 Welcome to Barbell Logic, Rewind. This is my favorite client, Sibyl. She is 81 years old, and I'm not gonna tell her story because I'm gonna let her tell her story, but I've been training her for almost two years now, right? A little over two years, yeah. A little over two years. And it's just been a joy to be able to train her. She still does barbell lifts, and so, hey, thanks for being on the show. Yeah, thanks for doing it, really. Thank you for asking me. Sibyl is great because she's a great storyteller. We knew it was gonna be a good podcast. She's got a, her mind is sharper than Hambricks, which is saying a lot. Her IQ is about 10 points higher. And, but she's not on the autism scale, so she's extra likable. She can emote. She can emote. So, Sibyl, first off, let's start with, where are you originally from? I grew up in New Jersey about five miles from Times Square. Oh, wow. I don't think I knew that. And a suburb, uh-huh. Yeah. And I lived in the same house from the time I was born until I was married. That's, and what year did you get married? 1958. Yeah. And, and your husband passed about eight years ago now? Eight and a half years, yeah. And then you've got kiddos. I do. I have three wonderful children. I can hardly call them children anymore, though. Yeah, are they kiddos in there? Yeah. Oh, about that. Yeah. They are spread out a little bit all over the US. They are. I have a daughter in St. Charles, near St. Louis. And I have another daughter on the west coast in Corvallis, Oregon. And I have a son in Fort Collins, Colorado. Yep. And so your son, Darin, is the one that introduced us. Darin had come down to visit you on the holidays, had done it for a couple of years and would look me up back when I was at Strong and would get a session in with me. And he started really even from the very first session or two. He said, man, I wish I could get you to work with my mom. And of course I said, I'm like, that's easy. Can your mom work with me? Yeah, I'll work with your mom. That's fine. And he said, yeah, but the thing is my mom has never been to a gym. I don't know that she's ever darkened the doors of a gym. She doesn't know what to expect. And she's at the time you were 79. And so we just kind of let it go for a while. And then eventually he convinced you to talk to me. I think we traded numbers, is that right? Right, yeah. I have to make a slight correction there. I did go to a gym, but it wasn't the kind of gym that I was anticipating you would be at. You know, it was where once you little old ladies got together and- Curves. Yeah. I shouldn't say that. I don't know, was it curves? Because I was one of them. Was it curves? No, no, no. Remember the name of the gym? No. Oh, yeah, the name of the gym. Well, it was actually the Meyer Center, which is associated with Cox Hospital. Yeah, the hospital. Yeah, the hospital gym, which is actually not a bad place. No, it was good. And it was good for me to do that. I did water aerobics and I did some machine work. Sure. You know, I used the machines. And I had a few sessions with a personal trainer, but nothing like what I've done with you. He wasn't as incredible as- No, he didn't tell stories like you do. Right. So what did Darren tell you that would get you to come and do this? Well, Darren thought that I would stay mentally and physically in better shape if I had this kind of a workout. And I have to admit he was right because I really feel good. And I always feel better after I've trained. Sure. What do you remember about that first session? I came to your house. So rather than you coming to the gym, I came to your house. I was hesitant to come to the gym. I didn't know what I was gonna be getting into. Sure. And I thought it was very nice of you to offer to come to the house. And I think you came for about four or five sessions and then I remember you saying to me, you know, we could really do more and do better if you came to the gym. Well, I'd never heard of the gym you were associated with at that time. Shady place, very sketchy. Even going downtown. Seemed like an awful trek out of town, but still, you know, I thought, oh, do I wanna get involved with this? That weird guy. Yeah, yeah, you know, this muscle guy and I don't know about that. But when Matt came to the house, he was so kind and so nice. And I thought, you know, maybe there is something to this. And I was really impressed that my son who came all the way from Colorado and you know, Fort Collins and your Denver, he had to come to Springfield, Missouri to get the kind of coach he wanted. And that really impressed me, I thought, because I have a lot of respect for my son and what he does. And the fact that he has kept up his physical strength and abilities so well through the years. Yeah, he's done, held it out there. He's in his mid fifties now. I was gonna say, he looks like he's 40. Well, he looks like he's 40. Yeah, he's in great shape. Yeah, in great shape. So you made me coffee and homemade biscotti. I had forgotten that for the first time ever. And I remember we dipped, we tell, of course. I have trained thousands of people, but it's the first time anybody ever made me homemade biscotti at their house. So we dipped biscotti in our coffee and talked about strength training and the house strength training would help, I remember. And I'd had some weaknesses after some surgeries that I'd had and I was using a cane and I did hope that maybe I'd be able to overcome that. