Category: FitStrong PT

FitStrong PT

How to Get Healthier and Fitter Over 40

MoveStrongblog

Optimal health and fitness training for over 40s.

Let’s get straight to point for all you over 40s who want and know you need to get healthier and stronger now. 

Making note of a few action points now and addressing the following points in your 30s will only make your physical health and fitness in your 40s, 50s and beyond, better… and will probably see you frequent the doctor and physio less often too.

When you’re in your 40s and 50s, there really is no time to waste faffing about. Don’t take that to heart or too personally – it’s just an honest fact. Random workouts, thrashing it out in group exercise classes, following a ‘killer online program’ that the sexy celebs follow; is all just too general and not for you if you want real results. Yes, it may be good fun and a great way to hang out with other humans, but if you want results, a progressive program will deliver, not a sweaty hobby.

Results are the outcome of following a program, not a hobby workout

By the time you’re in your 40s and over, you really are the very special version of yourself. That’s not necessarily the good kind of special though. You’ll have your own habits like maybe late nights, comfort snack foods, too much alcohol, high mileage, injury history and a bad case of the ‘used to’. The “I used to squat 200kg and live on pizza and keep my body fat at 15%”! 

I turned 51 last October (2025) and on reflection, I’ve spent 30+ years as an athlete and a trainer of others and I have consistently tried to figure out what matters in training and especially for those who are stuck in the, ‘I’ve no time to train’ mindset. 

I’ve tried the gadgets and different gym equipment, and whilst some are legitimately beneficial, they pale in comparison to the important overarching principles. I have in fact within the past 10 years become a principles based trainer rather than a barbell, or a kettlebell or a CrossFit based trainer. 

Principles

Pursuing health, strength and fitness in our 40s + comes down to practicing the skills of what I’ve broken down into 5 keys areas. 

The big 5 keys: 

  • Sleep
  • Aerobic fitness
  • Relative strength
  • Body composition
  • Flexibility and mobility 

For long term results we really need to focus on these 5 key areas and plan our lifestyle and exercise with that in mind. Short term gratification needs to step aside in favour or longer term achievements. 

“You’re an adult, eat like one”. I refer to this line from coach Dan John I heard him discuss in a podcast a few years ago. It rings true for most adults who commiserate, celebrate or generally cushion their emotions with food, and not great food. 

Results begin with the end goal in mind. We then start to create a plan to build the base strength and fitness you’ll need. If you truly want to live a healthier, strong, fitter life, a life where you feel capable of joining in any activity without risk of embarrassing or injuring yourself; we start with a progressive plan. 

Sleep is paramount to recovery and adaption to the physical demands of exercise. Crappy food and alcohol will disrupt this process. We start with little steps towards improving nutrition and cutting back on the booze to allow for better sleep and hence recovery.

A healthy aerobic system starts with the simple task of just getting your heart rate up to a comfortable rate for a few hours week. The specifics depends on your very special self right now. With more information I often give heart rate values to clients, but for the most part, the gaol is to just get moving. 

I talk of relative strength. You are most likely not a powerlifter or bodybuilder right now, so training maximal strength is superfluous but building up a wide base of relative strength will logically improve your maximal strength. You just don’t need to train to failure or maximal efforts to get stronger. Paul McIlroys phrase of stretching your comfort zone has become the mainstay of the transformation results that his Amazing 12 program delivers. I do coach the Amazing 12 Limerick too, and we see every day people turning their 5 repetition maximums into comfortable 15 rep training sets within 8-10 weeks all without maxing out or training to failure. 

Strength movements should stay pertinent to safely building healthy strength that will benefit your life moving forward.

The body is required to maintain a few key movements and these should be considered when planning a weekly program. These are not unlimited, but exercises in the following categories should be planned: a push, a pull, a squat, abdominal bracing and a quick, explosive movement. 

Body composition and fat loss goes back to eating like an adult. Whilst we may have our favourite dishes, we shouldn’t lock ourselves into the same ingredients… or portion sizes. Unprocessed meats and carbohydrates, unlimited vegetables and suitable flavourings like sauces, herbs and spices are on the cards along with a tried and tested method of simply portioning our meals. 

No one should have to torturously weigh food, or count calories. You can, but there is a better use of your time when time is limited. 

I have tried and practiced many of the movement systems taught in the fitness industry over the past 18 years or so (since mobility started to become a focal point). Whilst I enjoyed them, many have not ticked the boxes of being a reasonable practice for everyday people. These days I prefer a flexibility and movement practice that anyone can join in and complete without feeling like a fool. 

If a routine is reasonable, it will more than likely be practiced often and that is the goal. It’s common that I ask clients to practice their mobility / flexibility routine daily and in most cases, this happens without hesitation.

