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.
