I’ve been marking and naming decades for awhile now.
My thirties were for family, obviously. My kids were born in 92, 96, and 98.
I decided that after that time with small children that my forties were for fun. I even had a blog partly about that that’s disappeared into the ether. It was on Friendster. Remember Friendster? When it went away without warning I lost my blog and only the posts that I’d written in another program and saved as drafts were available to me. Here’s one from 2006 on why I decided to quit Goodlife.
And this blog got its start when Tracy and I planned to be the fittest we’d ever been in our lives when we turned fifty. This blog and our fifties were about fitness.
But even then for Tracy and me it was mostly triathlon, rowing, and riding bikes. Yes we did other stuff. We both did strength training. However, it was–for me at least–mostly in support of other activities. I’ve never had goals attached to strength training. It’s never been my main thing, my focus.
My knee surgeries might have changed that for me. See A real life lesson in muscle loss and aging. Ever since that hospital stay I’ve been thinking about strength. I’ve also been thinking about strength related goals and about what my fitness life would look like if I put strength at the center.
Of course, I want to hike and bike and go on long canoe camping trips. But I see now that if I want to do those things as I age, a lot of what’s required is serious strength training.
There’s other kinds of strength too–emotional strength and resilience matters too.
I’m turning 59 this summer. That gives me about a year to think about what this means and if it’s a theme I’ll choose for my sixties. Will my sixties be for strength? Let’s see.
Where does strength fit into your fitness life?
In my mid fifties and I’m starting to think about a transition to more strength focus. I’ve never given it priority before, as a cardio junkie. And just plain person who loves being outdoors, but I’m sensing that’s a refocus coming.
Cardio and strength, to me, at least, are not either-or. They feed each other very nicely. I have always been on the strong side, and I have worked with a trainer for strength for a long time. Not exactly necessary, but it keeps me honest. I am 71, and have not really lost any noticeable strength by doing what I do. It involves my more-or-less weekly sessions with my trainer, and doing what I can (for a small woman with very gray, almost white hair, it is sometimes tricky when younger people are around) to be sure I haul my own luggage around the airport, carry fairly heavy stuff around (like carrying my groceries out to the car – or bike – without the cart), moving furniture as needed at home – just generally making sure I use my strength most days. And biking, a bit of running, yoga, and tap dance classes round it out. I guess it seems to me to be more a use-it-or-lose-it thing rather than a need for a very structured effort.
From the many of your posts I have read, it appears to me that you, too, are a naturally strong person, so I bet you will find it satisfying and not very hard to achieve your goals!
I have also set strength training, or at least resistance training (I don’t need to bench press my body weight or anything of that nature), as my focus to take me into my sixties. I’m back to Nia Shanks and trying to wrap my head around a regular strength training routine again.
Personal training, on your own at home, or in the gym?
At home or down in the gym on-site for now. I am back to basics. Might rejoin a gym when I retire, a a way of plugging into a sense of community that I will inevitably lose when I stop working.