I was recently chatting someone who has a milestone birthday coming up. They definitely don’t look or by the sound of things feel like their age at all. The big point they made on the next birthday was: “I always think of Clint Eastwood saying “every day I get up I try to be productive and not let the aging old man in.”” Which is great advice. Another thing that is hugely useful when it comes to staying young is undoubtedly exercise. Unfortunately with the resources and knowledge now available, the way most people go about their exercise regimes would be the equivalent of Eastwood running around using a Water Pistol in In the Line of Fire. But by making sure you’ve a number of things in place, you’ll have a far more effective regime in place. Such as: 1. Having a structured routine: Some exercise is better than none. But to truly maximise your results, you need a routine. Otherwise you’ll end up going to the gym, doing what you feel like leading to an unbalanced session with little or no intensity. A far better outcome is to know what you should be working on, have an outline of what you achieved previously and going in with intent to match or better it. Using exercises to make sure you’re working the body equally from week to week. 2. Warming Up – Stretching and Joint Mobility: Neglecting these in the short term leads to a poorer workout, with everything from your ability to get your head into the room to train to your ability to move correctly during your session affected. In the long term, you’re potentially looking at more injuries, joints that ache way more than they should and an ensuing lack of motivation to train. Include movement prep in all of your workouts and you’ll be thanking yourself in the years to come! 3. Power Work: Power is one of the physical qualities that tends to decline fastest as we get older. Which is unfortunate because it is useful for things like getting out of chairs and lifting something suddenly. Not to mention how important it is for bank robbery scenes in a movie like Dirty Harry. The good news is that power is something that can be trained effectively and in a fun manner, using the likes of Slam/Wall Balls, Kettlebells and even Body Weight Exercises. 4. Strength: Again strength tends to decline as age grows but if you’re getting some regular resistance work in, in a smart manner you’d be surprised how effective it is. Even in much later life. Advice here is to start building your reserves now – whatever your age. And make sure you’re not focusing on the mirror musclest only! Your posterior chain is massively important for everything from posture to power production to dealing with everyday life. 5. Conditioning: You don’t need to be doing marathons or the latest fitness race by any means. But you do need to develop your engine that will help carry you around for the years to come. Developing a solid aerobic base and then building on it with higher intensity work is something that will help ensure walking up a set of stairs doesn’t start to feel like a workout in itself! Start implementing the above and while you mightn’t be getting up to a move star job in your 80’s, you’ll almost certainly feel like a Million Dollar Baby for the years to come!! |
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