The Fitness Advice I Would Give My Mother and Grandmother
Frailty is not an inevitable part of aging. You can become stronger at any age. You can still do hard things. You are capable of so much more than you can imagine right now.
You will lose it if you don’t use it. You can get it back if you’ve lost it.
A decline in strength and fitness has more to do with inactivity than age.
If I had a dollar for every time I have heard, “I am just getting old,” I wouldn’t have to work anymore. I’m not buying it unless you are talking about competing in sport at the level of a world class athlete in her prime.
You can improve your fitness at every stage of your life. The human body retains the ability to adapt to the physical challenges you put it through from the second you are born until the moment you die. Prior injuries and medical conditions absolutely need to be taken into consideration when taking on physical challenges both in the gym and in life, but current limitations are not good excuses to avoid starting.
Start where you are. Use what you have.
Start by incorporating more movement into your days. Walking, yard work, housework, and playing with kids are great options. Fitness gains happen when you regularly up your game. Once that 20 minute walk feels easy try walking for a bit longer or take a route that has some hills.
Structured exercise is the best way to push yourself to the next level. Like anyone starting a workout routine, it needs to be safe and progressive. Working with a professional or joining a class that provides multiple modifications is invaluable if you are intimidated or unsure of what you should be doing.
Avoid hitting cruise control with your workouts. Move up to the eight pound weights once the five pound weights feel too light. Let your trainer know if your workouts aren’t challenging anymore. Find a new trainer if yours doesn’t seem capable or interested in challenging you.
Lift something that feels heavy every week
Strong people are much less likely to get injured or sore from everyday life. Most injuries don’t happen at the gym. They happen at the end of a long strenuous project at home or after a long day of trying to keep up with grand-kids.
Maybe picking up a heavy barbell at the gym doesn’t seem relevant to your life. It is.
If you pick up your granddaughter 50 times in one day you need to be strong enough to pick up something heavier than her. Injuries happen after many repetitions of lifting something that might feel light at first. When your laundry basket, groceries, and bags of garden soil feel light as a feather you will be able to move these items around for hours without waking up the next day barely able to move.
Do as much as you can for yourself
Kindly decline offers to help you with your groceries. Park at the back of the parking lot and walk. Take the stairs. Mow your lawn. Move those bags of mulch across the yard. Take advantage of opportunities to flex your muscles and get your heart rate up every day.
Strenuous activities require strength and fitness, but you can build fitness at any age. If there is something you want to do then focus on building the fitness that activity requires — age be damned.
Start right now. Never stop challenging yourself
You have to start today with what you are capable of doing right now.
Don’t get discouraged by what seems hard today. Keep at it, and when it starts to seem easier increase the challenge just a little. Resist the urge to settle in and cruise. Before you know it, those 10 steps that seemed laughably small will add up to something big. You can look back in six months, a year, or five years and say, “Wow! When I started I could not have imagined I was capable of so much.”
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