Strategies I’ve learned as an Aging Athlete

This is a discussion of how priorities change for an athlete as you age. I am going to share some of the top strategies I’ve learned as an aging athlete and how I implement time and energy-saving measures to still get the most out of fitness as I get older and busier.

Right now, I am 35 years old and as a dad of 3 little kids and an aspiring serial entrepreneur, making time for a workout is getting tougher and tougher. Balancing work, kids, side hustles, hobbies, community, rest, fun…is HARD. But if I do everything right, I can still manage to get an hour workout in six days per week.

Now first and foremost, if you know me personally or have seen in recent posts, as of right now I have a one-month-old newborn so I know what you are thinking “you still do an hour workout every day?!!” and the answer is – Heck No! Right now I’m lucky to get 2-3 workouts in per week and they are short and ugly, but they do happen, which is key.

I’m not going to get into why you should or shouldn’t workout and all that motivation stuff. But this is something I’ve decided to do in my life so here are the lessons and thought processes I’ve learned to keep making it happen.

Set Clear Goals

Decide why you want to stay fit, whether it’s to provide for your family, to protect them, to look good, or to be strong… Whatever the reason is, having a clearly defined fitness goal will give you direction. Then, you can narrow down what your fitness targets should be, like weights, running, yoga, etc.

Plan Ahead

You have to be efficient with your time and energy. Having a set plan of what I’m going to do every day helps me maximize my time in the gym. I’ve spent (way too much) time obsessing over this myself but for good reason, if I can wake up and have my workout already written down, weights calculated and planned out, then it is much more likely to happen the way I want. If I don’t have a plan, I either just won’t work out at all or I end up doing the same things that are familiar over and over.

The importance of this is what led to the creation of scheduleyourstrength.com to save me all the time I spent planning.

Prioritize

As you get older, your time becomes more and more valuable, both in and out of the gym. You have more demands put on you and more responsibilities to take care of. It’s worth it to prioritize the muscle groups/movements that best help you accomplish your reason for fitness from above. This is known as specificity. Find the best foundations for strength, running, aesthetics and send the most time there. Then, add-in other moves (less specific) when you are able. This will minimize your working time while getting you the best benefit.

If you want to really get deep into specificity, read from Renaissance Periodization these are some folks I follow an there is tons of information here.

I also prioritize big muscle groups by doing workouts like squats, presses, and hip-hinge movements. This works multiple muscle groups at once, saving time. I know people are going to say there are better ways for this and that, etc. but again, I’m talking about saving time here.

Trust Yourself

As you get to understand your body more and how it feels and what it needs, including effort and rest. If you feel like you need rest, you probably do. It takes a looong time to get into really good what I would call long-term shape where you can really push your limits. Pushing them too early or too often can be detrimental (systemic fatigue). For example, if you have a goal in the fall, a competition or race and you push yourself too hard in the spring. When fall rolls around, you will be dragging, when you should be in optimal shape. Trust yourself early on and plan for the long-term.

Rest

You need rest. While I don’t program any rest days or weeks into my routine, I’m always ready to take a day off when I feel like I need it. Plus, as others have said, “life provides rest days.” You may end up on the road for work or staying up late with the baby. But if you force yourself to work out when your body is not ready, you are not going to be making progress.

Just recently I was in the urgent care/staying up with my 4 year old until about one in the morning, and just when I laid down to go to sleep, the baby started crying. Did I wake up early and workout the following morning? No way, I slept in and didn’t feel bad about it.

There is something called systemic fatigue and while I’m no expert, I can hopefully sum it up for us simple folk: exercise is stressful to the central nervous system, just like other stressors in life. While it also provides benefits, it is adding stress to your mind and body. So rest is needed. For this reason, rest from exercise when life is stressful is sometimes the best decision.

Warm Up and Cool Down

I remember the days when I could go to the gym cold, start lifting, and then just go home and lay down immediately afterward with no side effects. Those days are now gone. You have to prioritize warm-up and recovery because they become more important as time goes on. If you have a certain amount of time to work out, you may start dropping sets to ensure that you’re getting good warm-ups and recovery, and that’s okay. This will prevent injury and increase the quality and benefits of the work you do.

The same goes for working on weaknesses or injuries/limitations you may already have. It doesn’t matter how much you squat if you also have back pain. Take the time to do some physical therapy, stretches, and work on things that you are weak in, in order to strengthen those weaknesses. This will help you overall.

All in all, fitness is something that you can continue to have in your life as you age and taking the time to do it wisely will continue to provide benefits to your life. Keep at it!