Creating A Fitness Strategy For The Rest Of Your Life
I don’t agree that once we’ve crossed that imaginary 40 year threshold we are officially over the hill. I don’t think this is true for 50, 60, or even 90! This “over-the-hill” mentality undermines the true capacity of our bodies and gives us an excuse to neglect our health and fitness as we age.
The fact is…
Our bodies are designed to thrive across our life cycle and I’ve seen it over and over that when we align our behaviors and actions with the biological needs or our body, we will thrive and grow strong. This can happen regardless of our chronological age (how many years we’ve lived), or even what chronic health conditions we endured.
You possess a gritty-ass body that can bounce back and even get stronger from everything that life throws at you.
This article explores some ways to align your goals with your biology to create a stronger, healthier, more vital body now and far into the future. I call this Infinite Fitness.
NOTE: This article is an excerpt from the book I’ve been writing, Infinite Fitness: A Fitness Field Manual For Men 40 and Over.
As a health and performance coach for men over 40, I often ask some hard questions to help my clients achieve the results they want. One question they usually don’t expect and that stumps them almost every time is:
“Let’s assume you’ll live until you’re 85. What do you want the last ten years of your life to look like?”
I encourage them to be as specific as possible.
What exactly do you want to be able to do?
Where and how do you want to travel?
What physical movements do you want to be able to do with strength and ease?
How do you want your body to feel while doing those activities?
What things do you not want to give up?
At first, because they’re caught off guard, they’re responses are pretty bland and general.
“I want to still be active.”
“I want to feel pretty good and still have good energy.”
“I want to be able to travel with my wife.”
“I want to enjoy my retirement and my grandchildren.”
I’d be a bad coach if I didn’t push back and encourage them to dig a little deeper. This is where a lot of the magic happens.
Most men I talk to assume that life is pretty much over after retirement and that it’s just time to chill out, rest, relax, and enjoy the last 10-20 years in comfort, recovering from a life of hard work and stress.
They might not say the words “life is pretty much over,” but that’s the sentiment they express through their bland, vanilla responses.
The problem is, most of us don’t have good models of men who are still living a full-out, adventurous life after they’ve retired.
We don't have a lot of examples of men who are still getting stronger despite their age, growing in both wisdom and resilience, and able to not only enjoy their golden years but to really live them.
So we see our parents fading away, view commercials of lethargic retirees sitting in Adirondack chairs watching the sunset over a lake, and assume that’s what retirement is supposed to be like.
Not me, no fucking way!
After a few minutes of pushback and asking my guys to really imagine themselves at 80 years old and what they really want to be doing, their responses change dramatically.
Once they remember that life is an adventure, nothing is guaranteed, and that we are all going to die sooner than we want, a different attitude surfaces. It’s almost like they're waking up from a stupor and realizing they can actually invest now in a bad-ass future self.
They can still be (or become) a person who has the physical energy, strength and endurance to do everything they want. When combining that vitality with more time, fewer responsibilities, and less financial pressure, they begin imagining a way more appealing picture of themselves later in life.
HOLD ON A SECOND!!!
Before you start thinking this book (article) is all about retirement and making compounding investments in your future self, I want to assure you this is a bonafide fitness field manual you can use to get in the best shape of your life now.
It’s just that by including your future self as a voting participant in the conversation, you can make decisions now that not only improve your immediate short-term fitness, but that increase the likelihood of you doing all the awesome things you dream about doing when you’re older.
Once my guys have that realization, their responses quickly change.
“I want to buy a house in Costa Rica and surf every day during the winter.”
“I want to hike the Pacific Crest Trail with my children and grandchildren.
“I want to travel to Monza, Monaco, and Silverstone to watch the Grand Prix in person and walk the tracks after the race.”
“I want to go elk hunting in Montana with my son and grandson every Fall.”
They’re in there. These dreams and ambitions that we secretly hope or assume will happen when we’re done working for a living. The problem is, life passes quickly and unless we plan for it, our dreams will come and go as just another wishful desire.
It’s one thing to hope and dream. It’s another thing entirely to plan and prepare for a compelling future.
Camp A: You should read this book (article) if…
You want a personalized, easy to follow health and performance program that will serve you for the rest of your life.
You want to be as healthy and capable as possible for as long as possible.
You want both immediate and long-term health and performance.
You want information that’s based on research from the fields of men’s health, longevity, functional nutrition, and exercise science.
You’re not resigned to simply fade into obscurity after you’ve retired.
Camp B: You should not read this book (article) if…
You’re only looking for short-term physique or fitness gains.
You just want to be told what to do without understanding what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
You’re looking for quick health and fitness hacks.
You’re not able to invest between 3 to 6 hours per week in your health and fitness.
You can’t tolerate occasional segues and stories that add more depth and color to the book, if it means a few more minutes of reading.
If you’re in Camp B, I’d encourage you to return this title before the refund date expires so you can get a few bucks back and buy yourself a cup of coffee.
If you’re in Camp A, let’s do this thing!
Ok, Your Turn
Before we start in on the specifics of your fitness program, please take some time and answer the following question:
“Let’s assume you’ll live until you’re 85. What do you want the last ten years of your life to look like?”
Some guidance to make this a more effective exercise:
Take your time with this question.
Talk with your wife or partner if you have one. Sometimes they remember our dreams better than we do.
Spend some time dreaming and thinking about a future where you are healthy, strong and capable…maybe even more than you are right now.
