As we age, we tend to become more susceptible to injuries caused by working out. We also have many more responsibilities and things that come before the gym. This can be why many of us do not continue working out as we age. This is something that you should not do. You should continue working out for as long as you can. Working out can help you to age better naturally. Here are a few tips for working out and staying fit as you age.
Divide your workouts
It is very important to divide your workouts into equal parts throughout the week. You will have to create a structured program for yourself. This will also help you to get an easy buildup and know when to taper off in your workouts. This will help you to avoid fatigue. It will also help you to gradually increase your workouts and prepare your body for these workouts.
Make sure you are recovering
You need to make time to recover if you want your body to stay healthy. You should be stretching and spending time massaging your muscles after working out. This will be very beneficial to you, especially for your next workout. It will help to keep your muscles limber and can help to prevent any degradation that you might experience as you get older.
Go hard; go easy
Some of your workouts should be high intensity workouts. These are also known as HIIT workouts. This will help your body to stay in shape as you get older. You will also have to adjust your workouts for how much you can do and this may change over the years. You should also have a balance of low intensity workouts. Every time you hit the gym, you should spend some time doing high intensity workouts and then cooling down with some lower intensity workouts. Many times, pre-planned workouts already have these high intensity and low intensity workouts built in.
Eat for building muscles
You should be paying attention to what you eat, but you should be eating in correlation to your workouts. If you are working out so that you can build and maintain muscle as you age, you should eat that way too. If you are looking to lose weight, so you will be healthier as you age, your eating habits should reflect this.
Learn new things
You should be learning new workout routines all the time. If you stick with the same workout routine all the time, your body will get used to it and stop making progress. Just like how you need to learn new things to keep your brain healthy, you need to learn new workout routines to keep your body healthy. Try to keep up to date with some of the trendiest workout routines and you will be able to stay in shape well into old age.
Pay attention to your body
Do not push your body to its boundaries. It will not do you any good and it will only make you more likely to get injuries. If something is hurting, pay attention to it. Maybe even visit your doctor so that you know it is not anything serious. Do not push your body past its breaking point, especially as you age, as it will be harder to recover and can turn into some serious issues. Pay attention to how your body is feeling to stay at your healthiest.
Some Ideas for Working Out
Not all of us have a large amount of time to set aside daily for working out. Shorter workouts can be just as good for you as longer workouts. If you are doing these workouts, and planning them, right, you can see some serious results. If you are doing shorter workouts, they will probably be designed as circuit workouts. Here are a few examples of workouts that you can do to get in a good amount of workout time in a short amount of time.
Stretch
You will need to lie on the ground and stretch before every workout. There are more intense stretches out there and they can range from stretching your shoulders, to your back, to your legs. You will only have to do a small amount of research to figure out what type of stretching you should be doing before each workout.
Yoga
You should do a whole circuit of yoga at least once a week. This is helpful so that you do not get injured during exercise or playing sports. You can do exercises like downward dog, cat, cow, and many others so that you can stretch out your muscles easily.
Glute Exercises
You will need to incorporate glute exercises into your workouts as this helps your lower body strength. It also helps your core strength which is great for you. Glute exercises can also help to build your overall strength as these areas, the core and the lower half of your body, help with many different exercises.
Plank Exercises
You should be incorporating at least one plank into every workout plan. You can also add pushups and other variations to your planks to help build your strength. Planks help to tone your whole body. It works your back, arms, core, legs, shoulders, pretty much anything you can think of. If you are doing circuit workouts, throw a couple planks in to help balance everything out.
Bounding Exercises
Bounding exercises help you to build up your speed and leg strength. There are many variations of these exercises that you can add into your workouts. It just depends on what you want to do with your body to determine which bounding exercise that you will want to incorporate.
Burpees Exercises
Burpee exercises help to keep your heart rate up and make you sweat. There are only a couple variations of these but they are a good way to keep your heart rate up while exercising.
