8 Tips For Staying Healthy and Fit For Men Over 40

hey guys Steve here single dad fit dad calm thanks for taking the time to watch this video today I wanted to talk about something for us old guys it’s about being fit over 40 I’m 43 and know what it’s like firsthand to struggle with some things that I’m not used to struggling with you know I’ve spent the last 25 years or so in and out of jams exercising training for certain events and I’ve been pretty fit my whole life and as I’ve started to get a little bit older more specific more specifically the last few years I’ve noticed some changes in my body but kind of always thought that I would be kind of invincible forever and never have any problems and you know some of you know I just got surgery on my elbow and it’s still hurting and now you know I’m finding out that I have what may turn into a hernia at some point from just the overtraining that I’ve been doing you know just I’ll share a quick story with you last summer I got it I decided to get into the best shape of my life so I trained my ass off I was doing probably four to five really hardcore cross-training type exercise sessions per day coupled with additional cardio on top of that so maybe running or whatever hiking and I was burning a ton of calories I was doing a lot of plyometrics a lot of jumping specifically haibach’s jumping so it’s doing really high box jumps I would be doing all kinds of crazy stuff and what happened was I started feeling a pretty significant pull in my abdomen got worse I used to you know Advil he I did out the whole thing and didn’t get better so what happened was I actually had to take you know a month off didn’t get any better two months three months four months five months something about five months I’d put on about you know ten pounds of fat I hadn’t done anything I was just trying to recover and you know it came down to me on knowing my body well enough to walk away when I should have I kind of pushed through it initially and so when I got back into training earlier this year I started right around the first of the year really hitting the gym hard again after that layover and what happened was you know within four to five weeks and this just happened not to look you know a few weeks ago I started feeling that same pain again so I finally went to the doctor looked at it and said yeah there’s some pressure there you know you may have a heart down the road you may not but you need to modify what you’re doing you can’t keep doing the workouts you’re doing and that really hit me hard because I’ve never had any issues I’ve always been able to train really really hard you know I just I love being the person at the gym that’s working harder than everybody else you know I like when someone looks at you to me and says I look at that guy you know he’s you know he’s probably in his 40s look at our hardest training you know and I feel good about that but you know I’ve come to learn I can’t do that so what I wanted to do is just share a couple of things here I’ve got any things on the board that for guys over 40 that you know should be mindful of these things as you’re getting older first one is your muscle mass you know right around age 40 it varies for different people but right around age 40 we’re going to start to lose about 1% of our muscle tissue or muscle mass every year so um you know just be mindful of this so don’t do any exercise and we’re eating our typical crappy diets you know what’s going to happen over the course of 10 years right our body fat is going to slowly come up the muscle tissue that we have comes down and we’re going to get you know more overweight and as the years you know build you know 155 60 years old you know we’re sitting around at 35 percent body fat and you know we’re not the mole people that we want to be you know we’re not the grandfathers that you know we want to be where we’re running around their grandkids because we can’t move right so you know one thing that we have to mindful of is you know let’s combat that right get in the gym start training at least maintain that so tissue okay lifestyle enrich our lifestyle a lot of 40 year old plus dudes live a relatively sedentary lifestyle you know minute tens at tens of millions of white-collar workers out there that do nothing right they sit at a desk hunched over head comes forward they sit like that for 810 hours a day for 10 15 20 25 30 years at a clip and so you know when they finally decide hey I’m 40 years old I’m gonna do something I’m gonna be this fat piece of shit for the rest of my life scuse me um they go to the gym they start exercising they look at something on YouTube or a magazine or whatever and they get hurt they’re dumb right look at your lifestyle you know and then you know base your workouts and your exercise sessions based on your lifestyle don’t try to go from a zero to a ten go from a zero to a one or two take it slow you know I take all of my clients really slowly you know the main thing is let’s not get hurt right you could get hurt you can exercise so stretching rolling out okay 90% of the people I see in the gym and have over the years don’t stretch at all right I get changed they go right over to the machines or the wherever the weights and start exercising right me I spend a full five minutes on foam roller I spend a full 10 minutes with a dynamic warmup I make sure my entire body is warmed up I mean I do this every day and I cool