Getting old is never easy. First, you realize you are getting tired faster than the usual, and later you will realize how much longer it will take to recuperate from any physical activity. I am not even going to talk about the obvious, the hair, the love handles, the skin, the figure.
There is only so much you can do to cope with the ageing process. You can try a sensible and well-balanced diet, optimize your sleep, reduce your alcohol intake, stop smoking, reduce your stress levels and exercise.
So today, I am going to tell you about my approach to exercise and how it changed my ageing process.
My personal experience tells me that it is critical to avoid high-impact exercises, such as running. Most of the men above 40 are overweight, and that combination of excessive weight and high impact exercises will eventually lead to some type of join issue (knees, ankles, feet). On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence about the benefits of regular cardiovascular activity and weight lifting. Keeping this in mind, this is a list of exercises that I think are an excellent choice for a middle-aged male. Before I started let me be clear that this what I have chosen to do and as we all know, it is critical to have a physical examination done by a doctor, before trying any exercise.
- Warm-up. Five series of 1-minute "jumping-jacks", should be enough to put your blood pumping.
- Military press. It is possible to do it with free weight or in a machine. My advice is to start with the machine and later as you build up your core strength, back and shoulders, you can try free weight. I always started with an extremely lightweight and the goal is to warm up the joints and muscles. After this first series, I will do three more series with 10 to 12 repetitions on each. I will try to choose a weight that will challenge me in the last two repetitions.
- Abs. Just do it. I know it isn't fun, but we have to do it. I will do three series of 20 repetitions that will target my lower abs. I think the number of repetitions is not essential, what really matters is that on the very end of the series you are reaching your limit. The reason why I choose this exercise is that it is an excellent way to reinforce the lower abdominal muscles and hopefully will help me avoid on a distant future a hernia.
- Bench press. I would recommend starting with a machine. If you don't have a work-out partner, it isn't advisable to use free weights. There are lots of accidents with people doing bench press with free weight (check youtube). Like with the military-press, I will start with an extremely lightweight and the goal is to warm up the joints and muscles. After this first series, I will do three more series with 10 to 12 repetitions on each. I will try to choose a weight that will challenge me in the last two repetitions.
- Elliptic machine. I will run for 30 minutes, which totals approximately five kilometres. You can adjust the intensity of the course so that it will be a challenging exercise. I like to do High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) while running. It goes like this, I will run four minutes at a slow pace, and when I reach the fifth minute, I will run as fast as I can for one minute. I will repeat it five times.
There is a mathematical formula widely used to calculate what type of intensity you should use. Here is the formula:
220 - (your age) = Maximum heart rate frequency
You should keep your heart rate between 60 to 80% of your maximum heart rate frequency.
(As I said before, check your doctor before trying any of these).
Most people will say that it is better to have cardiovascular exercise before weight lifting. I disagree with that, being my main reason the fact that to lift weights, you need to have "fuel" (glycogen) in your muscles. If the exercise sequence starts with the cardiovascular stage, you will use all the glycogen, making it harder to lift weights. On the other hand, if the exercise cycle starts with strength exercises, when you reach the cardiovascular stage because all the glycogen reserves were depleted, your body will look for other sources of energy, such as fat (lipids). In conclusion, following this sequence will allow us to get in shape, more toned and burn fat.
Finally, I will finalize with some stretching.
This is the routine I have been using for the last three years. Every three months, I will do some variation on my strength exercises so that I can target another group of muscles.
So now that you know, go get some!