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do that. I still feel more secure walking with a cane. And mainly because I hear so much about older people falling and I don't wanna do that if I'm on ground that isn't quite level or a shark or whatever. So I'm pretty careful that way, but I feel so much stronger and my energy level is so much better. So anyhow, getting back to the story. So I finally, after about a month or five weeks or something like that, I said to Matt, okay, I'm gonna come to the gym. And I was really very pleasantly surprised at the atmosphere of the gym. I didn't feel out of place there. And everybody was very kind to me and Matt was just super. He took things slowly, but I remember as I was approaching my 80th birthday, he was going to get me to push, what was it Matt? I can't remember now. Was it the Prowler 80 pounds? The Prowler 80 pounds, oh no, 80 times. We've got to push the 80 reps. Yeah, 80 reps on the Prowler. We did both. And... This is crazy. It was crazy, but anyhow, I think I was pretty close. Yeah, and then you pulled your body, your age, you pulled 80 pounds for your 80th birthday for a bunch of reps, I think 10 or 12 reps at the time. So let me walk back a little bit. So the first session went to your house and of course we didn't have barbells and I was just trying to get her interested in strength training and explain how it's different than what the personal trainer at the hospital gym was going to have her do. I can remember teaching you how to properly get out of your dining room chair out of squat, out of your dining room chair, correct? Without using your hands. And we did that and we did pushups against the door. You remember that? Right, and you know I still do that every once in a while. It's just good for me. Yeah. We're in Reynolds basement. And my kids are, it's insane. My kids are going nuts upstairs. Having a good time. Yeah, and so we squatted out of a chair and did pushups against the door. I remember bringing a kettlebell and stacking them on Methodist Himmels. And she did kettlebell this year. The organist at your church, she played a big beautiful million dollar pipe organ. I do. And you've done that for how many years you've been at organ player? I started playing in church when I was 14. You do the math. Four years after she started drinking whiskey. That's probably the right order. Whiskey first and the Lord second. So we did that. And then I remember slowly dropping the kettlebell deadlifts by one hymnal every session. So same weight, but we got deeper and deeper and then got you to the gym and we started doing. We worked on the stairs too, remember? Yeah, we would go up the stairs. So that was another thing. So let's walk through. You were talking about some of the challenges that you had. I can remember that you struggled with things like going up the stairs. You've got a beautiful home, second story home and you almost never went up the stairs back then. And I remember you had boxes under your bed that you say you couldn't get to the boxes under your bed and you had boxes up in a closet. You couldn't get the boxes in the closet. What else? I remember there were several. Getting in and out of your car was difficult. Yeah, that was. And so you mentioned some of your surgeries. What are, let's walk through so that people know the background you're coming from because you've done tremendously well for a super healthy 80 year old octogenarian lady, but you haven't had a super healthy past several decades. So what are some of the surgeries you've had? Oh no, when I was in my fifties, I started having real bad arthritis. And I had my first hip replaced when I was 57, I think. And a few years later, eight or nine years later, I had my other hip replaced. And I think that was where one of the surgeries may have damaged the muscle because I always had a little something there that wasn't quite right. And then a few years after that, I had to have my knee replaced. And that too, it got me out of pain. Fortunately, I have no pain these days. And I'm very grateful for that. But I