Be VERY specific!
What things are you doing or able to do now that you want to continue doing?
What activities are you unwilling to give up even to the last year of your life?
What things are you not capable of doing now (i.e. walking up 10 flights of stairs without needing a rest) that you want to be able to do in the near and distant future?
Once you’ve completed this exercise we can use your goals to reverse-engineer your health and performance program in a way that you’ll experience short-term results while preparing for a fit and healthy future life.
Why Infinite Fitness
“A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.” - James P. Carse
I’m under no illusion that we can become fit for all eternity. The reality is we’re all going to die and no matter what fitness program we use or fancy drug or supplement we take, our physical and mental faculties will change over time. My goal is to delay the degree and rapidity of decline.
To be honest, I liked the name Infinite Fitness and thought it would be easy to market. Also, much of my work and personal worldview has been inspired by the concept of finite v.s. infinite games which was introduced to me by the writer and philosopher James P. Carse.
When you’re sniping at a target from 1000 meters away, even a few degrees of inclination can greatly change the trajectory of the bullet and determine if you hit your target or not. I’ve found that subtle changes to my perspective often have far reaching consequences.
I’ve always been very goal and objective-focused…some might even say obsessed. When I learned and internalized this idea of infinite games, I experienced a sea change that impacted every aspect of my life. I started seeing my health and fitness, my relationships, my business goals, and personal finances in a way that made more sense and inspired a deeper feeling of confidence.
The Significance of Infinite Games
First, it reminds me that life and all its parts are a game. There are many reasons this is pertinent from a psychological and neurobiological perspective which I won’t bore you with. Suffice to say that when we approach anything as a game, we access the parts of ourselves that are willing and excited to play.
As a player, we amplify our capacities for competition, cooperation, commitment, patience, resilience and the anticipation of reward.
When we play simply to win or get the reward, we are often left feeling a little let down at the end. This is what a lot of adrenaline seekers and win-at-all-cost competitors refer to as the “come down period.”
When we play finite games we are sometimes left wondering what the meaning or purpose of all that effort really was. We then try to figure out how to succeed at the next finite game, and then the next one.
I’ve definitely experienced this myself and see it all the time in my friends and clients who are serial entrepreneurs and fixated achievers. This isn’t to say that winning, achieving, and getting the short-term feedback from our success isn’t good and necessary. It is. But, when winning is the only goal, our experience can lose some depth and dimensionality.
Infinite games, on the other hand, are not only designed for success, but to continue playing them for as long as possible…because we love playing as much as we love winning.
This means the choice of games we play is critically important.
Here’s a good but crude example from my early dating life.
When I was single and went on a date with a woman I was interested in, I would know within a few minutes of meeting her what game I was playing. If she was physically attractive, witty, intelligent, situationally aware, and the chemistry was good, the game I played was one where I wanted to continue our connection for as long as possible.
I secretly thought of these women as “wife potential,” and always hoped for a second, third, or fiftieth date.
On the other hand, if she was physically attractive but the social chemistry was off or her interests didn’t quite align with my own, the game I played was to win her into my bed.
My personality would shift as I felt more confident and energized by my single-minded objective to have sex with them. It was invigorating and fun but rarely satisfying.
Now in our forties, during late night conversations with my close guy friends over cigars and whiskey, we all agree that while the seduction game was always fun, it was rarely fulfilling in the long run.
Ok, so how does my dating life relate to your fitness goals?
Well, it’s important to carefully choose the games we play. Are you playing for life or just right now? Do you even know what game you’re playing?
The exercise we did in the previous section was designed to help you make the shift from finite fitness games to an infinite game mindset. This way all your short and long-term achievements become more meaningful in the full context of your life, and the games you play have more depth and fulfillment.
The Importance Of Sport And Competition
Bringing this closer to home, men who have a sport or activity they love to do are able to more easily shift into an infinite game mindset. As an avid outdoorsman I want to keep hunting, biking, surfing and backcountry snowboarding until I fall over dead.
In many ways, I feel stronger, more skilled and more confident now in my late forties than I did in my twenties and thirties, and I don’t expect this trajectory to change any time soon.
I’ve also recently picked up the game of pickleball. In fact, I’ve become semi-obsessed with this silly hybrid game of tennis and ping pong. We’ll discuss this more in the section on skill and agility training, but I believe it’s important for a man to have a physically active outlet.
Something you do regularly that you love doing.
That challenges you to get better.
That brings out your competitive side.
Your tougher side.
That motivates you to train not just for better health but to have a more competitive edge.
That gets you the hell out of the house!
Some guys I work with have been so focused on their career, their family, and being an amazing father that they’ve let go of many of the activities they were once passionate about.
They naturally assume that because they are now older they aren’t able to return to those sports because “what’s the point…I won’t be even close to as good as I used to be.”
For those of you in this situation, we’ll do a deeper dive exploration when we get to the skill and agility training portion of this book. In the meantime, I encourage you to reflect on the things you used to love doing or would like to try doing for the first time.
As an exercise, look for those activities, equipment, and clubs in your area. You don’t have to pull the trigger right away, but it’s worth whetting the whistle.
NOTE: I’ll be rolling out some chapters to my loyal subscribers every few weeks, and if you’re interested in getting the whole enchilada once it’s edited and published, I’ll be sending out a discounted presale offer in the next few months so please stay tuned!
As always, thanks for reading!
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