Change is difficult, especially if we have become stuck in our ways, but if we can get out of our way and let in a few reasonable changes, we can allow the positive changes to happen, and that feels good. 

Making little changes like walking a few times a week, following a guided strength and flexibility plan won’t rob the time bank. 

A healthier, stronger life is achievable. It requires some guidance at times but be thinking you have to crush yourself or take time away from your already busy life. 

#Sleep #Aerobic fitness #Relative strength #Body composition #Flexibility #mobility  #results 

FitStrong PT, Original Strength, personal training

Breathe Like Your Ancestors

MoveStrongblog

In part ONE breathing as we were meant to, the way we were born to breathe was introduced along with the idea that for many people, they breathe too much. 

In part TWO below, let’s look at what happens in more depth when we over-breathe and when and where it is appropriate.

Imagine yourself living in a hunter/gatherer society. Think about the things which would cause you to feel stressed. A predator perhaps, an attack from a neighbouring group of people. Most situations you could think of would be met with physical action. Now imagine the situations that would cause a positive sense of excitement. Spotting some delicious looking prey or a beehive high up in a tree… Again this excitement would be followed by physical action.

It makes sense that in any of these situations your sympathetic nervous system would be switched on to prepare your body for action. A host of changes occur. Blood is diverted away from the digestive organs to the muscles, heart rate increases, the brain switches into high gear- into a state of hyper vigilance, blood sugar levels rise to provide a ready source of energy, and breathing increases, both in breaths per minute and in total volume of air per minute. This is referred to as the ‘fight or flight response’ or simply being in a sympathetic state.

All of this is of course highly adaptive in the short term when faced with a situation requiring a high level of exertion. But each of these effects is problematic when maintained long term, and will lead to impairment of our health. As useful as it is, the sympathetic state is not meant to be our default setting.

The way we are meant to spend most of our lives is in the opposite state – lowered heart rate, plentiful supply of blood to the digestive system, relaxed state of mind (though still possibly very alert) lower blood sugar, and slower breathing. This is known as the ‘rest and digest response’ or being in a parasympathetic state. This is the state that our ancestors quickly returned to after escaping the predator or catching the prey.

Now imagine the types of stress you are likely to be exposed to in the modern world. Stuck in traffic, bills, work deadlines, difficult co-workers or customers, an important meeting. None of these require significant physical activity, but your nervous system acts as though they do. Next think of the activities that cause a positive sense of excitement. A gripping movie, a video game, a sporting match on T.V., or an amusement park ride. Again your body is geared up for action which never eventuates.

All of the effects of the sympathetic nervous system – already only healthy as a short term response – become far more damaging when they are no longer linked to the physical activity that is meant to accompany them. The focus of this article, however, is the way that stress combined with inactivity leads to a state of hyperventilation.

In the stressful situations above, the volume of air breathed per minute increases, ready for physical activity –

But as the physical activity never comes, the body is breathing more air than is necessary.

This sounds harmless enough – what could be safer than air?

But there is a problem. Breathing removes carbon dioxide from the blood stream – when breathing is matched to the level of activity, this is a good thing – a waste product is being removed.

But carbon dioxide is only a waste product in the sense that your body produces more of it than it needs. It is not a ‘bad’ substance. In fact, it is essential to the body in a multitude of ways.

When breathing is in excess of what is required for the level of physical activity, carbon dioxide levels fall below a healthy level. A variety of negative effects of this situation will be discussed in part 3, but for now we will focus on the one which can turn over breathing into a chronic habit which is self-sustaining even in the absence of ongoing stress.

Breathing and Blood pH

It is essential to the functioning of your body that your blood is kept within a fairly tight pH range. The mechanisms which act upon the pH of the blood are mostly relatively slow acting, but one mechanism that can allow adjustments second by second is breathing.

CO2 is a weak acid which is always present in the blood, so if the level of acidity becomes too high, CO2 can be removed by faster breathing as a way of bringing acidity back to normal levels. This explains why we breathe so heavily after intense anaerobic exercise. The lactic acid produced in our muscles has increased the acidity of our blood, and removing large amounts of CO2 will normalise pH in the short term until the lactic acid can be dealt with.

If however you breathe heavily when there is no physiological reason to, CO2 will be removed from the blood and the pH will rise too high. If this state is maintained, the body will alter other processes to reduce the pH back to normal.

One way that your body adjusts the pH is by losing bicarbonate ions. Bicarbonate is a vital part of your blood’s buffering system (If chemistry is not your thing, let’s just say that it helps you deal with acid). If you breathe too much at rest and have lost bicarbonate ions, then your lactic acid tolerance, and hence your anaerobic fitness will be seriously compromised.

Once the biochemistry has adjusted, this lower level of C02 will be required to maintain pH in the short term, and your brain’s breathing centre will register this artificially low C02 level as the ‘new normal’.