do have restricted movement in my knee which makes it a little difficult for me to get on and off the floor because I can't bend my knee all the way down. And a few other things. But then I had my neck fused, so. And then later on, I had herniated disc in my upper back and I didn't know any better. I let the surgeon do surgery on that. So I don't know, what else? An inch cut off of one of your Achilles tendons, right? Oh yeah, yeah. When I was just in my 30s, I had an issue with my leg and they had to go in and take out a hemangioma. Actually, I'd had it since I was a little kid. I'd just put up with it. And finally, it got to the point where I said, okay, no more. So they did the surgery on that and they had to take out two inches of my Achilles tendon. So I had, yeah. I'm restricted on how much I can bend that knee. Which is my good knee. And yet ankle mobility has never been an issue for her with squats. Isn't that amazing? All the people that talk about ankle mobility is the restricting factor for squats and whatnot, you still squat without any problems. The ankles do fine, but I just have to put more weight on the other side because my left side won't take it in. You're not super symmetrical. So you've come from all this. You've got all these surgeries. You were living in Springfield, Missouri. Beautiful home. Had been a widow at that point for seven years. Kids don't really live in the area and started to pursue strength. And pretty quick, we saw a pretty serious turnaround in you physically. I can remember deadlifting when I got her to a barbell. The girl's 33 con bar and put it in the squat rack and put it at like rack pull. Actually, I think we might have even started you above the knee and then worked her below the knee and it'll go lower, a little bit lower, a little bit lower. So we got her to the place where a deadlift would be on the floor at a regular spot. And what do you deadlift now? You're in a half later. Well, I have hit 135. For a couple reps. Several reps, yeah. Which is significant. That's pretty good. I wanna go for 150. It's coming. I don't think there's any doubt because yeah. We don't do a lot of singles. Mostly do make you do sets of five. And so that 135 for five is that's, you're probably really close to 150 for a single. I hope so. At this point. I'd like to get her into a meet at some point and just let her just deadlift. You know, just deadlift at the meet. And she could do that and follow the rules and everything would be cool. Everybody would cry. Yeah, everybody would cry. Yeah. Either that or they'd laugh. I'd probably laugh. Deadlift is the primary driver, I think of full body strength that we use for Sibyl. She, I can't get a bar on her back. Yeah, my back won't bend enough to go back. In her shoulders and arms. I can't, you know. And of course I've got a safety squat bar, but the thing weighs 70 pounds. And she's 81 years old. Now we've done some things where I put the safety squat bar on your back and then you take it out of the rack and walk backwards and hold it and then put it back in. Stressful. Yeah, just do things like that. But you still squat. So she does squats. A lot of people call goblet squats. And she holds a 50 pound medicine ball, which is pretty heavy for squatting. And she does it for sets of 10. You made a face there. Did you know it was 50 pounds? No. Yes. I thought it was 40. No, we just keep increasing it. So a little bit at a time. So have you seen Sullivan takes wrist wraps or deadlift straps and the ones that have the loops. Yeah, attaches it to the bar. Yeah, and does it with a 15 pound bar. Yeah, that's actually how to try that. That's a pretty good idea. Oh, sounds like I'm in trouble. Well, I might like it. She bench presses totally normal. She's bench pressed 60 pounds for, I think, a triple and 55 for sets of five, which is pretty good. And that's, again, that's another one that if I took her to Powerlifting Meet, she does that just, you know, she'd get three white lights on, perfect form. And then you overhead press, but we do a lot of like kettlebell and dumbbell overhead press rather than the barbell. And we usually do them seated just because of the balance issue. So as you might imagine with two hip replacements and a knee replacement and fuse back and two inches cut off one of her Achilles tendons standing up and pressing overhead. It makes me nervous that she's gonna lose a fall. So the interesting thing about falling, we've talked about this a lot. And then when somebody falls who's older in age and they break a hip, it often is the last year of their life. And so, you know, I know Sybil is still worried about falling, although the interesting thing is since I have coached you, I don't think you've fallen. I think you had one time that