How to Get Fit in Your 40s

First of all, let me caveat this article by saying that at the time of writing, I’m 39 so I haven’t lived through my own 40’s yet. But I have coached hundreds of people in their 40s to achieve their health & fitness goals. Of course, I could reel off textbook answers on how someone in their 40s should exercise. But what might be more useful is to tell you what I’ve seen work in more than a decade working as a personal trainer.

T.L.D.R – A summary of getting fit at 40

• In case you’re concerned that 40 is too old to start exercising, threat not, it’s actually the perfect time. You’re both young enough to transform your physique and wise enough to focus on the future
• There is no marked drop-off in your ability to get excellent results at 40. The decline in comparison to your 20s & 30s is often over-exaggerated. Under closer inspection, the decline is due to an unhealthy lifestyle.
• A winning strategy would be to work out 3-4 times per week. With a fitness program led by strength training. This will aid in maintaining and building muscle. Prioritise compound exercises to the greatest impact.
• Incorporate both high and low-intensity cardiovascular training
• Keep physical activity levels high outside of workouts to assist in a loss of belly fat
• Age 40 may be the point in your fitness journey where you see a wider impact of healthy living. This includes mental & sexual health and the impact of your general lifestyle

Let’s get started: Can you get fit at 40?

Generally speaking, if you’ve found this article, you’re likely in one of two places. You are either:

1. Trying to get in shape for the first time at some point in your 40s and want to know how to start
2. You are trying to get back in shape in your 40’s. In this case you need a strategy to achieve your goals. You must take into consideration that it has likely been some time since you considered yourself at peak fitness.

Let’s first acknowledge that there are exceptions out there, who will defy everything I’m about to outline, and that’s fine. The exceptions prove the rule. and how you treat your fitness in your 40s will depend on how you’ve lived through your thirties. Most people have not kept a consistent exercise practice meaning they arrive at 40 knowing they need to make a change.

In my observation, your 40s are likely going to be the years that define the quality of your health moving forward. To determine how the quality of your life is going to look as you get older, which is why I theme this decade ‘preventative medicine’.

Introducing your ‘health-span’

We all know the term ‘lifespan’ but you may not have encountered the term ‘health span’. This is the period of life that we live in health, free of chronic illness or the debilitating effects of ageing. It’s in our forties that we should be starting to plan how to expand our health span. The aim is to maximise the part of the lives we live in great health and remain fully functional.

Emotional Motivation

A powerful exercise for boosting your motivation is to consider what excellent health & fitness might mean for your life. Or indeed what poor health & fitness might deprive you of. This could be things like your ability to enjoy activities with your children or grandchildren. Conversely, it could also be the implications health & fitness would have for your relationships or your career. Perhaps it could also influence your long-term mental health.

Be sure to ‘feel’ this task through, actually playing out poignant moments in your mind, as if conducting your own play. This is a powerful neuro-linguistic programming technique.

Store these emotionally charged moments in your mind. This is known as ‘anchoring’ them for use on the inevitable days that you just don’t feel like working out. They also often serve to put life into perspective.

How to get fit at 40

Correct the problems of your thirties: 

One of the greatest things you can do when you first turn your attention to health & fitness in your 40s is to correct the mistakes of the past.

For the majority of people, the thirties were a time of growing work, familial, and societal pressures. I’m not here to say that all of that is going to go away in your forties, it isn’t.  but it is an opportunity to take a look at your current lifestyle, and reassess your priorities. If you look back over the years you may notice that you’ve often lacked sleep. You might also note periods where you’ve failed to uphold personal boundaries. Perhaps you’ve allowed expectations on your time to add unnecessary stress. All too often we find ourselves at 40, having not exercised consistently. If any of this is true, it would suggest that health & fitness has not been your priority.

That’s not a scolding statement, nor a judgemental one, just a reminder that it’s easy to say or even believe that you treat your health as a priority. Anecdotally, you would probably confirm that it was important to you. Yet, if your behaviour suggests otherwise, there is a disconnect.

Once you’ve assessed your lifestyle you may find yourself With a laundry list of improvements to make. This may seem intimidating, and you could feel lost for a place to start. Significant lifestyle change isn’t going to be made overnight, in fact in my experience it’s actually less likely to be sustained if it’s done too swiftly, or all at once. but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a host of small changes you could make right now to see significant improvements.

For example, you might be surprised how much of a difference some morning light exposure, a short walk, 5-minute sun salutations, and a cooler room temperature at night would make to your waistline, not to mention your energy levels. If you want to make long-term changes, invest in daily incremental improvements, not short-term quick fixes.

Anyway, I say all that to say this, if your thirties weren’t all that you wanted them to be, this is an opportunity to correct course and ascend to new heights.

