If you are in your 40’s, 50’s or beyond, you may be wondering what this means for your workout program. Can you still do the workouts you have always done, or will you need to make adjustments?
As you get older, there is no question specific changes take place in your body. If you want to continue to stay active into these years, you will need to modify things a little. The good news is if you keep up with your fitness regimen, you will not need to adjust as much, as your body will maintain itself quite well.
Let us look at a few of the modifications you will want to consider making…
1. Reduced Total Volume
First, consider cutting back slightly how much volume you are doing. While before you may have been able to do four sets per exercise for instance, now you may want to limit it to just three. As long as you push yourself on those three, you should still see excellent results.
As you get older, your recovery ability is not what it used to be so a high volume program may be a little too much for you to take on.
2. Exercise Selection
Next, consider your exercise selection. You want to do everything you can to safeguard your joints so choose joint friendly movements. For example, leg extensions tend to be quite hard on your knee joint so you may prefer something like the leg press instead.
Or, rather than going for a run for cardio exercise, try using a stationary machine instead. These small adjustments can pay off regarding keeping you pain-free in the months ahead.
3. Functional Movements
As you get older, your goals will also likely change. While previously you may have been very focused on the aesthetics of things, now you may be more interested in just ensuring you can keep up with your favorite activities as the years pass. As such, you want to look at functional fitness more closely: this means choosing exercises to perform in your routine that is going to mimic best the movement patterns you use in everyday life activities. If you do that, you should be able to keep up with all you love doing.
If you keep these three slight adjustments in mind as you go about your program and focus on learning to read your body and all it’s telling you, you should have no problem staying active for many years to come.