The default unconscious breathing, controlled by the breathing centre of the brain, will increase in order to maintain this new lower level of C02.

Breathing less than this (in other words a normal amount) will feel uncomfortable because your blood C02 level will be higher than the new artificially inflated set point.

Your breathing rate will tend to remain at this artificially higher level…until the next time that you are stressed while physically inactive when the whole process is repeated and your breathing rate increases still more.  

It is in this way that increases in breathing rate become ‘locked in’, and with the passing of time the effect is gradually increased.  

Fortunately this process can be reversed – the breathing centre can be reset so that your automatic unconscious breathing return to a healthy level. Details of how to do this will be in a later article. But to get you started:

Homework :

  1. Try to breathe through through your nose (in and out) ALL THE TIME. The extra resistance of nose breathing is enough to reduce the rate of breathing.
  2. Any time that you are conscious of your breathing ask yourself this question – ‘What is the least amount of air that I can breathe without feeling uncomfortable or stressed.’

Next episode:

What are the actual mechanisms by which hyperventilation damages your health and normal breathing restores it?

This article is intended as information only, and should not be viewed as medical advice. It is not written by a medical professional, and it takes no account of your own individual circumstances.

FitStrong PT, Original Strength

Back to Breathing

MoveStrongblog

‘You don’t know what you don’t know until you know it’ is a phrase used often when enlightened with an ah-ha moment, or in my recent case, desperation!

Breathing is a natural, involuntary act that just ticks over without really having to focus on it until it takes all of your focus.

A couple of years ago for a variety of reasons my own breathing became something of a labour. Oftentimes I was overwhelmed by the urge to yawn, take huge gulps of air, light-headedness and general misery. My doctor did all the usual tests from lung tests, x-rays and scans and came back with, “well Mr Hunter, your lungs are stronger than the average man your age and your heart function is fantastic – I’ve no idea what is wrong, let me refer you …” I ended the process there, frustrated by a few weeks of wasted time and after some further personal reading, research and clarity that came from talking to a close friend, I came to the realisation that indeed, anxiety was taking over my life and breathing.

Shortly after this time I attended the OS Pro workshop in Brisbane that proved a lovely progression from OS level 1. However, apart from spending time learning and meeting with Tim and Dan I also got to meet other participants and got to chatting with them. Now, as an introvert, this is a challenge to me haha. Idle chit-chat isn’t something I do easily.

One participant in particular (Chris Hall) had an infatuation with breathing and we casually chatted about it – he is a very easy chap to converse with. I didn’t however broach my personal problem until after the workshop via facebook messenger. I explained to Chris in brief my problems and some of the practice we use in the OS system but Chris was very open to discussing progressions that may help me.

We all love ‘simple’ and I threw myself into the simple solutions Chris suggested. Some of these were good daily practice and some, reactive to when my breathing problems arose.

Willing to share his information, Chris is guest blogging on here on MoveStrong over the next few weeks.

I’ll not divulge what I practiced as I want you to read the work of Chris in this area… so without further ramblings , here is Part One.

Oh, and my breathing issues were vastly improved within a few weeks and now, not a problem

Baby’s Breath

The Original Strength Resets are inspired by the movements that occur during the
development of infants: Head rocking, rolling on the floor, rocking back and forth while on all fours, crawling, and of course, breathing. Breathing is performed the way that we
naturally did at the beginning of our life – DIAPHRAGMATICALLY and THROUGH THE NOSE.

Both of these factors are enormously important, but there is a third distinctive feature of
the breathing of infants which is also extremely beneficial to mimic – A low rate of
breathing. Newborns breathe a remarkably small amount (even allowing for the fact that they are very small). Many parents have had the experience of wondering whether their sleeping baby is breathing at all.

This low level of breathing is enough to keep the baby well oxygenated, but with a higher
blood level of CO 2 than you would typically find in an adult. I would argue that just as we were designed to continue breathing diaphragmatically and nasally for our entire lives, we were also meant to continue breathing lightly as we did when we were infants.
When speaking of ‘light breathing’ I am referring to the total amount of air which is inhaled per minute – the combination of the breathing rate and the volume in each breath. Thus light breathing could conceivably be quite deep if the rate of breathing is reduced sufficiently. Alternatively it could mean taking in less air with each breath.
An adult requires 3-6 litres of air per minute at rest. This is enough to fully oxygenate the
blood while keeping a CO 2 level similar to that found in infants. Most of us breathe
substantially more than this. This increased breathing does not lead to any significant
increase in blood oxygenation, but causes a significant reduction in the CO 2 concentration in the blood.

Most people are surprised to hear that carbon dioxide can be desirable. It is only a waste
product in the sense that your body produces more of it than it needs. It is not a ‘bad’
substance. In fact, it is essential to the body in a multitude of ways.