Stretch & mobilise: 

One of the most important health & fitness factors, as we age, is going to be maintaining mobility and a healthy range of motion. Failure to do this may lead to poor posture, avoidable injuries, and an ever-growing list of exercises and training modalities you feel that you just ‘can’t do anymore’. Believe me, I hear that all time, but you’d be surprised just how good your body can feel again after a little consistent mobility work.

It’s not uncommon for my inbound online personal training clients to report that they can’t squat, lunge, jump, do deadlifts, or run. Subsequently many discover that there is no structural reason for it. it’s just been years of poor conditioning and a lack of mobility holding them back, i.e. a completely reversible situation.

Many of those I’ve worked with have seen significant improvements in quality of life and pain-free movement with the simple addition of a 10-minute daily mobility regime. In fact, in a recent survey of my clients in this age bracket some 82.5% reported noticeable improvements in pain and mobility by carrying it out for 30 days. I’ve embedded the routine below for you, try it for yourself and let me know how much better you feel!

At this stage, you may be thinking to yourself, “All of this health talk is important, and I hear you, but what if I want to get in amazing shape in my 40s? Will it be harder? Is it still possible?

The good news is, the answer to those questions is Yes, absolutely, and whether that is your future is in your own hands.

I can tell you what will work, and pepper in some age-specific nuance I’ve seen work over the years. But ultimately, your success will be determined by the decisions you make over the next few years. and how many of these lifestyle habits you can get consistent with.

For years we’ve been taught about the declining opportunity to get in shape brought about by advancing years. So much so that conventionally, this article should be me telling you to take it easy now that you’re 40. I should be saying don’t train too hard, and basically don’t expect too much from yourself anymore. That’s not my message, with proper training and adequate recovery, you can achieve an excellent physique into your 40s and well beyond.

But don’t just take my word for it. Studies have shown that the dreaded age-related muscle loss and slowing of the metabolism (sarcopenia) is rather mild. Accounting for only a 3-8% decline per decade between age 30-60, hardly anything to stop you from making serious progress.

So what is my message? It’s a call to action that involves training smarter and re-prioritising your health. I don’t mean you shouldn’t train hard because your body can’t handle it at 40, but because more than likely your lifestyle can’t. If like many others, you may still be paying the bill for some of the fitness mistakes you made in your thirties. Ultimately this article is my attempt to help you clear that debt and get right back where you want to be.

Nutrition: Thinking beyond the numbers

This is a great age to start thinking about how food impacts your long-term health, not just your waistline. Of course, you’ll want to take care of the basics at any age. This includes knowing how many calories you are eating and what the right macronutrient distribution is for your goal. You would be amazed how far off the target many people find themselves here. It’s not uncommon for people to be eating for years in a manner that makes it mathematically impossible to achieve their goals. For example, trying to lose weight in a caloric surplus or gain muscle in a deficit.

Understanding your ideal caloric intake for your goals is one of the basic facets of nutrition. It’s a foundational aspect of a healthy lifestyle you should have covered and is one of the first things I take care of for my clients by providing them with a nutritionist-designed meal plan

So let’s take having all of that in order as read, there are some other considerations you should take in your 40s to consider your overall health.

Managing blood sugar

Being mindful of your body’s insulin response when making food choices is going to play a large role in keeping your body in good health. It may be the greatest preventative weapon you can deploy against becoming diabetic or pre-diabetic. It’ll also play a huge role in staying lean and managing your energy levels.

This chart shows the glycemic index of various foods. The higher the number the quicker the carb source is turned to sugar and enters the bloodstream.

If you are eating foods containing a lot of processed sugar, you are spiking your blood sugar. This causes energy turbulence and sets you up for fat gain or at least makes the loss of body fat more difficult to achieve. The idea here is to minimise this turbulence and allow your body to have a balanced release of energy.

Eat foods that are low glycemic index as a rule and when you do eat higher glycemic index foods, try to eat the ones on the healthier side like fruit.

Focus on inflammation:

Sometimes in life, it’s useful to think of developing a concerted focus on certain ideas. This allows you to develop what we might consider a ‘consciousness’. For example, if you want to improve your finances, you might develop a ‘money consciousness’. Forcing you to strategise and see opportunities to both save and make money. All are aimed at improving your situation, i.e. you would see things you weren’t previously attuned to noticing.

Using this mental model, I suggest that you adopt an ‘inflammation consciousness’. I would make this a priority because many of the most serious health problems in the modern world are diseases of inflammation. Left unchecked, inflammation is like an open invitation to illness and disease. One can gain a level of control of inflammation by monitoring various inflammatory triggers.

Below are some of the frequent causes of inflammation:

• Work pressure
• Medication
• Environmental stressors
• Temperature stressors
• Relationship troubles
• Poor digestion
• Inflammatory foods
• Bad posture
• Lack of sleep
• Emotional stress

To know the current level of inflammation in your body, you would need to test your blood. This is a practice you could consider to be an excellent health initiative every 6-12 months. If you do, seek out a local practitioner who can offer you a C-reactive protein (CRP) test.

