Let’s Talk Workouts

Lifting Weights is an important addition to your program as you age.

Let’s talk workouts. I’ve been active since I was a kid, playing softball, swimming, and living for field days at the end of the year. Do you remember those? Team tug of war, three-legged races, relays, and victory ribbons galore. I loved archery, dabbled in dance and gymnastics for a hot minute, and cheered in junior high before it became a serious athletic sport. I’ve been a runner in some form for most of my life. I did track and field and cross country when I was little and outside of a brief handful of years between junior high and college when I was too cool to sweat, running has been my longest-life partner. I’ve run 5k’s, 10k’s, half marathons, and full marathons. I’ve run in the sun, rain, snow, wind, early morning light, and dark of night. I’ve even run through a couple of hurricanes. You can take the girl out of Florida but you can’t take Florida out of the girl. I enjoyed working out so much in my twenties that I became a personal trainer when I was a new wife. At the time my husband’s job was geographically unpredictable and a personal training certificate was something I could take to any state and rebuild a client base. So at that time weight training became a staple in my activity arsenal. I liked feeling strong and sculpting muscles. 

I worked in a women’s gym and loved being around an assemblage of ages who took health seriously and I got a first-class education on how exercise was beneficial to women as they got older. There was the 80-year-old in the front row of the advanced level step class, looking like she could have taught it herself. There was the limber and graceful yoga teacher in her 50s who still moved like a toddler, bending and twisting her body demonstrating where yoga poses could take you with practice. I decided then these were the type of women I wanted to emulate and that health would always be a value I would prioritize. 

I moved to a different gym and met someone who would become one of my dearest friends and mentors. At the time JZ was employed at the children’s gym next door and working on a master’s but would come next door to work out and we would chat, while I worked the floor. There was always such focus and programming in the workouts I watched her do. I realized then that while I had a fondness for working out, I did not have a fondness for training people who hated to work out and needed someone to make them. I made a career switch in that season but continued as a member and started following JZ around the gym like a puppy. We forged a strong friendship that has lasted 20 years and she is the most compassionate person I know who is also ardent about women aging well. She studies constantly how to make her programming better for women. She works on her body to make it the machine she wants it to be and shares what she learns with her clients. She doesn’t entertain any excuses and has no problem telling you when you’re being ridiculous. She believes women can and should lift heavy. She understands the importance of weight-bearing exercise as women age to strengthen bones and backs that carry all of the burdens that we do. 

I’ve gone in spurts of being really consistent with weight training over the years but I get bored and go back to just running with an occasional day of squats and pushups thrown in for good measure. Or I sign up to run a marathon and then a pandemic hits and six months of regular training turns into two years of grueling training at 50. I did incorporate strength training targeted for running while I did the Peloton Marathon Training Program but last year when I couldn’t fathom any more miles I went crawling back to JZ and asked her for a program. All the running mileage I had put on my body over the last two years had taken a toll mentally and physically. It’s one thing to run for fun and respite but when you are charging toward a bucket list goal, it’s easy to get out of balance. 

I am now back to regular strength training. It’s planned out, it’s thoughtful and it’s progressive. I can already see more definition in my shoulders and upper body and my butt is lifted, can I get an AMEN. When I do run, I feel stronger and it’s fun again. No more nagging hamstring, piriformis grumpy gait. The astounding thing to me is it usually only takes me about half an hour to get it done. Maybe 45 minutes if the HIIT section is a little longer. I’m not killing myself and I’m getting results that I’m happy with. But the best part is I know I am setting up my future self for success. She will be able to lift things up over her head, squat down and gather things off the floor, and hoist heavy photo cases as long as this crazy career requires. I want to be just like “80 Lady” who has been coming to the gym for over 40 years, working with JZ, and can still back squat and deadlift like a boss even though her eyesight is gone. There are no excuses. It doesn’t require extremes but it does require consistency. 

So why is weight training so important for aging well? We all know there is a lot more sitting on our asses than we used to do when we were working our homesteads and farms. We have machines to wash our clothes and our dishes. We have farmers to grow our food and delivery drivers to bring it to our doorsteps. Can you even think of the last time you had to exert yourself? (Crickets) Exactly. I live in New York so at least three or four times a week (thanks to my children’s play set-sized NYC apartment refrigerator) you can find me loaded down with bags from Trader Joe’s schlepping up Columbus Avenue. That’s one of the trade-offs of living here versus Suburbs, USA where I can drive to the store in my air-conditioned car, shop for two weeks of provisions, maneuver my cart full of groceries through the lot, and pop them in my trunk. Strength is a prerequisite for not dropping dead in the middle of a Manhattan street. In most other places modern life is a cake walk and the old adage “use it or lose it” isn’t an old adage for nothing. If we don’t use these beautiful bodies that we were given, we will lose them. We will lose strength and stamina and muscle and bone. That doesn’t make old age sound very fun to me at all.