What Is In Store for You in 2024? Or 2034? Or 2054?

The year is not yet over but it might be a good time to give some thought about your well-being and your company’s well-being in preparation for 2024.  This year has been a good year in terms of good refereed publications supporting physical activity to include strength training (resistance exercise) to promote overall well-being. 

I have a question for you.  No matter your current age, what do you want your physical health to be like when you are 80 or 90 years old?

• Do you want to have the ability to be mobile?
• Do you want to have the ability to get out of chair? To go up and down stairs?
• Do you want to have the ability to pick-up your grandchildren?
• Do you want to have the ability to unload your groceries from your car and carry them into your home?
• Do you want to better manage your stress and anxiety?

I hope your answer to those questions was yes I want to have the physical ability to be mobile and strength to perform required daily physical activity. 

What you physically do today at age 30, 40 or 50 is not what you will be able to do when you are 80 or 90 unless you begin to prepare your body now.

Every day your body ages and the rate of aging increases the older you get.  One critical factor that impacts physical ability is the status of the strength of your muscle.  For the most part today, our society does not promote physical activity and especially resistance exercise.  We have known for years, that the human body loses about 30% of its strength from age 30 to age 60 and then after that the loss is accelerated further.

But there is good news.  The human body is a phenomenal machine!  It is made to work.  Work the muscle and it will stay strong or even get stronger.  The loss of muscle that occurs naturally with aging does not have to occur at the rate that it does – it can be dramatically reduced through resistance exercises.

On a personal note, I will share with you that I just turned 80 years of age.  I do 30-minutes of strength training 3 times a week (M-W-F) and then on Saturday I do a special 30-minute routine for leg strength so I can continue to climb stairs, to lift, carry and push and pull.

So as 2023 comes to a close, give some thought as to where you want to be physically 20, 30 or 50 years from now.  Use this time to prepare yourself physically so you can enjoy life when you do turn 70, 80 or 90.  The critical activity you can start doing today is to reduce your daily sedentary time.