Workout Routines for Older Adults: how do you know what to train for?
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.”
“There are two ways to live a longer life:
1) Biologically — extend the timeline between your birth and your death.
2) Psychologically — fit more lives into whatever time you are given. Make each decade rich with experiences and perhaps you can live a handful of lives before you are done.”
What should a workout routine for older adults look like?
Well, ask yourself what you love to do! What activities do you love doing that bring you peace of mind, joy in the moment, smiles to your face, and comfort in your skin? Whatever it is, doing the activity itself is likely not enough training to ensure you can enjoy the activity in the future. So, whether you love pickleball/tennis, cycling, skiing once a year, playing with your grandkids, traveling, or whatever else, those activities require maintenance in the form of training.
What activities do you love doing that bring you peace of mind, joy in the moment, smiles to your face, and comfort in your skin? Whatever it is, doing the activity itself is likely not enough training to ensure you can enjoy the activity in the future. So, whether you love pickleball/tennis, cycling, skiing once a year, playing with your grandkids, traveling, or whatever else, those activities require maintenance in the form of training.
While I’m not considered an older adult, my training takes on the same formula based on the same question I listed above. What do I love to do and want to continue for years to come? Hiking. Hiking is one of those activities that enriches my life. Last week, I finished a 4-day trek in the Colombian jungle to and from The Lost City — a sacred historic site, still to this day, to the indigenous communities of the Caribbean region of Colombia. I was part of a group of 9 women. While training wasn’t mandatory, let’s just say those who trained for the trek enjoyed the 4 days significantly more than those who didn’t.
This is what my workout routine looked like:
Heavy-weighted step-ups onto a high box (to make those steps onto big rocks feel easier)
Long slow runs (to make long hikes feel cardiovascularly easier)
Agility ladder drills (to train my feet to respond quickly to catch myself if I trip over a root or a rock)
Single leg balance exercises on the balls of my feet (to make balancing on those slippery moss-covered rocks as well as downhill hiking feel more secure)
Knee over toe lunges and sissy squats (to support my knees with quad strength for all those downhills)
Deficit calf raises (so that I have the option for climbing uphill — I can either step on the balls of my feet or place my whole foot down, elongating the calf. Both are useful, and it helps my calves from getting overworked with one particular strategy.)
Everything was intentional and designed to support this hike. Had I been hiking in altitude or on icy surfaces, my training might have looked a little bit different. A client of mine in her 70s with knee osteoarthritis recently came back from a cross-country ski trip, and our sessions for a few months leading up to her trip involved work that specifically prepared her for rotational movements, single-leg strength, single-leg balance, upper back mobility, and endurance.
All of this is to say: we are training for living life. Especially as an older adult, it might feel daunting to decide what kind of training to do, what’s safe, what makes sense, and what’s worth spending time on. Let this approach be your very first step. What does your daily life look like? Do you climb a lot of stairs in your home or for transportation? Do you have young grankids you want to chase after? Is your friend trying to get you into pickleball? Do you love fixing up your house and need to be able to manage ladders and building materials? Then start to think past your dailiy activities towards ones that happen less often but are still important to you like trips and seasonal sports.
THEN you can start to train for those very specific movements involved in the activities you picked out. If coming up with the right exericses feels confusing, your trainer can help formulate a program for you based on your specific activity goals.
Once you start to analyze our life’s activities in this way, training might become more motivating, specific, and rewarding. So, what are you doing when you’re living life at your best, and how can you train to support yourself to do it for the many years you have left?
Till next time, keep moving.
alia