We are told told time and again that age is just a number BUT we also have to acknowledge that there are some undeniable realities that come with age.
1) Your muscles are your organs of longevity. And the more muscle we build when we are young, the better off we will be when we are older.
I find it helpful to think about our body like we think about our retirement finances, the more money you put in the bank prior to retiring, the more you will have after retiring. The same goes for your muscle and your bones and your brain tissue. The more work you put in to building them when you’re young the more you will have when you are older. And while it is easier to build things up if you start when you are young, it is never too late, your bank account and your body are always willing to take deposits, it’s just a bit harder.
So build muscle NOW, no matter what your age. The stronger you are the better your bone density, the higher your metabolism, the better the blood sugar. It just makes everything better and it’s the key to your longevity and quality of life.
2) Your body can be one age and your mind can be another.
You may think the same as when you were 20 years younger, but your body may not agree. Listen to your body. This doesn’t mean give in to it when things get hard, but it does mean, be realistic. Your mind might say it wants to. It might say, ‘but we used to be able to’. And your body may have something different to say about it.
This means you need to train smarter, not harder. You don’t need to work out to exhaustion every time to get results. In fact, the opposite is true. There is this concept of reps in reserve. You need to lift heavy weights but it is ok to have one or two reps in reserve, meaning, you could probably do one or two more but that’s it. Consistency and progressive overload are going to be your best friends when it comes to exercise, not short irregular bursts of intensity.
3) Daily movement is imperative.
Not unlike what I wrote above, consistency is key when it comes to healthy aging. And daily movement is not optional if you want a long and healthy life.
There is something called muscle memory. We tell our muscles to do something once and the more we do it, the more our body remembers how to do it. As we get older, not unlike our brain, our muscle memory gets shorter so you need to repeat things, and often, in order to maintain muscle memory.
And that’s why, if you’re capable we probably get you to squat almost every time you come to the studio. The better you are at doing squats in the, controlled environment of the gym, the less likely you are to get hurt outside the gym when we tend to do things without thinking.
4)You have a choice to be weak and in pain, or strong and in pain.
The older we are the more we realize we are making that choice. In reality, as we get older, pain becomes inevitable for many, if not all seniors. But if we stay strong, we can stay capable. If we allow our pain to stop us from moving then we become weak When we are weak our ability to move gets smaller and smaller, and so does our life.
A perfect example is that one of the leading causes of death according to a palliative care doctor is osteoarthritis…why would arthritis kill someone? Well, it doesn’t. But what does happen is the pain of it causes people to stop moving. And that lack of movement causes their heart to get weak, it causes their bones to get frail and so they become a candidate for heart disease (a leading cause of death) and falls (another leading cause of death amongst seniors). And so, even if you are in pain, find a way to keep moving that hurts the least and who knows, maybe the pain starts to dissipate when you move…it’s been known to happen!
And as I am sure you know, aging isn’t all bad. As long as we maintain a sense of purpose and curiosity and have strong, supportive relationships and social connections there is a blessing to be found in this stage, we just have to be open to the unique beauty of it.
Remember, control your controllables,