In this book I will outline the ways that a reduced concentration of CO 2 damages our
health, and how returning to a biologically normal rate of breathing will reverse this
damage.
At this point many readers are probably shocked at the suggestion that it could be healthy to breath less. Perhaps a better way to put it would be that there is an optimal amount to breathe, and breathing more than this is detrimental to your health. If you are breathing more than this (as I would argue that most people in the developed world are) then reducing your breathing back to the optimal range will be beneficial.

I am simply challenging the idea that more is better.

There are many substances that are essential to life that are unhealthy or even deadly when taken to excess. Just as too much food or even too much water will damage your health, too much breathing can as well. If your intake of a substance is more than the optimal amount, then reducing that intake will positively affect your health. This is the case with our breathing.

Low C0 2 levels resulting from over breathing is actually a recognised medical condition
known as ‘hyperventilation syndrome’ (HVS). It is usually only diagnosed in severe cases
and even then it is regularly overlooked, but it is actually recognised by mainstream
medicine.
Hyperventilation syndrome is classified as chronic or acute. In the chronic version the
patient suffers from the ill effects of a continuously elevated breathing rate. In the acute
version issues are temporarily triggered by short term increases in breathing (eg stress or exercise).
Many (including myself) argue that there is little distinction between the two: The person who has the acute version is breathing at an elevated level around the clock, but not enough to cause obvious symptoms. When their breathing rate increases (eg due to stress) it only requires a small increase to reach a level that causes symptoms. Similarly the person diagnosed with chronic HVS will be at a very high risk of acute episodes from any short term increase in breathing.

So what are the effects of hyperventilation? There is little point in giving an exhaustive list when this information is readily available online, but some of the common effects include:
Airway constriction – asthma, blocked nose, coughing, hiccoughs
Blood vessel constriction – high blood pressure, poor circulation, cold extremities.
Increased nervous stimulation – anxiety, panic attacks, restlessness, poor attention,
emotional instability.
Digestive system issues – irritable bowel etc.
Immune issues – Immune system less effective against actual pathogens
(lowered immunity) yet highly responsive to harmless
events (increased allergies)
Increased muscle tension – cramps, knots, spasms etc.
Fatigue – especially the ‘tired but wired’ variety.

Most people in the developed world have some combination of these symptoms – even if many of us rationalise this by saying ‘no more than most people’. The symptoms above are so common that as a society we have virtually accepted them as normal, but being common does not equate to being normal. In the OS community there are a great many things that we recognise as common but refuse to accept as normal:

  • Mouth Breathing
  • Chest breathing
  • The inability to squat
  • Loss of head control
  • The inability to hip hinge
  • Loss of balance as we age

In the same way, over breathing is common, but it is not normal, and neither are the
associated symptoms listed above. We were NOT made to be broken.

Homework:

How do you know if you are breathing more than you should be?

There is a simple test that you can use to check which can be found here.

Next week: Some readers might find it hard to believe that whole societies could develop the habit of breathing too much. The next post explains how our modern lifestyle causes this to happen.

This article is intended as information only, and should not be viewed as medical advice. It is not written by a medical professional, and it takes no account of your own individual circumstances.

Get Ups
FitStrong PT

Get Back Up

MoveStrongblog

In a 2002 Brazilian study, men and women between the ages of 51 to 80 were followed for an average of 6.3 years. Those who had to rely on their hands and knees to get up and down to the ground regardless of age were almost seven times more likely to die within six years than those who could get up unsupported. Those individuals with poor overall muscular strength and mobility were the the ones who had to rely on using their hands to awkwardly get down and up.

Clearly being stronger has more implications than just being able to carry the shopping in after a grocery shop.

In part 1 we looked at other statistics that looked at mortality and affects on quality of life from falls but in part 2, let’s consider prevention measures.

Getting to the floor should happen in any training session regardless of whether or not it’s an intended exercise but if getting down to terra firma proves a tad troublesome, where do you start?

Even if you’re an experienced strength athlete / trainee, some the drills below will give your body an added edge in being more resilient. How often do you see muscular people moving rather stiff ? Yes, a bit too often. If you move like a robot, some mobility training should be in your life.

Below I’ll demonstrate the strength exercises that give us the ability to move down to the floor and also the mobility exercises to practice that allow us to more smoothly navigate to the floor and up. After that, we’ll take a look at the drills that we practice to move down and up and prepare the body further.

None of these exercises should ever be taken to muscular fatigue or muscle failure but you should feel the muscles doing their jobs. Always stop a set knowing you could do a few more repetitions.

General Strength

Progressing Strength

Practice?

Don’t worry if you haven’t got heaps of time, you can spend as little as 3-5 minutes every couple of days ‘playing’ with these movements. A couple of sets of each move will be enough initially to get you moving and stronger. As the moves in the first video get easier, move to video 2 and play with the moves there. I use the word play to suggest you don’t count repetitions, instead practice each move to make it better. Not sore and fatiguing, just getting better at each.

