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528 Chama, N.E., Albuquerque, NM 87108 http://www.cbass.com |
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Denis Reno’s
Weightlifter’s Newsletter
Stops Publication after 52 Years Over 80 years of age, I thought WOW, that’s old. But I don’t feel old. OLD is not a negative idea. I feel great and I know a bit about being older, like being more cautious and careful. But always optimistic. I’m thankful for getting into physical fitness at an early age. Short of just being alive, it’s the most constant and consistent thing in my 82 years of living. I have a number of like-minded friends over 82, who seem just as healthy and happy as me due to a physical fitness regimen. Nevertheless, I have to keep reminding myself of the facts of over 80 years of living. Like a beautifully restored antique automobile, you can’t drive it like when it was new. I work out 6 days a week - 40 minutes on a stationary bike followed by 30 minutes on machines or free weights, usually 3 sets of 10 with progressively heavier weights. I make sure to give my legs a thorough workout and do more core exercises than ever before. I plan on doing this forever. In addition, when I’m coaching Olympic Lifting 4 or 5 days a week, I’m quite active and make sure to help load the barbells of my pupils - a bonus workout I enjoy. I was lucky to have parents who didn’t smoke or drink alcohol - which made me careful when experimenting. Luckily, I didn’t have enough money to smoke very much. So, when I started quitting at 15 years of age—I stepped on the final cigarette on December 2, 1955 at 16—I stopped for life. Booze just didn’t taste good, so that never got to be a habit. I was lucky to get involved in working out with weights thanks to my older brother, who left his weight set in our third floor tenement flat when he enlisted in the US Air Force. I was 12. I still have the 4x4 homemade squat racks I installed in the half attic in the first house we owned when I was 13 or 14. They are now waiting for action in my own basement, almost 60 years later. I was lucky that my defensive short wise guy attitude didn’t get me into trouble. At 18, I joined the US Air Force and decided that my dumb teenage attitude would immediately become an adult attitude. I started looking to the future, establishing a Weightlifting Club at the Cape Cod Otis Air Force Base—and never stopped my involvement in physical fitness activities. I was greatly aided by muscle magazines in what was to come. Reading those magazines began around 1950. My older brother would pay my half if I went down to the store to buy them. Did I mind? No, I loved the attention. I had followed his example by making a few cents with a long paper route—a great teacher of discipline and on overcoming disasters. For example, I coped with a torrential rainstorm on Advertisement Thursday by pulling those heavy editions up Plantation Street with my wagon serving as a newspaper bath tub. I couldn’t figure out why my unfortunate ‘end of route’ customers never berated me for those soggy issues left at their back doors. If my parents knew about it they never let on. It was just how kids were allowed to mature back then. The next 60 years were all positive—if you excuse me for a divorce and for other foolish things that I wish I hadn’t done. I earned a BS in Electrical Engineering, got myself elected the unpaid director of New England Olympic and Powerlifting Federation, which also administered Physique competition at that time, and added similar unpaid work in lifting at the National level from 1971 to the present. I’ve been involved in organizing and taking USA Weightlifting teams across the country and overseas to competitions and World Championships. As National Coaching Coordinator in 1971, I felt obligated to learn as much as I could about coaching Olympic Weightlifting. As indicated above, I still coach Olympic lifting. Since I charge no fees, it takes all the psychological smarts I can muster to teach newcomers this great sport, especially as an old looking little man. I am becoming a smarter coach. That brings me to what I am best known for in the world of Olympic Weightlifting (perhaps the fastest growing sport in the USA at this time). Feeling obligated to inform people about what’s happening, I published the Denis Reno’s Weightlifting Newsletter for over 52 years, which barely paid for itself but created more like-minded friends than I could have ever imagined. My ‘better than I originally thought’ motto at the end of my editorials has always been KEEP MOVING! In the process of all the above I’ve made friends with like-minded people, from Olympic champions to local officials, and am grateful to know these fabulous volunteers and athletic super men and women.
This photo, taken from
Denis' Newsletter, shows him with past National Chairman Bob Crist and
International Referee Adam Swirtz. Did I mention that I’ve overcome Prostate and Thyroid cancer, and survived an ‘almost heart failure’ due to a ‘macho-man’ snow shoveling incident in 2017? Won’t do that again. Likewise, I will probably never go up on my extension ladder again (to keep my present wife happy, and me from almost killing myself, again). * * * I’m looking forward to lifting six days a week and staying active for my age. I’m also looking forward to my gardens coming back in the spring, wondering when I’m going to have to slightly reduce my resistance exercise weights in future workouts, hoping that my eyesight will allow me to continue my vigorous reading of history books, looking forward to my next Maine lobster, etc., etc., etc. Stay strong, happy and healthy, and KEEP MOVING! Denis Reno January 1, 2022 Comment on this article: FEEDBACK Ripped Enterprises, P.O. Box 51236, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87181-1236 Home | Products Index | Ripped Bks | Lean Adv. Bks | Lean For Life | Recommended Bks | |Consultations | Posing Suits | Tapes | To Order | Feedback] Copyright © 2022 Clarence and Carol Bass. All rights reserved.
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