down and I still get hurt so for the people that aren’t doing that the chances of getting injured are much greater so if you haven’t used a foam roller get one watch a video I’ve actually got one that I’ve recorded they have not posted it yet but really important especially for people that sit a lot really formal that body is going to help you with your flexibility over time get annual exams and I started getting physicals every year a couple years ago not the most pleasant thing but you know you got to get those things checked right you really do including you know the dreaded prostate exam which you know I’ve had the misfortune of having a couple of them this year for different reasons which early last year and just and it’s obviously not a great thing but really important catch that stuff I mean that’s killing you know that’s killing millions of men so just start getting checked out you never know what’s wrong for you I would never have known that I had this tumor on my arm had I not gone and gotten a scan I just thought I was tendonitis put a wrap on it it wasn’t tendinitis at all it was severe arthritis and a huge-ass tumor on my bicep underneath my bicep muscle eating the hole in my bone I would never have known that had I not gotten checked out so don’t be stupid you know get your get it checked out get get a scanner we get blood work check for diabetes check for all those other things you never know okay um yeah also say though you know get your thyroid and your adrenal glands checked as well and there’s tests for those you know miles conversation with my doctor was you know what tell me about energy and we started getting into that and she said you know have you thought about the possibility of your your adrenal fatigue syndrome I said mmm I’ve had clients were they but not really and so she started talking more and more about it I realized that you know that’s a possibility you know some of the symptoms that I have that’s possible so we’re going to get that checked out I use weight bearing exercises okay like I said we start losing muscle tissue you know at age 40 start using those weight bearing exercises to help with that so any weight bearing exercise anytime we’re working against gravity so because it can be something as simple as walking running hiking one of those things you know non weight-bearing activities would be you know jumping in a pool or or getting on your bike diet nutrition make sure you get your nutrients you know I just can’t talk about the importance of diet enough especially when you’re a little bit older you know we’re just going to keep getting fatter as we’re getting older you know our diets if we don’t really take a look at them improve them now not going to get better you know we have a real you know a need for you know the antioxidants and the fiber and all those types of things but just also a good clean diet you know start making good choices eating better foods because you know I’m petrified of being 50 years old and immobile or feeling like shit having no energy to actually enjoy my life you know I want to travel I want to do a lot of things in my life I can’t do that if I’m injured or obese or hunched over my shoulder of a neck and lower back or all killing me you’re not going to want to travel the world and seeing all the things that you always wanted to see when you feel it you just feel like absolute shit so to carry yourself now you know you’re still 40-ish you know whatever old you are got a lot of years you know just take care of yourself you know my grandmother lived my grandmother lived until she was 99 so you know if I look at it like that she lives actually a pretty good life she just she died of old age I mean she never had anything wrong with her so you know the genes are in my favor and from that standpoint but yeah I mean think about that I’m 43 years old and that’s that’s a long time to go I don’t want to spend it feeling like a piece of shit and then you know last one is really read your body know also very important you know I know my body pretty well probably better than most I know I just am a little bit stubborn so I pushed it last summer or push a little bit too hard but now when I started feeling that same pain even though it really killed me to back off my training I immediately recognized alright this is the same pain in my abdomen I do not want to her knee because if you get a hernia there’s no repair other than surgery and the last thing I want to go and is another surgery so I’m going to back my type of training down yeah I can’t go out and go crazy and do all the shit that I was doing and running 12 mile an hour sprints and jumping all over the place and you know I love that type of training but you know I have little more realistic and you know I would suggest the same thing for you get you know don’t don’t lift or train with your ego use your head read your body something hurts stop you know I mean it sounds obvious but it’s really true it’ll don’t push through the pain you’re going to hurt your shoulder trying to go crazy with the bench or trying to impress everybody with squats you’re going to throw out your lower back just you know be smart about it you know if you have some questions you want to kind of throw some ideas out with me you know I’ll be happy to share some of my experiences and comment what’s worked for me and what hasn’t just kept me up email Steve at single dad fit dad calm thanks God