Killing Me Softly

It's doing less that slows us down, not just age.

Every year after age 25, it seems, there is something to complain about...something that used to be easier or didn't hurt. It gets worse each year. Many of us fall right off the aging cliff in our 40s and the markers of strength and aerobic capacity (and flexibility) really decline. And for years, scientists simply attributed it to aging.

The closer they looked, though, the harder it was to tell that story. See, although all of those factors do decline over time, the average person was declining at a much faster rate than one group in particular. That group? Athletes who maintained training volume. Research is beginning to show that the largest factor in not being able to do what you "ustacould" is ceasing to do those things as often.

In our 30s and 40s, we get serious about making money. Serious about fixing up the house. About being involved in the community. Raising kids.

Relaxing.

We're starting to see that an athlete that trained regularly through their teens and twenties (and even beyond), staves off decline in strength, aerobic markers, and more, as long as they stick to exercising. But when we get busy with life, our personal time is the first to go.

It seems so obvious that you have to use it or lose it, but it's desperately hard to keep using it. Between injuries, meetings, and the sheer fatigue most of us carry through the day, making it happen at the same duration as when we were younger feels like too much.

The crux of this whole thing is that we have certain performance expectations for what this exercise should look like, left over from when we were younger. I need to run at this pace (or run instead of walk) for it to be a workout. I need to lift this weight. Need to climb at this grade. The good news? Many of us can regain close to that level. But we have to address volume first.

Volume, or time exercising, helps us rebuild the blood delivery network to our muscles. It strengthens tendons and ligaments. Restarts the metabolism.

This is the starting line.

The key becomes scheduling more time to train. The process here is so simple, you may not think it could possibly work.

1. Assess how much exercise you've been getting the last several weeks, and generally how intense it's been. It can be as simple as noting walking as "1 hour, easy," and a hard weight workout as "45 minutes, hard." You'll end up with approximate total durations of easy, medium, and hard exercise for a week.

2. Schedule a tiny bit more time each week for 4 weeks. 15 minutes seems way too conservative at first glance, but you're fighting your schedule as much as your physiology. Start with 15 minutes' additional training per week. All new exercise time should be planned as "easy" intensity. Walking or cycling or a couple more easy pitches is the right choice.

3. Plan a "reset" or recovery week each month. This is just a lower-volume week, where you back off by a bit. The easiest way to do this? Simply force one rest day when you'd normally train.

4. The next month, you can switch a few minutes of your easy training from last month to medium or harder training, but you should continue to focus on adding even more easy...it's the first step in long-term gains.

An average older adult should look for around an hour per day of this easy level, and then sprinkle the harder stuff on top.

Being an aging athlete is a bigger problem than this solution addresses. The elephant in the room is the idea of sustaining a young person's performance level. We hear stories about an older climber here and there that does something remarkable...but that's why it's an interesting story. We can't count on best-ever performances unless it's in an activity that is new to us. We all want that best-ever performance, but another grade is only going to get you what the last grade did—brief satisfaction and a longing for more.

As we age, we should chase improvement, but at the same time we should chase durability, strength maintenance, and good recovery.

What we truly get value from is a struggle worthy of our attention. A thing to chase and a chase to love. And this never goes away. I've always loved the saying, "behind mountains are more mountains," and it's truer than almost anything I've ever heard. If those distant mountains are smaller or are the stuff that an older person can navigate, so be it.