If you’ve hit the ripe old age of forty, then you might be concerned that you’re now technically classed as ‘mid-life’. You might resign yourself to the fact that you a middle-aged ‘spread’ around your waist is normal, and that you’re only as young as you think you are. While the latter is very true, we do have to do a little more for our health as we hit our forties and onwards. When we take care of ourselves in a better way, we can slow down the whole aging process of our bodies by stimulating the production of growth hormones. So not only can you keep your weight steady and monitor your general health, you can help your body to feel younger too.

There are some undeniable changes in our bodies as we get older. We can lose muscle mass and the elasticity of our muscles if we aren’t careful about the exercise or strength training that we do. So that needs to be an important part of our workout regime. If we don’t give it a focus, we can end up later in life with feelings of weakness and loss of strength, which could lead to us needing to have help from somewhere like Assisting Hands. Our bodies can also change in their levels of circulation, making it harder to get the oxygenated blood around our body. So if you are looking to step up your fitness game in your forties, then you do need to think about it carefully, and perhaps even seek advice from a medical professional.

Our recovery time is going to be much slower than it once was. In your twenties you may have been able to exercise or go running each day. But in time, that slowly decreases and you’ll need a longer time period to recover. We can be more prone to things like muscle damage and tendon damage when we get older. So it is a good reason for doing things like pilates and yoga. While they aren’t high-impact, they are a great way to build up strength and core muscles. Not everyone fancies taking up running in their forties, but being able to do something like yoga can be a good idea.

If you want to be lifting weights, then a good route to go down is to lift heavier weights but fewer times. You don’t need to do lots and lots, but make sure that the weight is quite a heavy one (and that is totally subjective). Looking at doing some compound movements is also a good idea. These are large movements that will use more than one of your joints. Bicep curls, for example, are not the best idea by themselves. But do a lunge with a bicep curl, and it will be a better way to workout.

The main message is to keep moving, whatever it is that you enjoy. When you keep moving, you are able to burn calories, build up your strength, and maintain a good level of fitness and wellbeing.