Aching With Aaron

There are roughly 2 million people in L.A. County who are over 50 years of age, and I’m one of them.

I mention that by way of explaining why I was drawn to Aaron Binder, who has just published a book and produced a videotape about lifting weights, aimed at those of us who have lived for at least half a century.

Binder, who is 67, promises that if we follow his advice, we will look like him. His photograph on the cover of his book, “Pumping Iron After Fifty,” shows a guy of radiant good health, looking like he is 42, holding two weights aloft.

I studied the picture for several minutes. No matter what I did, I could never end up looking like Aaron Binder. In the first place, I don’t smile. Someone told me I looked like a barracuda when I smiled, so I gave it up years ago.

Also, I do not have a flat stomach, do not radiate good health and haven’t lifted anything heavier than a martini for several years. I even had to give up olives because of the strain.

But Binder intrigued me because he was once a high-rolling, hard-drinking, fast-lane kind of guy who discovered good health in federal prison.

A stockbroker and financier who, among other achievements, founded the All-American Burger chain, he ended up in the slammer for 44 months for his involvement in an illegal tax-shelter scheme.

It was there he was taught to lift weights by inmates with hair on their backs and tattooed arms that were longer than their legs.

His mentors were guys who killed once or twice and who belonged to prison fraternal organizations called the Aryan Brotherhood and the Mexican Mafia. When they said lift, Binder lifted.

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It seems to me that about every third person in L.A. is trying to sell an exercise video, beginning with ex-radical-turned-wifey Jane Fonda. She went from hating ugly war to hating ugly fat, which is a quantum leap in anyone’s book, but the American Legion still doesn’t love her.

The giant Bubba Smith, who as a professional football player used to throw quarterbacks around like they were macadamia nuts, also produced a tape when he noticed that in other exercise videos, women never seemed to sweat.

Bubba set out to change that. The women in his video were sometimes drenched in perspiration, which he found sexier than hell. To each his own. Sweating women don’t turn me on, but I’m not about to argue with a guy who is 6-feet-8 and who used to slice past center like an armor-piercing shell while crowds yelled, “Kill, Bubba, kill!”

Aaron Binder was small and flabby when he got to prison and couldn’t lift 40 pounds. But word had spread that during the trial he had refused to involve others in his crime and for that was considered a stand-up guy.

In order to express their primitive form of appreciation for his refusal to snitch, the men in the slammer led Binder to the weight pile where primates named Mike and Tony taught him how to bench-press, curl and work the pulleys, which was their form of recreation when they were not maiming or gang-raping.

After three years of working out, Binder was able to bench-press 250 pounds, and now wants to share his expertise with those in his age group who are spindly, potbellied, indolent lumps. People like me.

His videotape is intended for both men and women over 50, and you don’t have to be in federal prison under the tutelage of Mike and Tony to follow its simple instructions.

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I met with Binder at the Sports Connection on the Westside to view in person what he proposes on tape.

I watched him work pulleys, pectoral machines and a lot of other clanking equipment, then bench-press 225 pounds five times just to prove to me how easy it could be.

The place was crowded with beautiful men and women who worked out in varying degrees of enthusiasm to soft rock played over a P.A. system. Bubba Smith was there, by the way, sitting on a bench, resting between workouts, watching women sweat.

Binder’s formula for reconstituting old people is simple. You start small and work your way up. I don’t have room for details, but if you’re a woman, he promises cuter breasts and tighter tushes. Same if you’re a man.

“You can lose your stomach within six months,” he said to me. “I can see it’s an ego thing with you. You want to look good, right?”

Well, I suppose. I’ve begun working out a little by putting olives back in my martinis. The rest will have to wait until I’m in federal prison and Mike and Tony are hovering over me like creatures from the early Cenozoic, growling and shouting, “Lift!” I’ll lift.