Six Tips For Optimizing Exercise if You Are Over 40

Prioritize strength training.

With age, we lose muscle mass and bone density. Strength training can also reduce anxiety and reduce cognitive decline. Three sessions a week with heavier weights are ideal. 8-20 reps. Don’t lift to failure, but your weight is not heavy enough if you don’t feel like you are getting close to failure. Take a full day between sessions.  

Warm up properly.

Prime your muscles and joints. Use big, dynamic movements that raise your heart rate, then do a warm-up set of each exercise (fewer reps, lower or no weights) before beginning the actual workout.  

Replace exercises that are causing pain.

If an exercise you always did without problems now gives you problems, don’t think, “But this never bothered me before; I’ll keep doing it and see if it gets better.” Instead, find a modification or a similar exercise that doesn’t cause any issues and do that instead.

Listen to your body and use common sense.

You can be sore after a workout, but it shouldn’t be significant or ongoing. You should regain your energy between exercise sessions. If you always feel sluggish, you might be doing too much per session or exercising too often (or not getting enough sleep).

Keep your step count up.

Studies have shown that we move less as we age without realizing it. Walking has been shown to increase heart and lung fitness and improve the management of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, joint and muscular pain, and diabetes. Tracking and managing your step count keeps your activity level and calorie expenditure up.

Keep your calorie deficit or surplus small.

Two things are true: We want to preserve our muscle mass, and our potential rate of muscle growth slows down as we age. So, if you need to lose weight, keep your deficit small to lose fat without sacrificing muscle. If you don’t need to lose weight, keep your surplus small to build muscle without gaining fat.

Much of this advice is equally relevant to people in their teens, 20s, and 30s. But these guidelines matter more for those of us who are 40+.

If you have questions about this, please comment!