We’re proof you CAN beat your mid-life fitness crisis!
A compelling new book reveals how to be stronger and fitter than ever when you hit 50. Now read its secrets — and meet the women who say ...
The midlife birthdays fill us with a sense of restless urgency. As the milestones hove into view — 40, 50, 60 — we’re in a mood to take stock, re‑assess and make decisions to transform our lives.
But as our attitudes to ageing have changed — and as we live longer — so, too, has our concept of the middle‑aged life audit.
Gone is the mid‑life crisis inspired by the fear our best years are behind us.
Instead, we’re using these landmark birthdays as an opportunity to prove that our best years lie ahead; to preserve our youth and improve our health. To smash that 10k by 40. To get into wild swimming by 50. To pull off the
seemingly-impossible yoga pose by 60, 70, even 90. Now there’s a name for the phenomenon — ‘9- enders’, so called because it’s in the years ending in ‘9’ (39, 49, 59) that we reassess ahead of a big birthday, according to a new book, Fit At Mid-Life, by academics samantha Brennan and Tracy Isaacs.
What they’ve discovered after six years gathering responses from hundreds of mid-life women is that getting into shape when you’re a 9-ender is no longer about losing weight and dropping a dress size. rather, it’s about improving strength, building muscle and warding off both the physical and mental effects of ageing.
Nothing, it seems, acts as a greater incentive than an impending birthday with a zero at the end. studies show that when 9-enders run a marathon, for example, they do better than those two years younger or older because the spectre of a new decade spurs them to train harder. (researchers also found that male 9-enders were over-represented on extra-marital dating websites, but that’s another story.)
The more we learn about exercise in mid-life, the more crucial it seems.
Just last week, a study in the journal Neurology found that ‘very fit’ middle-aged women were an astonishing 88 per cent less likely to get dementia than those who weren’t so fit. Exercising, said the study, may be even more important to health as we age than staying slim.
When 50 loomed for authors samantha and Tracy, they decided to ramp up the challenge a notch further. As both hit 48 — and throughout the following 9-ender year — they pledged not just to get fit, but to get the fittest they’d ever been. Fitter than they were in their 20s and 30s. Fitter than they were at school.
They called it their Fittest By 50 (FB50) challenge and met it spectacularly. Unable to run for 20 minutes straight before the challenge, Tracy completed six triathlons by the time she turned 50, while samantha, a newfound cycling nut, logged 660km on a six-day charity cycling rally.
While such extreme goals may not be everyone’s cup of tea, a shocking number of us don’t exercise at all. Only 31 per cent of women engage in sport weekly, and almost a third of all women in England are completely inactive.
sadly, many of the reasons people give for disliking the gym, the pool or sports in general are based on misconceptions. Mental blocks that, say samantha and Tracy, are easier than you think to conquer. Here’s how . . .
I can’t go the gym — I’m too fat!
WE HEAr this all the time. Women miss out on the health benefits and the joy that comes from physical activity because they think they’re too fat to be seen out in public.
One of the key principles of the FB50 challenge was that we weren’t doing it to lose weight. For decades, exercise for women has been all about dropping dress sizes.
From the start, both of us rejected that picture. sam started the challenge a size 14 to 16 and that’s the size she stayed, though she became very much faster and stronger.
It’s important to recognise that you can be fit and what some would call ‘fat’ at the same time, and equally that there are lots of unfit thin people who would experience significant health improvements if they took up regular physical activity.
That said, we realise that body dissatisfaction can keep women away from the gym. A recent report for the Commons Health select Committee rated ‘fear of judgment’ as a key factor in women’s sub-par fitness levels, and reported women running on treadmills in garden sheds so no one could see them do it.
so here’s a shift in perspective that we want all mid-life women to adopt: imagine paying more attention to what your body can do than what it looks like.
Try revising the harsh inner dialogue that judges on the basis of looks, and instead visualise doing that elusive headstand in yoga, or running that 5K, when once you could barely make it around the block.
Weight training will bulk me up like a man
THE truth is, almost no woman will get muscles like a man just by lifting weights. It’s not part of our genetic predisposition. Testosterone is a key factor in supporting
muscular build, and most women’s levels are about 15 to 20 times lower than those of most men. Yet lifting weights, or resistance training, is really good for mid-life women, not least because it maintains bone density. When we hit the menopause, the protective hormone oestrogen drops dramatically and we undergo rapid bone loss in the first few years. Weight training is one of the very best things a fortysomething woman can do for her physical health. After the menopause, too, we can strengthen bone and muscle by lifting weights.
One 12-month study showed that with just two days a week of progressive strength training, post-menopausal women’s hip and spine bone density increased by 1 per cent, their strength by 75 per cent and their dynamic balance by 13 per cent, while the control group (who didn’t exercise) lost bone density, strength and balance.
Strength training also reduces the risk of falls and fractures.
I feel guilty for time away from my family
FUNNY, isn’t it, that nothing gets in the way of men playing their weekly football match, but women struggle to carve out guilt-free time to do the same.
Since women still do the bulk of the household tasks even when they work in jobs outside the home, it’s perhaps no surprise that they participate in sports at roughly half the rate of their male counterparts.
So try a form of exercise that doesn’t take so long. Highintensity interval training, for example, where you alternate between short bursts of effort and longer periods of recovery, is a method shown to produce big gains in fitness.
Or embrace running, which is relatively easy to fit into a busy schedule. Step out the door for half an hour before your morning shower and you can squeeze in that run before your family wakes up. Better still, find a sport that the whole family can do together — cycle, play volleyball on the beach, go on a hiking holiday. Meanwhile, just as you watch your children play sports, let your kids watch you sometimes. It’s good for children to see their parents being active. Role models matter.
I just don’t like any sporting activities
ExERcISE is on many a person’s list of ‘ things I hate’. And with the focus often on unattainable aesthetic results — the sculpted arms, the very lean physique — many women feel defeated before they even step foot in the gym.
There are genuine sceptics, who’ve tried it all, from rock climbing to rhumba and hated every minute.
These are the people who need a different strategy.
Either — if they care about their health — approaching exercise like medicine, to be taken in small doses and thought about in terms of ‘should’, not ‘want to’.
Or they’re the ones who benefit most from integrating exercise into their lives: park farther from your destination and walk the rest of the way; get a dog; take the stairs not the lift.
Having a commitment to others is great motivation. Exercise with a friend you don’t want to let down, or hire a personal trainer who still gets paid if you wimp out. Some will even fine you for not turning up!
Adapted by Alison Roberts from Fit At Mid-Life, by Samantha Brennan and tracy Isaacs, published by Greystone on April 14, price £14.99. to pre-order a copy for £11.99 until March 26, visit mailshop. co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640, p&p is free on orders over £15.