you caught yourself, not with me, but like at house, I remember your arm was bruised up one day. But I think what's interesting about it is, is not that we wanna test this theory, but I think you're far more resilient at this point if you did fall, right? You've been tested for osteoporosis and your bone density is phenomenal, you know, which for any 81 year old, that's incredible. Does your physician know what you do? Pardon? Does your physician know what you do? Do you talk to your doctor about this? Yeah, I have a new physician, my physician that had been with me since I moved to Springfield retired. You helped him, yeah. I told him he shouldn't do that, that he was too young, but anyhow. And I told him he should do strength training, but he didn't listen to me. So I have a new physician and I don't know, I've only seen him once and I haven't really needed to go back, so. Right. Coach is good, you'd be healthy. You don't want to see that guy anyway. No. Yeah, so it's been incredible. So, got a new car, not very long ago, it's a lot sportier than the old car. Matt accuses me of getting a red sports car, but really it's not. Midlife crisis. What do you say? What is it? What is it? Yeah, what did you get? I got a fusion. Yeah. With a spoiler and it's red and it's like a little sports car. Oh, come on, Matt. It is a little sports car. Right. So it's been a pleasure for sure. And I love it. You are an extended member of our family at this point because my daughters are here and your grandkids are not and they've had a surrogate grandma and you'll bake us cookies and goods and bring it over to the kiddos and watch them sometimes. Go take them shopping, let them go play with dollhouses at your place. It's been pretty cool. And so it's been a pleasure. What did people need to tell their parents and grandparents in order to get them to do this work? Well, there are so many benefits to it and how you feel and how you think and how you react physically. I'd like to think I'm more alert than I would be if I weren't doing this kind of thing. Of course, I have no measurement of that. Yeah, it's tough to measure. Yeah. But, you know, I look around. I have to tell you something else though. You know, I've been a musician all my life and playing the organ is very important to me. And it's interesting if I feel like I'm stressed, if I go to the organ, I get calmer. It just is very comforting to me. And that in my strength training, I think really play on each other to make me feel better. That's my stress relief. My strength training is my strength. And I think, you know, I play in church and I feel like I have a real gift that I can share with the people who come to worship because I can make music that touches their soul. And to me, that's very important. You bet. And by golly, I'm there every Sunday morning. I like to say I lived in the Chicago area for over 32 years. And, you know, snow and bad weather and blizzards and everything. We never canceled church. And I always got there. In fact, it was one time when I picked up the pastor because I had a four-wheel drive and he didn't. But I came to Springfield and I feel like, my goodness, these people cancel church every once in a while. Where did you do that for? Nobody knows how to drive on the ice here. Yeah, so. But anyhow. You have a lot of friends you've talked about. You have a lot of friends who are jealous, I think. Oh, yeah, I was talking about that. I think one of the things, music plays a big part in keeping us active and involved. And I have a lot of social connections as a result of it. I love going to concerts. You know, and that's very stimulating to an older person. I think more people need to have that kind of an environment. Sure. Yeah, one of the reasons I think we've gotten along so well is because you're wired mentally a lot like I am in the way that I've watched you. You're still very ambitious. For 81 years old, you've got to lend an ambition there. You don't know about that. You tell me that. Well, do you disagree? No, I guess not. And I think the, I guess, you know, being around the people I'm with too, we all are simulated by the music we do. Sure, I mean, you're always go, go, go, right? You, we sit down in calendar out, strength training every week and you open up your calendar and it's full of stuff. You know, you run around all the time. You're great at driving your mind super sharp. Your eyes are still pretty good. And so you're just up and at them. Now, the interesting thing is, is that you've had a lot of comments from your friends who talk about, they know about your strength training. I've gone to a bunch of your concerts before and you introduced me as your trainer, your coach. And everybody seems really excited about what you have done. And