When Is It Too Late To Start Exercising?

When Is It Too Late To Start Exercising?

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There is no time like today to get active. Researchers analyzed people who were not active when they were younger, but who increased their exercise levels after 40 and became more active than they were when they were younger. Studies show declines in their risk of dying early that were similar to those of people who had exercised consistently throughout their lives — a reduction of 32% to 35% compared to people who didn’t exercise.

Declines in heart disease and cancer risk were similar to the steady exercisers, too. The more you increase your exercise, the more you increase your health benefits, no matter when you start your fitness journey. The late starters seem to enjoy just as much of a boost as the early birds.

Although it’s good to maintain an active lifestyle at all times regardless of your age, nevertheless one good thing is that if you have not been active, you can still benefit if you start becoming active in your 40s and 50s, based on recent clinical studies.

You don’t have to be a gym freak your whole life to make a difference. You don’t even have to do long intense workouts every day. Small amounts of exercise can add up to big changes.

One bit of bad news: the protective effects of exercise need to be constantly renewed. Consistency matters!

Also Read: Benefits Of Raising Your Legs Up Against The Wall! Viparita Karani!

When Is It Too Late To Start Exercising?

At FITrebel.in we suggest ways to make sure you keep moving, steadily and steadfastly.

When Is It Too Late To Start Exercising?

Keep Your Goals Small And Realistic

Start with minimal-intensity exercises after adequate stretching. As you work out every day, your body will adapt slowly to the increasing loads put on it, so you can steadily increase weights or sets towards your fitness goal. Start with a combination of improving flexibility, aerobic capacity, and strength. Ideally, the focus of your first few months of exercise should be to build good cardiovascular fitness, stamina, and endurance.

When Is It Too Late To Start Exercising?

Get A Medical Opinion

The first step before starting any workout is to get your family physician to evaluate how fit you are. Although moderate physical activities like swimming, brisk walking, and aerobics are fine if you’re healthy to start with, it’s advisable to get a complete medical check-up done to rule out any heart disease, asthma, lung disease, high blood pressure, or diabetes. If you suffer from any medical conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, or asthma, the doctor’s visit becomes a must to discuss your goals and fitness levels.

Find An Activity That You Enjoy

Enjoying a workout is most important—that’s what will ensure you keep at it. Don’t push yourself too hard, overexert, avoid fatigue and injury by taking it slow, and you will continue to progress. Add in a variety of exercises for the whole week and vary your workouts. The goal is to stay active, be it inside the gym or outside. Take the stairs, walk to the car, use public transport while you travel, be active.

Motivation would be low for first-timers so it’s best to find a group exercise or friends with the same fitness levels as you to keep you going to class. Stick to it until it turns into a habit.

Don’t Skip The Warm-up

If you are in your 30s or 40s, it means you’ve lost the amazing flexibility you had to start exercising as soon as you got up. When you’ve done no exercise for a long while, muscle fibers shorten in length, leading to tightness. Straining these muscles before they loosen can lead to injury. Warm-up stretches the major muscles of the body, increases the blood flow, preps the joint for the full range of motion, and provides the aerobic requirement for endurance training, reducing the chance of muscles and tendons from getting injured.

Begin a workout by stretching the shoulders, chest, neck, trunk, lower back, posterior and anterior legs and ankles for at least 10 minutes. Hold each stretch for 30 seconds, with five repetitions.

Get Proper Gear

Fitness injury can occur because people do not use proper gear.

Tight-fitting clothes are a strict no. Wear fabrics that absorb sweat and don’t stick to your body.

For shoes, opt for ones that are well-padded, with good shock absorption. If you have any joint pain, add supportive gear like wristbands, knee-caps, or ankle bands. Change shoes every six months because the cushioning wears out.

When Is It Too Late To Start Exercising?

Correct Your Diet

Around the latter part of your third decade of life, some of the body’s functions start declining. Skin elasticity, metabolism, immune efficiency, repair processes, production of key hormones, strength, and flexibility, all start going down.

You can change your diet to adapt to these changes, though it’s better to stick to your normal diet for two weeks after you begin exercising. Change it gradually to add in complex carbs like brown or red rice, wholewheat products, soy products, beans, ascorbic- acid-containing fruits, green leafy vegetables, grainy bread, and pulses. Pack in the protein with egg whites, lean cuts of chicken and fish, milk, soya, paneer, pulses, and ragi, and don’t forget an everyday dose of vitamin D by walking in the sun, preferably in the morning.

Drink plenty of water before, during, and after exercise, for you can lose up to 1.5 liters of fluid in an hour while exercising, says Agarwal. “Keep sipping water during the workout, avoid caffeinated drinks, and make sure you drink at least 3 liters of water per day.

Learn To Train Properly

Badly executed exercises are a sure-shot recipe for injury. The first step to avoiding one is to work out with an ergonomically correct posture. A correct posture ensures your body is aligned with respect to gravity, so there’s lesser stress on your muscle groups, your core muscles engage more effectively, and you get maximum output with minimum stress.

Check your posture when you’re doing an exercise by viewing your body profile in the mirror: The earlobes, tips of your shoulder, trunk, the bony part of your thighs, knees, and ankles should all be in a straight line. Any deviation from this alignment—say, if your ears are in front of your shoulders, or your shoulders roll towards your chest—would mean the posture is wrong and could injure you.

Learn to master proper workout form here!

Know Your Limits

A certain amount of discomfort during an exercise is normal and inevitable as you’re challenging your body to do more than it is accustomed to—but you should stop if you experience pain because something could be going wrong. Stop right away if you feel pain and take a rest till it’s gone. Look out for excessive pressure in the left or middle part of your chest, or the left side of your neck, left shoulder, or left arm, muscle cramps, dizziness, sharp pain in your joints, feet, ankles, or bones, or irregular heartbeats. These are all signs of something going wrong during the workout.

Also Read: Workout for a Flat Belly, 7 Exercises To Consider!

The Conclusion

It’s never too late to start taking care of yourself, and it’s never too early, either. Whether you started early or later, keep going throughout life. And spread the good word about exercise for health to the younger generations, who have grown distressingly fat and lazy.

One of the best ways to lead is by example.