Training Essentials for Athletes Over 40
Father time is life's greatest teacher, but he sometimes seems to play favorites with younger generations regarding physical fitness. However, age doesn’t have to be your ultimate advisory if you want to build or maintain youthful vitality. You just need to follow a few key principles to train smarter rather than harder.
#1 Have a training objective with each workout.
Leave the no-pain-no-gain mentality to the young and foolish. When you’re younger, you can chase after blood-sweat-and-tears workouts all day and bounce back smiling, but not so much as you get older. But fret not my friend, because effective training doesn’t depend on how much abuse your body can withstand. It depends on how well you train rather than how hard you push yourself. The best way to accomplish this is to have a clear training objective in each workout. Do you want to get a few more reps? How about improving your technique? Maybe you want to get a few more inches of range of motion.
Having a clear training objective means you are training with a defined purpose, something that’s related to your goals. Gut-busting hard work becomes the goal when you don’t know what you’re doing. Once you know what you’re trying to improve you will train as hard as necessary, not just as hard as possible.
#2 Train within your means.
Living within your means is more than sound financial advice. It’s also great training advice as well. In training, it means saving a little time, energy, and effort at the end of your workouts. You don’t have to give each session everything you’ve got. Saving even a little in the tank ensures you don’t run yourself into the ground.
#3 Give yourself more recovery if you need it.
There’s no such thing as an optimal or standard amount of recovery everyone should abide by. Some people only need a day or two to recover; others may need a full week. The goal is to recover enough to bring a good effort to your next training session. You don’t get results from exhausting yourself; you get them from training just a bit better than before.
So take as much time as you need to come back strong. There’s no need to rush the process.
#4 Don’t try to beat your younger self.
Things are different now. Your lifestyle is different, your abilities are different, and your goals and preferences are different. So adopt the methods and strategies that align with your current circumstances.
It may be tempting to relive the glory days of your youth, but this is not always feasible or well-advised. So look forward, my friend, the best is yet to come, You’ll miss out on it if you keep too much attention on what you had in the past.
#5 Don’t train according to your age.
This one may seem counterintuitive, but it’s very true. Our fitness culture and society are filled with messages telling you how you should eat, train, and live at certain ages.
I’ve been a coach for 20 years and have never met a standard 40, 50 or 60 year old. Everyone is a unique individual with different capabilities and preferences. Your abilities and training requirements are also constantly changing.
Adopting certain training habits based solely on age is a guessing game. You’re basing your decisions on assumptions and stereotypes. largely based on blind assumptions. I don’t like to train people based on luck but rather on what they can currently do, which is much more practical and effective.
#6 Stress your muscles, not your joints.
Training should never be very stressful on your joints. Feeling a lot of stress in the knees, shoulders, lower back, or wrist is almost always a sign that something is out of alignment.
So take that nagging ache in the lower back or the stress you feel in your wrists after doing push-ups as a sign that something needs to be addressed rather than something you need to work through or ignore. Enlist the help of a healthcare professional if necessary, but do your best to find the cause of any pin you have and eliminate it if possible.
#7 Improve your tension control.
A lot of the strain in the joints comes from poor tension control, where you have difficulty contracting various muscles. Some of the most common muscle groups that weaken over time include the hips, hamstrings, back, and shoulders.
Tension control is a very common occurrence that comes with age. Daily habits like sitting, repetitive tasks, and lack of proper training techniques can prevent your muscles from turning on and being used. When this happens, making the muscles work as they should can be difficult, even if you’re doing appropriate exercises.
So make sure you can feel the muscles you want to engage in working during your exercises. If not, it may be a good idea to use a lighter level of resistance and to focus on contracting the muscle as much as you can reestablish your tension control.
#8 Treat pain; don’t just avoid it.
Pain is often seen as an inevitable part of life and aging. Many just throw up their hands and vow to accept and work around it.
This is a massive mistake because pain will always hold you back. There may be suitable work around, but nothing that will produce the level of results you would have without it.
So make it a goal to understand why the pain is happening. Seek healthcare professionals who can evaluate the situation and give you valuable insight into treating and eliminating the pain. You’ll always stand a much better chance of getting the results you want with less pain.
#9 Stay flexible.
This last tip is both literal and metaphorical. Mobility is another functional asset that people lose as they move less as they advance in their years. But being flexible extends beyond your physical range of motion. It also means having a flexible approach in your exercise, selection, and programming, so you can adopt strategies that align with your circumstances.
Bend, don’t break, you still have plenty of years ahead of you, and there’s a lot of healthy living yet to come. Being too rigid can compromise it if you’re unwilling to adapt.