they all say, oh, I wish I could do that. I don't understand why they don't. But right, but we've never been able to break through. It's just, it's, I think it comes back down to that. It's kind of scary and that voluntary hardship. And I think a lot of people by the time they're 80 have decided I can't do it. But a lot of times people, by the time they take the training, was off their bike and they ride their bike, they're done with new experiences, push themselves, you know, doesn't necessarily have anything with being 80. Yeah. You know, but yeah, you know, in the fact that you came and recorded this with strange guys and strange, it's a big deal. It's a big deal. You know, I think the other thing is, to a lot of it is how old you feel. And I don't want to feel old. Sure. I keep doing the things that I enjoy doing. And so to do that, you know, I have to do my strength training. I have to eat properly. I have to get enough rest. And I have to be socially and intellectually involved. So you said you don't feel that age. You know, I, I turned 43 last week, but my experience like looking out of my head is just like it was when I was 12 or any other time. You know, if my elbow's not throbbing or I don't have any trouble like that, my experience is no different. And so it isn't for you either, I guess. No, I get up every day. And I think, well, I feel like 45 today. 45. No shit. I said the same thing last week, I feel 45. So you said diet. My wife, you know, charity, she trains my mother and my mom's 70 and has a hip replacement and asymmetrical and, you know, it's hard. It's hard for her. But the biggest thing, I know you're listening, mom, the biggest thing that we struggle with is getting her to eat enough. So to tell me about your diet. No, tell my mother about your diet. Well, up until about three, I kind of lost track. Maybe three years ago, I felt like I was a little overweight and I decided I didn't want to spend the rest of my life feeling that way. So I didn't diet. I just started eating more fruits and vegetables and a certain amount of protein. And I just avoided sweets. And I lost, I don't know, 25 or 30 pounds. And I've pretty much managed to keep that off. I gain a few, lose a few, you know, but I'm basically, I'd still like to lose another 10 pounds, but Mac keeps telling me I'm building muscle. And that's why I haven't. You're definitely not overweight. And you know, it's pretty rare. Yeah. Obviously more people struggle at your age when they get sick with wasting away, not being overweight. And that's pretty much how you eat now. You don't, she doesn't counter macros or anything, but you're conscious and intentional about the protein that you eat and about fruits and vegetables and not eating very many sweets, which is tough because you're just so involved at church and you guys go to church, and there's all these like church potlucks and there's cakes and there's- They have donuts every Sunday. Yeah, they bake things. And so I think at her age, there's no reason to count macros. It's just an issue of an idea about being intentional about what you eat. And so you're just, you know, you keep everything in moderation. And it's interesting. I've realized I've changed my habits enough that if I don't have fruit, fresh fruit, several times a day, I feel like I'm missing something. Yeah, interesting, right? I need that fresh fruit. So would it be fair to say then that only thing you do is you just pay a little extra attention to eating protein? And cut out basically the junky stuff? Sugar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. I still, you know, I still sneak a potato chip once in a while or something like that, but at least I put limits on it. Right. Yeah. And I'm able to do that now because I don't want to gain weight. Yeah. And you're so active and you're training. I mean, it's kind of interesting. It's one of the things that we had to change about your mindset from the very beginning. And we almost take it for granted now because we've done it so long is that she doesn't, she doesn't work out. She didn't exercise. That's not what we do. I mean, she does exercise. She's, she's got a recumbent bike at home. She's got to climb the stairs to get here. Right. But I mean, she's got a recumbent bike at home and you ride your recumbent bike a few days a week and that's her exercise. But what she does here is train. She trains. How many times a week do you train? Two to three. Yeah. Yeah. Depending on mass schedule and my schedule and, yeah. And so do you deadlift every session? Or every session? Yeah. Every session. And so Matt already said that you really don't, you know, maybe do goblet squats or squat with the ball. Yeah. And then your seated presses. Do you guys bench press? We actually do