Imagine lying in a hospital bed with a broken hip, stressing over lost work, medical expenses and rehab afterwards. Not so pleasant…

Now consider just spending 3-5 minutes every couple of days practicing getting yourself stronger. No medical bills or rehab, just getting down to the floor and back up.

I know which I prefer and to be honest, longevity is the number one key objective of MoveStrong  – to help people find longevity.

If you’re interested in investing your time further, please reach out and let’s work something out. 

What do you think? Got any suggestions, thoughts, opinions or stories to share? Please do get in touch.

 

Turkish Get U\p
FitStrong PT

Why Training ‘Getting Down to the Floor’ is So Important

MoveStrongblog

I love questions in the gym or from peoples in the interweb facebook world. I even love the questions I can’t immediately answer. If I need to really think a subject matter through, I will and if I need to refer to a smarter associate, I will.

I’m actually very lucky to be within a network of some of the smartest thinkers in the health and fitness world. Note the word ‘health’. The fitness world alone is awash with unnecessarily sweaty, nonsense – you know the ‘stuff’ you see on social media with all the pouting, posing, flexing, ‘look at me’ distractions.

Talking of smart people, I am very blessed to have attended a weekend workshop a few years ago with world renowned strength and conditioning coach Dan John. We be spent the weekend covering some content from his latest book, 40 Years with a Whistle along with sections looking at the economics of strength training. Overall, it was an awesome weekend with gold nuggets of information bouncing off the gym walls.

Dan John ties in nicely with todays post and a question I get often from new-comers to the gym.

“Why do we get down to the floor so much during a training session'” 

Let’s read a few statistics, a somewhat scary tale of the current day for you.

    1. Deaths from falls are increasing by 3% per year, or 30% between 2007 and 2016. Link
    2. One in three older people fall every year and two-thirds of them fall again within six months.
    3. In Ireland, falls are more than 50% of injury related hospitalizations among people over 65 years and older. The major underlying causes for fall-related hospital admission are hip fracture, traumatic brain injuries and upper limb injuries.
    4. In Ireland, subsequently to falls, 20% die within a year.
    5. Muscle weakness, poor balance, alcohol and medicine use along with certain medical conditions are leading factors in falls.

I’ll stop at 5 but you get the message. Falling is almost inevitable.

Whilst the falls alone are traumatic the post-fall life of a fall patient is greatly impacted by a reduction in willingness to partake in physical activity for fear of falling again. Even in younger patients, they too will most likely seize to exercise as much. This reduction of quality in life simply snow-balls the inactivity and allows frailty to set in, in turn increasing risks of heart disease, stroke, diabetes. One study has shown that the two year survival rate of cancer survivors is greater than that of falls patients.

If you’re not seeing why we get to the floor and back up again often in a gym session, maybe you need to read the same statement from one of the worlds greatest strength and conditioning coaches.

‘It’s one of the strongest statements I have made in my career. I feel like no one is listening, but…please…do some work on getting to the ground and getting back up. Practice falling before you need to!’ Dan John

A bit more information from Dan perhaps?

So, how do we get to the floor? Well, we get down to the floor silly. Simply practicing the many methods of getting onto the floor and whilst down there we practice some purposeful trunk exercises. Any action that’s purposeful and mindful, repeated often will develop muscular and joint strength as well as developing the reactive or reflexive strength in the movements. If we’re stronger in practicing getting down to the floor, we will be more resilient if and when a slip or fall occurs.

For general strength and conditioning, we practice the following:

  • Lunges in all directions to get closer to the floor or onto the floor.
  • Squats in all shapes and forms to get closer to the floor.
  • Hip hinges both two legged and single legged to get closer to the floor or onto the floor.
  • The wonderful Turkish Get Up and other Get Up movement drills are quite specific multi-planar movements that teaches the skill and strengths of getting to the floor and back up.
  • Single leg balance to assess and develop the ability to stand on one leg for 10 seconds. Test that yourself. If you struggle to balance for 10 seconds, there’s you next most important goal to work on.

We also have a great drill I call the Flamingo. This drill I developed to address multi-planar movements of the legs. Really, it’s just a tease for the legs, hips, ankles and trunk to maintain balance over a range of moves. Here’s a video I’ll share now.

In part two, I will share a video containing the other list of moves I mentioned above.

Action point?

Can you stand on one leg for 10 seconds?

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

FitStrong PT

How to lose 20lbs in 12 weeks

MoveStrongblog

Has anyone ever told you the quickest way from A to B, like a secret shortcut when driving to Dublin from Limerick for example, or how to make BBQ sauce taste better with even fewer calories? Imagine being told and knowing something awesome and then doing the same as usual – absolutely nothing!!!

