How to Stay Fit After 40 – A Comprehensive Guide From a Personal Trainer

How to stay fit after 40… It’s a problem that many people battle with, because it’s a funny time of life.

There’s a chance you’ll be a parent, and your kids might be near, or already in, their teenage years. If they’re anything like mine, they’ll be attending sports and that eats into your spare time.

Professionally, you’ll likely be carrying a lot of responsibility. You’re no longer a junior member of staff, you’re experienced in your career. You might be managing or directing a business, and that carries with it a lot of physical or mental load. Your stress levels and working hours might be significantly greater than they used to be.

And then there’s the physical reality of being in your 40s.

You don’t recover as quickly as you used to. A heavy workout takes its toll now. Your injury resistance reduces. Little aches, pains and niggles creep in where they didn’t use to.

So far, I’m not painting a great picture of being in your 40s from a fitness standpoint, but don’t worry – I’m going to use the rest of the article to explain how to stay fit after 40.

I’m a 41 year old (at the time of writing) personal trainer and I want to explain how I stay fit after 40. I appreciate the realities of training at our age, because I am that person. I have kids. I have a business. I have the realities that limit most people.

What Changes In Fitness After 40?

In reality, not as much as you think. It largely depends on your starting point.

If you’ve spent your life really unfit, you’re about to learn that even long after 40 you can look and feel so much better with a training regime.

If you’ve been a regular exerciser throughout the last decade or so, it’s likely the only real difference you’ll notice is the slowing down of your recovery. If you used to recover from a workout within a day, it might take you longer. DOMS might stick around a little longer for example.

The important take home is that you absolutely can stay fit after 40, but if you want to maximise the gains you make, you’ll have to do things a little differently to how you did when you were younger.

Here’s how to stay fit after 40…

Pick Your Exercises Wisely

This sounds like obvious advice, but there’s a little more to it. Younger, more elastic tissues have a higher resistance to injury. There are certain exercises I used to do, that I have tweaked now thanks to injuries.

I used to dumbbell snatch a lot, but I dropped them from my programming having suffered an incredibly painful disc bulge in my lower back. I still want to perform the movement pattern though, so I use a kettlebell to perform the movement.

It’s largely the same exercise, but the small reduction in range of movement with the higher handle makes it safer for me.

Another exercise is the deadlift. Thanks to lower back issues, I’ve switched to a trap bar for my deadlifting. The reduction in shear forces on the lumbar spine, plus the easier technique mean I’m performing a hinge, but in a safer way.

There’s even some research suggesting it’s a better exercise anyway… Comparison of Straight and Hexagonal Bar Deadlift.

Emphasise Range of Movement

As your joints age and you move them less, they have a tendency to seize up. The best way to prevent this is to use them for a full range of motion.

There are several ways you can increase the range of motion with an exercise. Dumbbells are a great example. Take a bench press for instance. With a barbell the exercise stops when the bar reaches your chest. With dumbbells, you can lower them beyond the range of your chest, making your shoulders work through a full range.

Exercises such as step ups also help you to keep your hips and knees healthy and working through a full range. This is especially effective if you don’t squat very often, or you struggle to hit a good squat depth. Step ups seem to allow a greater range of motion at the hip.

For exercises such as pull ups, prioritise range of motion over reps. Go from dead hang to chest to bar, even if that means you perform fewer reps. It’ll be better for you in the long term.

Make Your Workouts Intentional

There’s a concept in fitness programming known as ‘junk volume’. It refers to exercise(s) that serve no real purpose other than to add volume to a workout, or keep your heart rate up.

One of the biggest risk factors in exercise is poor form (usually due to fatigue) leading to injury. One way to avoid this is with making your workouts intentional. Keeping your cardio days for cardio, and your strength days to strength. That’s not to say you can’t do conditioning days where you mix the two, but it means you should be careful.

If you’re experienced in the gym, it’s fine to mix training modalities. If you’re new to exercise, I’d reduce the risks by keeping your cardio days to cardio, and strength days to strength.

