Think about it, I’m not talking about 60+ year olds who are doped up or genetically blessed, but truly average 60+ year olds with no hormonal advantage.
Think about it, every non-disabled teen male you know - whether they work out or not is somewhat fast (15.0 100m) or somewhat strong (150 bench) in some way even without any training. I am pretty sure I don’t know one male in their teens or 20s who couldn’t hit at least one of those standards apart from maybe the horribly obese, but even then they would excel with strength.
But pretty much 80% of 60 year olds I know are pathetically weak and slow to the point where I would be surprised if they could bench half of their body weight or run a sub 19.0 100m (these are about the starting points of most geezers that come into my PT gym so I have to assume it is around the population average) and even the ones who work out regularly and look pretty fit/trained can only do something like a 75-80% bw max and 16.5 100m and that is somewhat trained. Any 20 year old male doing the equivalent training would easily be benching 1.5x bw and running 13s.
Those untrained 20 year old male standards above, are probably what a geezer would have to spend about 4-5 years of training to achieve (IF they ever get there) but yet 14 year old dudes can do it off no other training than playing video games all day.
I would absolutely hate to be 60+. The average geezer would probably top out his genetic potential at a 6:20 mile, 150 bench and most could probably hit about 15-16s in an all out trained 100 with years of training. Those are all standards I could hit within 2 weeks of getting in shape from being a lifelong sedentary (minus the 6:20 which took me about 4 months). I know chicks that have been gym bunnies for years and find those above standards hard, it sucks that geezers have to work so hard to be so weak and slow. It takes them much longer than teens to get fit, that is just a fact.
I just don’t understand why from a biologocal view, being even relatively strong or fast is SO HARD for most geezers? Not a dig at them but it must really be a patience tester working really hard in the gym just for weak absolute strength or weak absolute speed. It might be considered strong WITHIN THEIR AGE but when faced with real danger such as a knife chase or coming into contact with an aggresive animal, even a fitness-trained geezer wouldn’t fare well (unless he had skill-specific training).
Obviously there are a few geezers who can kick my big stupid butt, you know, the ones who represent the typical 60 year old.. but most couldn’t even match a non-trained teen with years of training unless they have some kind of natural talent.