‘If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten’.

The same goes for successful training and nutrition. 

If there is a reliable way to get great results with a solid program, you can be pretty sure that many people ‘kind of’ followed the program or ‘added a bit’ of their own training …. and then the results didn’t magically appear. 

Programs that work haven’t just been plucked out of no where. They have been tried, tested, tweaked and adjusted all for the purpose of building a better and better program for better RESULTS.

SECRET RELEASE

In bullet form, here are the ingredients to dropping KGs, lbs, stones or any other unit of body fat weight, as proven many, many times over with people who have followed the program. PS here is our transformation page with a handful of people who actually followed the program, whilst having a life.

  • Follow a progressive strength program. 
  • Follow specific yet simple aerobic training.
  • Never train to the ‘max’ or failing a lift.
  • Eat protein in EVERY meal.
  • Eat vegetables to your hearts content.
  • Drink water often.
  • Sleep 7-9 hours every night.
  • Do this every week for 12 weeks or for most of your life.

There you go. My secret is out.

Now, if you’d like the finer and fancier personal details of the recipe just for you, I’m happy to help you.

I am taking on 2-4 people NOW getting into late Winter and Spring for personal or small group training right here in Limerick. The goal? Getting stronger, fitter, leaner and more confident in what you eat.

MORE…

On a totally self serving note (to serve you too of course) the next round of the Amazing 12 is kicking off in Limerick in new locations. The places will fill quickly, so get in touch now to talk more about this totally amazing Total Body Transformation program.

http://www.amazing12limerick.com

FitStrong PT, limerick personal trainer, over 40

AGE WELL AND PROSPER

MoveStrongblog

Once upon a time, during the latter years of the 20th century, I was in fact in my 20s. In fact I was also once in my 30s and 40s and now in my 50s I can reflect and have a really good laugh at my 20th century kid self. I think It’s good to laugh at oneself, laugh in awe and wonder at all the things we used to value and put huge amounts of energy into. In hindsight a large chunk of what I used to do in the gym was a total time suck.  But, at the time, I thought I was living the life of a gym God … hahaha.

Back in the late 90s Friday was always arm day. An hour or more pumping the armacondas from all directions and angles to get them huge for an evening of posing in the club with my redbull and whisky! Yes, I did have expensive tastes, as I still do. These days I spend my spare cash on plants for the garden and Ikea products!

Training was influenced by a thing called ‘Flex magazine’ as training certifications didn’t go too deep on the details of getting big and sexy.  My weeks would unfold with numerous hours in the gym working up good sweats, pumps and ultimately quite a few injuries too. Elbow tendonitis, muscle tears, T-shirt tears, hangovers – oh wait, that was the other stuff too!

Yep, the learning curve was steep, mostly through trial and error or curiosity, but back in the 90’s there really wasn’t much emphasis on exercise for longevity. 

What would happen in the future was anyones guess, but no-one really cared when maxing out the bench and squat was the focus on the mind of every gym bro. 

Longevity was not really a talking point in the average gym, but that was about to change with the emergence of new, forward thinking people, training organisations and such. By the mid naughties (2005+) some older, aging trainers started to contemplate the ‘what next’ conundrum. What do we need to do in the gym and life to be able to function better as older and hopefully wiser adults? 

Longevity, living well into our 80s and 90s, wont be achieved by luck alone, winning the lotto or by relying on how we exercise in our 20s and 30s. 

We should not merely want to add years to our lives, but life to our years. 

To add this life to your years you’ll need some practical skills like flexibility, mobility; practical strengths, aerobic fitness and of course good nutrition, sleep and stress management.

I’ll not be going into detail in this post but I’ll draw particular attention to the things I can influence in the gym, like the practical life strengths, mobility and flexibility. 

No one, I guarantee, will be interested in what you could bench press or how fast you could run 5km when you’re 80. 

Your immediate family and peers will be more concerned and impressed by your ability to function. Can you get off your chair, toilet, into the shower, get dressed, drive the car, carry in your shopping, pressing linen into the top shelf of the linen cupboards and all the other domestic stuff life will include. “Oh how interesting” says no one, I get it. This doesn’t exactly describe an interesting gym training session, I know. But to live like a successfully aging adult, we aught to train for the future like a responsible adult. 

A brief outline of a typical gym session for my current over 50 gym members looks like this:

  • Dynamic warm up – much like this video
  • Squatting movements
  • Pressing movements
  • Pulling movements
  • Stability and balance enhancing movements
  • Getting down to the floor and back up with ‘style’ movements
  • Picking up and carrying ‘stuff’ movements
  • Simple flexibility exercises
  • Dealing with dizziness events
  • And quickness (reaction speed and reflexive strength)

To keep the skills contextual we use simple equipment, often times awkward, because life can be just that. A heavy plant pot hasn’t got handles like a kettlebell, so let’s use a medicine ball for example as it is indeed awkward. 

