What is middle age?
I recently asked a question on twitter if you are in your 40’s, 50’s or 60’s how would you describe yourself? Middle age?
Bearing in mind I have a fit following and lots of runners on twitter. There were some great answers and so good to see. These answers really focused for me on mindset. This is how I feel.
But I know not everyone feels this way.
I decided to get my old books out from when I trained to become a Personal Trainer and look up the definition of middle age and I came across a table of the stages of aging and middle age in adulthood is the age range of 30 -44 years! Scary isn’t it.
But this definition is based in what happens in our bodies at this age.
If we regularly do Pilates and other fitness regimes the areas, we tend to focus on are muscles & strength, bones and joints and our flexibility. This is curical as you will see below to help stay fit and healthy as we age.
What’s happening to our mucsles, bones & flexibility as we age.
Muscles and strength during Middle Age
As we grow and develop, we tend to reach out maximum muscle strength in our early 20’s and we can keep this going until our mid 40’s. From there due to age, we tend to start to lose muscle function and this is also due to less physical activity as well.
Your bones
This is an area we tend to focus on especially as women as we know the consequences of weak bones. Osteoporosis.
Bone loss starts in women around 30 and men around 40. Earlier than you thought?
Flexibility
The loss of flexibility starts in your 20’s and not helped as we move less.
Looking at it all like this it feels as though we have no hope and are bodies will start not to work as well as we age.
BUT you can do something about Middle Age
You don’t have to let your age define you and become a text book statistic. This is a great article from Harvard T.H CHAN School of Public Health about starting exercise in middle age. You can read it here
You can work on your strength, balance and flexibility and improve or stop the decline that happens. Pilates can help as part of your fitness regime.
It’s so important to bring movement into your life daily. I think Lockdown has proved this to a lot of people. Yes, you might have to work harder as you get older to keep your strength & flexibility. But if you want to move and do the things you use to then YOU NEED TO DO SOMETHING about it.
No, you are not old
It’s not too late
You just need to start.
So, if you are in your 40’s. 50’s and 60’s and still working?
Finding it harder to get out of bed in the morning?
Then let’s start here, with this quick 10-minute Pilates stretch video.
You can try it here
