Hey, it’s Alicia Jones here from Alicia Jones Healthy Living and for over 14 years I’ve helped transform the health and the lives of women over 50 through fitness and weight loss strategies.
I absolutely love when you write in with your health, weight loss and workout questions.
When you ask questions, not only are you finding solutions that work for you but you’re helping hundreds of women who have similar stories to find solutions that work for them too.
If you’ve got a question like the one I’m answering today, don’t hesitate to email me at alicia@destinationfit.ca and the next Q&A session will be geared to help you!
Today I’m answering this question:
“I’m 55 years young and I want to start a weight training program but I’m out of shape.
I walk and I participate in an occasional Zumba class and I enjoy it, but when it comes to weight training, the programs start off too hard, fast paced or intense from me.
Usually the workouts have pretty young things jumping and running around and I can’t relate or keep up. Especially with my sore knee.
I want to take it slow and I don’t want to injure myself. Otherwise, I’ll set myself up for another failure and I won’t keep it up.
Sometimes I even feel like I wasn’t built to exercise.
It hurts, it’s no fun. I know exercise and especially weight training is good for me, for my body and health, and I thought that would be enough to motivate me so I could do this on my own, but so far I haven’t found a way to stay consistent. I want to change this pattern.
How can I start weight training at 55?”
The Answer:
This exact person is one of the big reasons I have chosen to coach women over 50 only.
You get it! You get it more than any other stage does.
This time it’s about doing things differently.
This time it’s about finding a fitness program that’s uplifting, that’s positive, and that creates lasting change to better your health, to increase your quality of life, and to give you strength.
Whether that’s to be the best grandma ever or to be a confident and energized mother of the bride (or groom) or whatever your personal goal is.
All the while creating a lasting healthy lifestyle for years to come.
When you’re starting out, either after a long time off or if you’ve been doing some form of fitness but you’re inconsistent,
You’re so right to be ditching the high impact, high intensity workouts like jumping up and down.
It’s only going to make you feel sore, achy, and you’ll possibly injure yourself (at least at first).
This isn’t because you’re “too old” to do impact exercises, it’s because your body isn’t ready (YET) for high impact options.
It doesn’t matter what age you are, jumping into a high intensity fitness program without slowing down the movements and understanding the fundamental movement patterns of form is an injury waiting to happen.
Because speed competes with form.
The faster you go, the less you can keep proper form.
That’s why it’s important to master movement before adding impact or speeding it up.
In my signature program Over Fifty Fit & Fabulous we start slow, each participant does a fitness test to know where their unique starting point is, together we test the weight size you use, and during online one-on-one sessions I make sure the movements are adapted to your level.
Because this is about creating lasting strength and energy where you are right now.
When you’re getting started the First Point you’ve already figured out: Start slow and find movements that are enjoyable:
Movements should include Isometric exercises. These aren’t actually movements at all. Your joints remain still as you contract and hold movements for a specific amount of seconds or minutes. (Depending on the exercise)
For some easy to follow examples , I created a free workout for you called My favourite feel good exercises to burn more belly fat. You can download it here.
It’s slow, it feels really good and it’s a great starting point.
This is an often overlooked yet incredibly powerful technique to not only strengthen and tone your entire body,
But it also allows you the time to correct your form, realign your body and prevent injury ,all while you achieve healthy and lasting results.
The Second Point is: The Power of 3:
In the past, when first starting with both fitness and weight loss, it often tends to be an all out experience.
There’s this initial rush of motivation and excitement and starters want to workout everyday, or do “something” everyday in order to feel like they’re working towards their results, to feel virtuous and make healthier food choices.
There’s only one problem, that initial motivation wears off.
Either the body can’t handle all of the new demands, they feel sore, achy and overtrained
Or life gets busy, the motivation wears off and soon they can’t keep up the same amount of workout days.
That’s when slowly one missed workout day turns into two, then three and soon the inconsistent pattern starts again.
But you’ve already established that this time is different and you’re doing things differently.
So, it’s so important to embrace the Power of 3.
Do no more than 3 days of weight lifting when you’re first starting out. No more.
You can walk everyday, you can stretch everyday, but keep weight training (otherwise called strength training) to 3 days a week no more.
Here’s why you must start at 3 days only:
- It allows adaptation time: Especially over 50, adaptation rates change. You want to have enough days off in between your workouts in order to fully recover.
- It’s a mindset shift: It’s so important to use fitness and nutrition to enhance your life, instead of using it as a punishment that takes over your entire life.
Knowing less can actually give you more results frees up your time while creating the strength and energy to enjoy all of the activities you want your results for:
- You garden all day long
- You go to sleep feeling accomplished and wake up feeling refreshed
- Your favourite pair of pants feel loose when you put them on.
You have fitness as a part of your life to enhance your life, not the main focus of every waking moment of life. and that’s how you stick to fit.
If you need a starter’s workout that puts these simple strategies into practice, you can download your FREE Feel Good Workout to Burn Belly Fat here
Then schedule just 3 days to do the workout. That’s it! You’ll start slow and feel firmer and stronger in just a few weeks!