When I started couldn't do single pullup/chinnup or dip. Tested myself today, 3 strict chinups (maybe third wasn't 100% strict), 1 strict pullup after good rest and 5 strict dips (again fifth one was not 100% strict). To be honest I'm surprised I managed this so quickly at my weight but I'm very pleased.

    Now my concern is that after a while and getting in some shape leg training just wont be enough. And with no gym options not sure what I could do. I could maybe buy some kettlebells but I have 5 min walk to that park so carrying weight there might be annoying.

    Any suggestions, input, critique would be more than welcome since I'm away from the game for so long time.
    Btw atm I'm not using any supplements except multivitamins, but when I get bit improvement I planned of adding high quality protein and creatine. Btw I heard that creatine, carnitine and leucine are good combo, so any input on that would also be appreciated.
    My goal is to loose some body fat and pack on some muscle. Never before I have done phases of bulking and cutting, so my idea is to progress slower but add clean muscle.
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