This simple mental model of an ‘inflammation consciousness’ may help you take steps to keep inflammation low. Perhaps even below the threshold of experiencing common symptoms such as:

• Frequent illness
• Rashes
• Digestive issues
• Fatigue
• Stiff joints

One of the most influential factors listed above and also one of the easiest to control is avoiding an inflammatory diet.

As I advise my clients of all ages, you’ll want to ensure that you are on an anti-inflammatory diet, and this is particularly important as we get older. This contributes to a reduction in systemic inflammation. Also, from an aesthetic standpoint, helps reduce your body’s tendency to retain water or store body fat. This means that there could be considerable low-hanging fruit as far as weight loss is concerned purely by eating more optimal nutrition.

Consider that certain cancers, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and arthritis are all diseases that have been linked with inflammation. Both fish oil and Turmeric may help here as both have been shown to have impressive anti-inflammatory properties.

Inflammatory foods to avoid may include:

• Refined sugars
• Processed meats
• Fizzy drinks
• Processed milk
• Gluten
• Dairy
• Alcohol

Another important point here is to keep your lean protein intake adequate enough to preserve your existing muscle mass (and, along with resistance training, fight off the nefarious though overestimated villain of sarcopenia). This doesn’t mean going overboard and eating like a bodybuilder; just make sure you have adequate amounts of quality high-protein foods such as lean meat, eggs, nuts, and seeds.

You may also want to start thinking about your ratios of healthy fat to carbs. Many of us vastly overeat carbohydrates, especially in the evening, which gives our body a surplus of energy that we may fail to burn off.

As a result, the body converts the carbs into fat and stores it away for a rainy day (when you don’t have access to food) a great evolutionary function but unlikely to ever happen in the modern day.

Sleep & recovery: The underrated pillars of fitness in your 40s

As we age, the quality and duration of our sleep naturally tend to decline. But that doesn’t mean we should accept poor sleep and limited recovery as the new norm. In your 40s, when metabolism slows and recovery takes that little bit longer, prioritising sleep and adequate rest becomes a cornerstone of your health & fitness efforts.

How sleep patterns change in your 40s

By the time you hit your 40s, you may notice that falling asleep isn’t as effortless as it once was. You may also find yourself waking up in the middle of the night more often. These changes are often the result of shifts in hormones, stress levels, and even lifestyle factors like a poor diet or a lack of exercise. Making sure that you get a read on your lifestyle as a whole is always the first step in improving your sleep. This will allow you to see where both the low-hanging fruit and potential impediments to quality sleep are.

The physiology of sleep and recovery

During deep sleep phases, your body works on repairing muscle tissues, optimising hormone levels, and consolidating memory. It’s the time when human growth hormone (HGH) is released, which is essential for tissue repair and growth. Inadequate sleep can lead to increased levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, which can negatively affect muscle mass as it’s catabolic. It can also be an impediment to both losing body fat and achieving adequate recovery.

If you’d like more proof of the wide-ranging impact of sleep duration, most people don’t realise this, but a lack of sleep can actually increase your blood pressure.

Tips for Better Sleep Hygiene:

• Consistency is key: Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends. This helps regulate your body’s clock and could help you fall asleep and stay asleep for the night. Incidentally, it may also be beneficial to workout at the same time each day.
• Optimise your sleep environment: Keep your bedroom cool, as close to 18 degrees Celsius as you can. Also take steps to keep your room dark, and quiet. Consider using blackout curtains, eye shades, earplugs, or white noise machines to help accomplish this.
• Limit stimulants: Cut down on caffeine and alcohol, especially in the hours leading up to bedtime, both can be an impediment to restful sleep.
• Mindful eating: Avoid heavy meals and lots of fluids right before sleep. A light, balanced meal a couple of hours before bedtime can make a significant difference.

It’s important to consider that many of your body’s recovery processes are going to whirl into action as you sleep. So it stands to reason that the longer and better quality of sleep you can achieve, the more rested you’ll feel when you wake up.

One could make a logical case for the incremental performance and body composition improvements you’ll see with better sleep. But if you find yourself in your 40s still wearing a lack of sleep as a badge of honour, to the trained eye, it signals incorrect priorities more than work ethic. Accepting sleep deprivation as the norm in the name of your work is coming to the detriment of your health.

Training: What you should prioritise in your 40’s

If you’ve had a full-on training regime throughout your thirties, you’ll be able to carry that through into your 40s with no problem. Nothing is going to change overnight, simply because you’ve had a few more birthdays. For that reason, most of my recommendations about how to approach your health & fitness through this decade will be to help those make a start, or make up lost ground.

