Life begins at 40 or does it?
Wouldn't it be great to just live life?
· Go to work,
· Play with the kids,
· Laugh and talk,
· Chat a bit and have a cuppa,
· Or a glass of wine after a rewarding day.
Really!
What does begin at 40 is thinking about and planning life.
1. Planning your finances.
2. Building future wealth for yourself and for your kids.
3. Planning your future health.
4. Planning your fitness.
Watching
1. Your weight increase.
2. Not going to the doctor - might have high blood pressure like mom or dad.
3. How well your memory works or doesn't work - mental problems like your aunty had.
4. What are your kids watching?
5. Who's talking to them online?
6. Your diet - what on earth am I supposed to eat to be well and healthy?
Oh yeah!
TV and social media telling me to reduce my stress levels, showing me how to do this if I pay them some money. But too much social media is stressing you out, plus all the other things mentioned above.
Well I can't help with planning Finance but I can help with health, fitness and food.
Why I'm writing about 40+ is because when I passed 40, I noticed some changes with my body. I was showing my wife my ‘not so big’, biceps and shoulders that seemed to have shrunk; my muscles were decreasing in size.
So when a special offer came out on my social media feed, I took up the offer from a local gym.
Here is the story of what happened at a local gym
I was very eager to go to the gym, just down the road from home. I rock up at the gym and they assigned a personal trainer to take me through a workout to see where my fitness level was?
Well, I don’t think they told the young guy that, he was only in his early twenties and eager to show off his wealth of knowledge as a personal trainer. I went through the workout with him, showing me what to do.
· He kept saying “I can do it” so “you should be able to do it, too”
· He didn’t take into consideration my age, over 50
· He didn’t consider my ability
· He continued to keep pushing
· I stopped due exhaustion
I should have seen the writing on the wall right then and said no. My body soon told me a couple of days afterwards that I have overreached my capacity (I know now what that means).
Well, I could not lift my arms above my shoulders so trying to put a shirt on was painful. This lasted for 7 days!
Needless to say, that was the end of my membership with that gym.
From this experience I know that if you are over 40 you need to engage a personal trainer that is aware that people need to be treated differently, especially if they have been away from being physically active for a long period of time.
O.K, if I've not left you feeling too down and depressed you may be wondering what you can do? Well here's what you can do.
Get An Older Personal Trainer - Here's Why.
Well, listening to the story above, you really need someone who has actually been there, done that and really understands the changes that happened physically and mentally when we go past the invisible barrier of 40 years of age.
As I experienced, a 20-something year old at one of these large, black, impersonal gyms, springing up at every corner are not able to actually cater for someone who is a bit older, or not a semi-professional athlete or an enthusiastic long-distance runner in their spare time.
Personal Training should not be Boring
I believe that fitness training should not be boring. Anything boring we avoid and don't do. That's the reason why so many people join a gym, pay their membership or perhaps their workplace pays membership, but after a couple of enthusiastic weeks the visits to the gym decrease and stop completely.
And somehow our best intentions to look after our health, be well, and get fit we file away in the bottom drawer to perhaps be looked at in the New Year.
Don't wait for the New Year get in touch with Charlie today.
Not next week. Not next month. But this week.
Find a fitness coach you enjoy spending time with?
The best way to tick off some other items at the beginning of this blog is to get together with a fitness coach. Someone who can discuss with you what you want, how you want to work with me.
Some of the options can be:-
· Once a week coming for a workout session, as tough and easy as you want.
· If you need to make headway twice a week is a good way to start, you know when you have the enthusiasm-let's go for it!
· If financial constraints, understandable at the moment, plan a way to put more movement into your life in general and checking every fortnight.
· Then there's the online option as you can do 30 minutes workout in the office at the beginning or end of your day or at home again at the beginning of the end of your day, or flexitime, so join up any time from Tuesday to Saturday morning.
Places where I do my Personal Training
· 21 Mandeville Street, Riccarton.
· Leithfield Beach - Fridays only after 1 pm.