A big component of our gym time over 40 and 50 is intensity. How hard is hard enough? As a basic rule, if lifting weights, ALWAYS finish every set with 2 or 3 repetitions left in the tank. Do not train to maximal effort. Perform and practice numerous sets of 70% efforts. Good things will happen. ‘Maxing out’ will not be your friend. 

Outside of the gym, lifestyle consistency is vital. Go to bed roughly the same time every night and awaken about the same time. As we age, sleep quality and consistency becomes all the more important. A poor nights sleep can ruin the day that follows, adding elements of danger and poor choices. We can and do get away with poor sleep by our own decisions when younger, but we just don’t get away with it once we’re over 50!

Do consider this – nothing good ever happens after 10pm, so go to bed. 

I shall not dive into nutrition today but essentially, if you’re an adult, you really do know deep down that your body functions best on real food. Real proteins, natural carbohydrates and heaps of vegetables and fruit. All the other stuff is play-food. Maybe enjoy some of that every now and again, but it shouldn’t be seen in your kitchen all that frequently. But you know that, don’t you. 

Whilst the ingredients may vary, the recipe is always the same. Simple

KEEP IT SIMPLE, AGE WELL AND PROSPER

With the summer quickly running out – not that we’ve seen much of a summer, I am taking expressions of interest from people over 40 who want to learn how to get stronger and fitter for now, and for the future.

I am happy to offer a FREE consultation and movement screen at Urban One on the Dock Road, Limerick. Fill in the form below to get started.

FitStrong PT, Kettlebell Training, Strength training

How Hard is Hard Enough?

MoveStrongblog

The Less and More conundrum 

Confession time – I’m one of those people who keeps stuff. Not like a serious hoarder like you’d see on TV, but a collector of details. 

I can proudly claim to have a record of every s.i.n.g.l.e training session I’ve done with every client over the years, including group classes and workshops. I also have records of my own training going back to 1989 when I took up cycling firstly for touring then as a competitive cyclist. 

At first it just seemed like a good idea to see how progress is made with time per each training program but in reflection the historical details added value regarding the ‘how’ the progress was made. 

At times progress was made unexpectedly and wasn’t achieved when expected – ‘what the deuce’? 

Some common themes became identifiable: 

  1. High Intensity (90%+) only works for the short term, like a booster button. But soon it wore off and continuing to hit that booster button lead to niggles and injuries. Short, infrequent use of high intensity seems valuable, like a 1 or 2 of sessions every 4th to 6th week. 
  2. Repeatable efforts, repeated often lead to more ‘what the heck’ affects than any other effort. By repeatable or medium-high I am really describing an effort you could label as being in the:
    • Goldilocks zone.
    • Like an 80% effort or.
    • An effort where you always stop the set a few reps from really pushing it.
  3. However, #2 is conditional on one big provision – consistency. Frequently training a focussed movement in hand with medium efforts leads to be best advancements. 

Regardless of whether the goal is maximal strength or endurance, frequent medium efforts with very infrequent bursts of high intensity delivers favourable results and to be honest, if you want to vastly reduce the likelihood of injury, leaving out the high intensity all together works just as well. Seriously!

Consistency transcends Intensity

Over the past few years I’ve used less and less high intensity work. Instead, I’ve favoured training 3-5 times a week where I follow one of two patterns. 

I either spend weeks just turning up, putting in some medium efforts, leaving the gym to return again the next time without strain or stress or injury or, I follow a 6 to 8 week program that gradually waves the number of reps I use upwards until on the final week or two I work somewhat harder, to achieve a new personal best or achieve a goal I had set. 

Overall though, the medium efforts used allow for another vital component of success, that of practice. By comparison, if you take a high intensity approach to training, near all of your focus is on pushing as hard as you can to achieve the set. Attention to form, correct breathing and safety is near zero! You are just too distracted by the effort to have any chance of remembering good form. 

By practicing at a sustainably comfortable effort, you can pay attention to what you are doing. 

Revisiting the ‘consistency transcends intensity’ idea, doing something well and often leads to progress via skill acquisition and good exposure to the target movements AND specific adaptations. Conversely, doing something sloppily every now and again leads to …. mmm, getting better at doing something sloppily. 

What sounds better – ‘100% of the time it works all the time’, or ’60% of the time it works some of the time’!

On this latter note, do consider that doing an exercise at high intensity does not allow for high frequency. If you again compare the high intensity model to medium intensity model, which will allow for more overall practice of doing something well over a year? 

I don’t think I need to answer that one.

So, rather than more is more or less is more, or minimalism is best, how about to clarify, more medium effort, less high intensity.

If you are one of those people who really enjoy the feeling of getting out of breath or pushing up a new weights personal best, how can it be done?