My recommendation is that you for your exercise efforts around these three main objectives:

1. Maintain muscle mass
2. Improve mobility, essentially to avoid myofascial problems and postural issues
3. Maintain a healthy weight and level of leanness that can be maintained year-round 

Any goals beyond this should be attempted only once you have the above managed in a stable and consistent way with a well-calibrated workout routine. This way you know you’ve secured the most important drivers of health as a priority. A way I would encourage you to look at fitness is that you’ve only really achieved it if you can maintain it, which then rules out all routes to progress spearheaded by crash diets and overtraining.

Let’s address each of the main three goals here:

How to maintain lean muscle at 40

Whilst you can set things up to allow you to build new muscle mass, past 40 perhaps your greatest priority should be never to compromise your existing lean muscle. You must send signals to your body that you’ll be using your muscles often. To offset muscle loss you basically need to convince your body that you need your muscle and plan to utilise it in the future, which makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint because it takes energy just to maintain it. I.e you and I have to eat more calories daily simply to maintain the muscle mass we have right now, so unless you utilise it, eventually, it will be jettisoned for efficiency.

The above is going to be achieved with resistance training, whether with free weights, dumbbells, bands or even to set up home workouts with household items. You won’t need heavy weights, at least not at the beginning, as the rep range is relatively high and we’re trying to get our initial conditioning.

For most people who are beginner to intermediate in fitness, I would recommend total-body workouts 2-3 times per week as the focal point of a fitness routine. Ideally, aim for 6-10 exercises with a weight that’s heavy enough so that you can comfortably perform 8-10 repetitions with good form but no more.

An example strength training workout might look like this:

Front Squat 4 x 10 Barbell Deadlift 4 x 10 Kettlebell Swing 4 x 10 Seated Shoulder Press 4 x 10 Barbell Upright Row 4 x 10 Incline Dumbbell Fly 4 x 10 One Arm Dumbbell Row 4 x 10 Barbell Bicep Curl 3 x 12 Overhead Tricep Extension 3 x 12 

Performing this simple weight-lifting workout twice per week would be a great place to start to cover your bases with a basic exercise routine. Interestingly the benefits of weight training don’t just extend to aesthetics. It will also help improve and maintain bone density as you age.

Improving mobility 

There are many ways to maintain and enhance your mobility. The degree to which you’ll need to focus on this area, and indeed the route you take will largely depend on how you have lived your younger life. If you feel like your mobility is already ok, then great: just keep doing what you’ve been doing up to this point. Just make sure that your workout includes plenty of core strength exercises.

However, if you are getting regular aches and pains, especially in the neck and back, and feel like your mobility is restricted, I would strongly recommend that you deliberately follow a mobility sequence every day.

Maintaining base fitness

Your core aerobic fitness is something that you always want to keep at a good standard because it makes so many of your everyday bodily functions more efficient. It will also help lower your risk of encountering a number of serious health complaints. However, you might want to be calculated in how you spend your time with aerobic exercise, particularly if time is hard to come by. Try High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), where you blast your body for a minute or so, get your breath back, and then do it again. A bit like old-school circuit training.

Excellent HIIT training protocols include Tabata training (20s work vs 10s rest x 8) or intervals, for instance on a rower machine, one of my favourites is 6x100m sprints with 20s rest periods. This way when you do get more time available you can lean into more socially oriented activities such as relaxing hikes or cycles for your longer sessions.

Differentiate light vs hard sessions

One big distinction that it pays to start making at 40 is the difference between a big training session and a lighter one. Not all sessions have to be full-on. Learning to listen to your body and distinguish when you would be better served with a light session is crucial for managing recovery and energy levels.

An easy way to do this is to monitor your resting heart rate. You can do this by holding your thumb over your wrist to check your pulse or on your phone, do this for a few days to establish a baseline. Then, if you notice a rise of around 10 beats per minute that’s a red flag and a sign that you’re fatigued. This is a clear signal to pull back on your training in the name of recovery. Typically, if I find myself in this situation, I’ll use some novel movements or do some light training in unfamiliar movement patterns. This helps tick some activity boxes without having to leave it all in the gym.

If you want to take this further, you might want to check out heart rate variability testing. I wrote a related article about it as one of my articles for The Telegraph, check it out here: Using Heart Rate Variability Testing To Improve Health.

Final Thoughts

There is no reason you can’t get into great shape and maintain an excellent fitness level throughout your 40s. Furthermore, there is no reason you can’t maintain an excellent physique through your forties, staying lean and athletic.

The deciding factor will be the degree to which you prioritise health & fitness. Aim to rest well between tougher training sessions, avoiding needless health risks, and working on a more active lifestyle. All of these will combine to extend your ‘health span’ and set you up in good stead to enjoy great health in the decades to follow.

If you would like to discuss working with me to help you with your health and fitness in your 40s, let’s arrange a call here.

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