all four lifts every single session. Yeah. We squat, we bench, we press and we deadlift every session. And part of that is because really the only two that are really heavy enough to drive true adaptation at this point is the bench press for upper body and the deadlift for lower. The press since it's kind of single arm stuff and she's got a lot of shoulder mobility issues. And so we're doing the best we can to just trying to get through the full range of motion on the press. Don't forget the pull downs too. Yeah. And then she, right. Yeah. She does. Yeah. She loves, she does. They make my back feel good. Yeah. She does lat pull downs. And then I. Is it the traction? Where? I make her at the top of the last rep of every set. I grab her hands and hold her hands on the bar and make it stretch her up. And no, I don't let her let go. So we do about a, what, a five, six, seven second stretch at the top of every rep. Is it the traction that makes the back feel good? Do you think? Or just stretching it out. Yeah, that's right. Stretching it out. Yeah. And your back's got a lot stronger for the lat pull downs too. Oh yeah. I remember the first time you asked me to lay down on the bench. I couldn't even lay down on my back that way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's actually an interesting thing too. When she lays down on the bench for the bench press and when she sits up, she just does a sit up now. Right. And it used to be, I would have to reach my hand out and she'd grab my hand and I'd have to help pick her up. And then she'd get to the point where she could kind of swing her feet and stand up. And now she just sits up. She just, yeah, that's what I do too. She's a better shape than we are. And now she just does a sit up and sits up and no problem, right? A lot of my older folks actually roll over. Oh, did they really? On their side? Yeah. Okay, now I have an issue with that because my sacroiliac joints, I forgot about that. I had that surgery too. My sacroiliac joints are both huge. It's the biomecule. I don't turn around or I don't roll over very well. Yeah, so every session she squats first and then we actually deadlift second. It just is what we do. So we squat, then we deadlift, then we bench press, then we press, then we do pull downs and then I beat you to death with either the rower or the aerodyne, mostly rower, mostly C2 rower. And we just go through different things on the C2 rower. A lot of like 100 meter repeat sprints, 200 meter sprints, and then up to four to 500 meter for straight. I never make it row more than 500. And that's enough, you know? And then she goes on, rise your bike. Rise your rower, come bike three times a week. And you got a super active puppy dog, Aria. Oh, you bet. And who keeps you on your toes and you've done some fostering of pups as well. I have fostered pups, yeah. So you are as spry of a 60-year-old that you'll ever meet. Only you're 81. And so it's been awesome. Do you have anything you need to tell these people? There's about 10,000 of them right now. Oh my. Well, I just have to tell you, Matt's one of the best people I know, not only for strength training, but just as a genuine, sincere individual. Thank you, Matt. Well, thanks. You've made a change in my life, yeah. I didn't pay you for that, did I? No, but you're good to me. Thank you. Well, I'm very appreciative of you. I have, over the years, after selling strong, I had a bunch of clients and I've slowly fired them all and really only kept you. So now that we do stage three cleaner. Yeah, as I got rid of everybody else, I just felt like I love getting my time with Sibyl every week, three hours a week, so it's been cool. You're gonna get your punishment. My family's all coming for Thanksgiving and we're all coming to see you. Excellent. We got the whole family training session. The whole family's coming. That'll be fun. I've trained them before, so that'll be fun. Hey, thanks for being on the show. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I appreciate it. Thanks, ma'am. I'd like to share my story because I think it would help people. I think so too. If you're out there and you're listening to this and you are in your 60s or 70s or 80s or older or if you're somebody middle age and you've got a mom or dad that is in that age group, have them listen to the podcast and Sibyl can do it, 79 years old with double hip replacement and a knee replacement and two inches off an Achilles and all their back fused together and sacroiliac joint, $6 million worth of surgery. I'm gonna write the medical dictionary soon. That's right. And Ken has worked up to 135 dead lists for sets of five. I'm going for 150. Coming up, maybe 150. She might have already done it by the time the podcast posts. No, I don't think so.