If you’re a woman in your 50s or 60s who’s been feeling out of touch with your usual vibrant self, you’ve come to the right place. Aging gracefully and maintaining strength is a journey that requires patience, dedication, and self-care. This checklist is designed to guide you through steps that will help you regain your strength and vitality. By incorporating these simple habits into your daily routine, you can be well on your way to embracing your age with confidence and staying strong well into your golden years.
There are three aspects to making sure you stay strong over the age of 50. The first is to make sure you are doing activities that build your strength. The second is to make sure you are staying active throughout your day. The third is to help your body recover faster so you can continue to build your strength on a regular basis. Let’s dive into each of these.
Bar none, strength training is the number one thing that needs to be done on a consistent basis to build and maintain your strength.
Many women are concerned about three things when it comes to strength training: 1. Knowing what to do to get results, 2. Knowing how to do it to avoid injury, and 3. Not getting too bulky.
Unfortunately, these concerns stop many women from doing strength training frequently enough, heavy enough, or doing it at all. But, by understanding some key principles that we call our Exercise For Life Principles, all of these concerns can be put to rest once and for all.
These Exercise For Life Principles are exactly what I teach you within my free Jumpstart To Strength for Women 50+ program that you can get access to here.
Once you start to implement these principles within your workouts, not only will you start to see your strength, function, and energy levels increase, you will also build your confidence in your body’s capabilities to continue to feel strong and function at a high level.
One last note on this – many women tell me that doing one or two days a week of strength training is enough for them, but that simply isn’t true. Male or female, once you hit the age of 35, your strength is naturally going downhill every year unless you start taking consistent action to combat that from happening.
While doing one or two days a week of strength training can feel like, “Doing something is better than nothing,” in my experience, consistently getting in a third day a week of resistance training makes a HUGE difference in day to day strength and function both now and long term.
Being sedentary for the majority of the day is one of the fastest ways to lose your strength, even if your body is staying injury-free. Make sure you are getting up and moving consistently.
This does not mean you need to walk for 30 or 60 minutes at a time. Instead I recommend my clients stand up and move for three to ten minutes every 30 to 60 minutes.
The easiest way to do this is to set the timer on your phone to go off after 45 to 60 minutes. When it dings, stand up, walk around a bit, and then feel free to sit back down.
Many women find this kind of activity to be very easy to get in throughout their day as they are hustling and bustling all day long between errands, activities, and the like. However, if you find that your day is more “slow-slow-slow” than “go-go-go”, make it a priority to find at least three times throughout the day to stand up and move for ten minutes.
Muscle Activation Techniques® (or MAT®) is the most effective way to make sure your muscles stay functioning well. While traditional strength training is like building the engine of your car, MAT® makes sure that your car’s battery is connected to the engine by keeping the communication between your nervous system and your muscles strong.
When your muscles become metaphorically disconnected from your nervous system, you lose strength, flexibility, and stamina and can have an increased risk of injury. However, through MAT®, you can keep your muscles functioning at a high level both during your workouts and throughout your daily life.
MAT® is one of those hidden gems that not many people know about, but for those who do know about it and have it done to them consistently, the effects of the work are life-changing.
Not only will MAT® help you feel and function better throughout your day, it will also help you recover faster from your workouts. Your workouts are a time to challenge your body and strengthen your muscles, but if your muscles aren’t working properly, your workouts can overstress certain groups of muscles.
However, with MAT®, by getting all of your muscles working well, you won’t feel your body getting overstressed with exercise, which will allow you to recover faster from your workouts and help you stay feeling strong and energized.
You can learn more about MAT® in our free MAT® eBook, which you can download here.
So there you have it ladies. Three things that, if you do them consistently, will help you stay strong and age-proof your life for years to come.
If you are wanting personal help with implementing any of this, I invite you to schedule a consultation and assessment with me. I have helped hundreds of women reclaim their strength and vibrancy, and I would love to help you, as well. I work both in-person with women in our studio located in Chicago’s northwest suburbs as well as online. Click here to schedule your initial consultation and assessment and I can’t wait for you to start feeling like your strong and vibrant self.
Julie