First off, I’d suggest you really question why you want to use high intensity? 

Is it because you think it will deliver results more quickly? 

Maybe you do actually enjoy the satisfaction of high effort? 

Perhaps you like to punish yourself for something, like eating, poor personal relationships or a crappy job? Perhaps you like showing off amongst your gym rat companions hehe! 

If it’s the latter you need a different outlay and help.

If it’s the former, you need to reread everything I’ve written above and the program idea below.

If it’s the second idea, well then, you need to look at your high efforts strategically and in keeping with a well structured program and a valid, realistic and attainable goal. 

Here’s a program for y’all. 

One of the simplest yet effective examples of working with medium efforts to achieve a new strength goal is outlined below (a Pressing program) and can be read about further in this post https://movestrong.studio/2015/08/19/consistency-trumps-intensity/  from a while back. It is one of my favourite easy-simple programs.

In habit coaching we often refer to working on your one thing, one thing at a time. This program does just that too. Each session increases in volume in a minimal dose, consistently over 3 sessions a week for up to 8 weeks. The volume just creeps up over the weeks without really affecting the perceived efforts. Your attention to technique grows steadily and you run next to negligible risk of injury. Starting a program healthy is a clear and obvious condition. 

There are many ways to play out this gradual or waving volume game in programs – this is just one. But it works with the model of consistent medium efforts over the long run. Dan Johns Easy Strength, Steve Justas singles program, Enter the Kettlebell – Rite of Passage are all examples of great medium effort programs that get you stronger. 

This program consists of 20 sets of Kettlebell Pressing. 

Over a 20 minute session, each set starts pretty much on the minute every minute. This is NOT obligatory of course. You’ll notice it’s written as 5 blocks of 4 sets, just for the purpose of writing the progressions. 

Rest between sets by shaking off tension to ready yourself for the next set whether it’s on the minute or not. Note: bigger guys with relatively bigger weights will need longer rests than the majority of people. 

Day 1: 1,1,1,1 x 5 rounds 20 total reps

Day 2: 1,1,1,2 x 5 rounds 25 total reps

Day 3: 1,1,2,2 x 5 rounds 30 total reps

Day 4: 1,1,1,2 x 5 rounds 25 total reps

Day 5: 1,1,2,2,x 5 rounds 30 total reps

Day 6: 1,2,2,2 x 5 rounds 35 total reps

Day 7: 1,1,2,2,x 5 rounds 30 total reps

Day 8: 1,2,2,2 x 5 rounds 35 total reps

Day 9: 2,2,2,2 x 5 rounds 40 total reps 

Do you see how the volume waves up and down? Three sessions progress in reps then, go back one step and continue. 

You continue until you achieve 20 sets of 4 reps, rest a few days then retest your max, 5 rep max or anything in between that you desire.

The total of 80 reps works fine for pressing however for squats for example, I’d work with 10 sets with the same rep scheme and more rest between sets (2-4 minutes). That does accumulate up to 40 reps but seems to work best for most people. 

This program works great also for Front Squats, Bench Press, Pull Ups or Rows. A similar concept can also be applied to many speed and endurance activities.

You could naturally conduct your own 10-15 years trial to see what works best or just use what I’ve found 😉 

Need help building a successful program for strength and fitness? 

Punch in your contact info below… 

Contact us

0894462653
movewithjamie@gmail.com

FitStrong PT

Minimalist Training for Over 40s

MoveStrongblog

Feeling Stiff and Not Strong, Not Fit?? Feeling like being over 40 is over the hill???

It’s time to Get ‘Connected’.

With this simple 6 week training program you’ll meet your body where it is rather than commence an unrealistic routine un-matching of your current abilities. You’ll nourish your body with healthy movement and stepped progressions and before you know it you’ll be baffled at how well the training carries over into your everyday activities.

Message me to get on the access list.

Jamie

PS It’s going to be just €10 or 17 bucks until the end of the year!!!

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FitStrong PT

6 WEEK PROGRAM FOR BUSY PEOPLE

MoveStrongblog

CONNECTED

Moving better, moving stronger, moving more often are all traits of being a healthy, functional and useful human. Launching very soon is my new program, aptly called CONNECTED.

It’s a minimal, essentialist program that’s designed for you busy folk who don’t have time to get to the gym never mind look out your training gear.

This 6 week program needs:

  • no equipment,
  • Just up to 30 minutes per session
  • 3 sessions per week.

The program launches very soon and for subscribers, it’ll be real cheap.

I’ll deliver the full program with an easy to follow PDF that includes full tutorials for each of the 7 movements we’ll practice. I’ll include appropriate regressions and progressions. I’ll lay out how you can build the program to develop your full body strength and fitness. And more of course…

Get in touch with me sign up 🤟

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