Is our quest for longevity just masking our fear of aging?
Diana can only hike Antarctica, Patagonia, and the Galapagos if she’s injury-free
I started training in my early twenties, and my clients were 45-65. Now I’m a bit older, and those same clients are 65-85. I’ve adapted my training style dramatically over that time, partly through continuing education, but mostly to adapt to an aging clientele (and my own aging body). My clients might want to run marathons and move heavy weight around, but they certainly have no business doing so. My job is to protect them from themselves and keep them healthy for the long haul.
I see the fitness/wellness industry slowly catching up with this new paradigm: much of the recent research centers on anti-aging, longevity, and age-appropriate training. But as usually occurs in this industry, we have a tendency to over-shoot. Marathons become Ultra-Races, Crossfitters over-train to the point of muscle breakdown, and septuagenarians join boot camps. We take tests online to distinguish between our chronological vs. biological age, and try to get the latter number as low as possible. Everyone wears some sort of body monitor (FitBIts, Oura Rings, Woop, etc.) to hack their way to a longer life, but when does our focus on longevity start masking a fear of aging itself? If our biggest goal is to avoid aging, does that make us agist to some degree?
I’ve trained George going on 20 years, and we’ll continue to navigate this aging process together
That’s partly what Dr. Becca Levy discusses in Breaking the Age Code: how specifically in America we view aging as a pejorative to be avoided, prevented, and even shunned. I share her concern, seeing myself and my peers train harder and slam more supplements in an effort to maintain our 20’s-era ability and physique. Ironically, as I have shifted my training and nutrition to be more appropriate for my age (eating less, exercising at lower volume, increasing recovery times), I’ve lost none of my strength and performance. If anything, I suffer far fewer injuries than my peers who are still pushing like 20 year-olds. I often wonder what would have happened if I had figured this out 20+ years ago…
This and years of therapy have helped me welcome the aging process, not fear it. This is good news, since Dr. Levy also points out a key concept: the more we stress about aging, the faster we age.
Jim is a role model for me: at 84, he still runs 5 days a week and could care less about his age
Simply increasing lifespan, though, shouldn’t be our goal: instead of just adding years, we want to add quality years. Dr. Peter Attia (Outlive) and Dr. David Sinclair (Lifespan) deal more with this idea: that Healthspan, rather than Lifespan, is the goal. If I over-train my body and push it too hard in an effort to stay fit as I age, then I’m just as likely to reduce my healthspan as if I’d been sedentary and done nothing. Too often I’ve seen a single debilitating injury sideline a client and drastically reduce her functional quality of life. It is very common in clients over the age of 70 to trace a decline in healthspan back to a specific injury, fall, surgery, or sickness. It’s not “age” we are trying to prevent, but rather the loss of life’s quality.
Will this nonsense help me when I’m 80? It didn’t help Ronnie Coleman…
Dr. Attia encourages us to train up our bodies to hit a higher peak in middle age. That way our inevitable decline is from a higher starting point and we can maintain our activity goals well into later age. I like this philosophy, but I need to coach myself and my clients that it doesn’t mean overtraining is the answer. Getting an injury while striving for a higher peak is self-defeating. How we peak is more important: none of us need to be heavy bench pressing in our 80’s, so do we need to peak on that lift now?
For me, aging has become an exercise in balance: work and life, weights and cardio, flexibility and stability, aesthetics and function. My older clients have helped me the most in figuring out what this balance looks like. Clients that have aged successfully have several traits in common. They stay active but don’t try to break records. They still work, but at their own pace. They have no fear of aging; rather they are enjoying this time. They don’t sweat the small stuff. When they look back, they don’t regret a max lift or a slow race; they regret not enjoying life more. In my early years as a trainer I was so focused on making my clients fitter and healthier…more like me. Now it’s my older clients who are the role models. They motivate me to age gracefully, intelligently, and without fear…just like them.
