There’s nothing to make you feel old like finding out that something you used to do all the time is now completely beyond you
I
decided to do some press-ups. They’re good for you, apparently. A calisthenic classic. This much I picked up in a doomscrolling session. Some algorithm somewhere must have decided I’d be open to the idea and, not for the first time, the algorithm was right.
I used to do lots of press-ups, perhaps 20 or 30, most days. I can recall how this started. It was 1985 and I was spending a gap year working for my dad’s scaffolding company. That I was the boss’s son didn’t stop my workmates from sharing with me their thoughts on my shortcomings. One such shortcoming was identified by a muscly scaffolder called Andy. “Your arms are puny,” he told me. “Do some press-ups,” Andy advised. So that’s what I did, and my arms bulked up a bit. Thank you, Andy.
That’s how the press-up habit started, but I couldn’t remember why it stopped. No worries. Time to get back on the horse. I rolled out of bed, popped to the toilet, washed my hands, dried them and rubbed them together in a right-let’s-do-this kind of way. Not wanting to get ahead of myself, I thought that for starters I’d just knock out 20 and take it from there. I assumed the classic starting position, face down, with my legs and arms straight, and lowered myself to the floor. So far so good. But it turned out this was where my attempt at a press-up came to an end because, try as I might, I couldn’t push myself back up again.