Prioritise Power Training

It’s vital that you make power training a feature after 40. This is to arrest the natural decline in power as you age.

A study titled ‘Age-associated loss of power and strength in the upper extremities in women and men‘ was published in 1997, charting the loss of power in the participants as they aged.

The researchers stated that “Over a 25-year period, repeated measures were taken. Strength and power declined beginning by age 40 in both women and men. Thereafter, power declined about 10% more than strength.”

Whilst it’s a good idea to ensure you do a lot of power training at any age, it takes on extra importance after 40 if you want to maintain athleticism.

Exercises such as jump squats are a perfect way to do power training. They’re simple, effective, train a lot of muscle in one go and really help to develop power. You can also perform olympic weightlifting movements and general plyometrics to work on power.

Push Yourself… You’re in a War!

There’s a tendency to think that as we age, we need to take things easy. I think the opposite is true.

My internal monologue is that my training is fighting decline, so I want to put up the best fight I can. I’m not willing to surrender to age, so whilst I might make choices to make exercises safer, I’m making sure that the exercises are no easier. 

The easy way to assess whether you’re training hard is by how you feel. If you feel tired and like you’re struggling to get through a session, then prioritise recovery over intensity.

The other way to make a judgement on your exercise intensity is with a heart rate monitor. If you have access to a heart rate monitor, you can track real time data on your exercise intensity. You’ll know not only how hard you’re training, but how long you should be recovering for afterwards.

There’s nothing wrong with training hard as long as you’re training sensibly. You can’t just beat yourself up and not make good decisions around your recovery.

Take Recovery More Seriously

One of the big issues with keeping fit after 40 is recovery. The younger you are, the faster you seem to recover.

When you train as you’re older, you need to place more emphasis on your post-workout recovery. This could look like using a sauna a after a workout, improving your sleep and nutrition, wearing infrared clothing etc. Whatever works for you.

The extra attention you give your recovery will help you to stay consistent, and that’s a vital element of staying fit after 40.

Reduce Volume, Increase Frequency

An overlooked aspect of recovery is limiting the ‘damage’ you do to yourself during workouts. If you reduce the amount of volume you perform in a workout, but perform more frequent workouts, you achieve the same but you don’t accrue the damage.

A huge workout may take 2-3 days to recover from, losing you the other training days. By reducing the volume by 20-25%, you’ll likely ready to train again the following day.

I’ve noticed that 4-6 workouts of around 45 minutes each are far better more my consistency, fitness and recovery than 3-4 workouts of an hour or more. This is especially true when it comes to power or cardio workouts. Short, sharp and frequent workouts work better more me now I’m 41.

Stay Consistent!

The speed at which your body reverses its physical capacity speeds up as you age, so it’s more important than ever to stay consistent with your exercise.

A workout doesn’t have to be brutal every single time – sometimes more gentle movement is appropriate. That could look like going for a walk, taking an easy bike ride, a basic strength session at the gym. The important thing is the consistency.

For example, on days when I know I don’t have time to complete a full workout, I’ll get 4 or 5 sets of pull ups in, 4 or 5 sets of push ups and 4 or 5 sets of air squats. It’s not a world-class workout by any stretch, but it helps to keep a semblance of activity in my day.

Another important consideration is your daily movement – also known as NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis). This daily activity could be walking to the shops, taking the stairs rather than a lift, walking to work rather than driving. The kind of daily activity that burns calories, gets you moving and prevents you from becoming too sedentary.

How to Stay Fit After 40 – Final Thoughts

There’s no magic bullet, but if you follow the advice on how to stay fit after 40, you’ll continue to maintain great physical capacity well beyond your 40s. To sum up, here’s the advice…

• Pick your movements wisely – think safety first
• Always use a full range of movement
• Keep a workout focussed and intentional
• Prioritise power training
• Push yourself to work hard
• Put some effort into your recovery
• Reduce training volume, increase training frequency
• Maintain consistency

Stick to these principles and you’ll stay fit after 40 without any issues at all. No more excuses, you’ve got all of the tools and information you need now. Let’s get to it…

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