30/08/2026
Getting Older Isn’t the Problem.
Getting Weaker Is!
There’s a point in midlife when it becomes very easy to blame your age for things that have slowly crept up on you. You don’t necessarily feel “old”, but perhaps you don’t move quite as freely as you used to.
There are a few more aches and pains, your energy isn’t what it was, clothes fit differently and the person looking back at you in the holiday photos doesn’t quite look how you still picture yourself.
Slowly we start accepting it. I suppose this is just what happens when you get older.
Some of it, of course, is. I’m in my 50s myself and I’m certainly not going to pretend that a 50 year old body is identical to a 25 year old one. But I think we’re far too quick to blame ageing for something else happening at exactly the same time: we’ve gradually stopped asking very much of our bodies.
Through our 40s and 50s we often move less, sit more, stop playing sport, spend more time working and generally become less physically demanding of ourselves. Muscle and strength that we once took for granted gradually disappear because we’re no longer giving our bodies much reason to keep them.
Then one day we notice the consequences and call it ageing.
That distinction matters. You can’t do much about the number on your birth certificate, but you can do an enormous amount about your strength, muscle mass, fitness, body composition and physical capacity.
This is also where I think a lot of people get midlife exercise wrong. The answer isn’t necessarily to start running five times a week, punish yourself with high intensity workouts or embark on another aggressive diet because you’ve come home from holiday unhappy with how you looked around the pool.
The answer might be much simpler: start building yourself back up.
Lift weights. Build some muscle. Get stronger. Improve your cardiovascular fitness. Eat enough protein. Walk more. Sleep better. Lose some body fat if you need to. Most importantly, do those things consistently enough to give your body a reason to change.
Strength training becomes increasingly valuable as we get older, and not just because of appearance. Maintaining muscle and strength influences how we move, how robust we feel, our confidence in our body and our ability to continue doing the things we enjoy.
But aesthetics matter too, and we shouldn’t be frightened to say it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being 45, 55 or 65 and wanting to look good in your clothes, feel confident taking your top off on holiday or simply like the person looking back at you in the mirror. Wanting to feel good in your own skin doesn’t suddenly become vanity because you’ve reached a certain age.
What does need to change is how intelligently you approach it. The body you have now has a training history, a lifestyle, perhaps some old injuries and a few more miles on the clock. Good coaching should take all of that into account. It isn’t about trying to train you like a 20 year old. It’s about making the 40, 50 or 60 year old version of you stronger, fitter and more capable than the one standing here today.
I see enough people through my coaching to know that midlife doesn’t have to mark the beginning of a slow physical decline. In many cases, it’s simply the first time people have genuinely started investing in their strength and health.
So if you’ve come back from your summer holiday feeling slightly uncomfortable in your own skin, noticing a few more aches and pains or simply thinking I need to do something, don’t automatically put it down to getting older.
You can’t stop getting older. But you have far more say in how you get older than you might think.
