You can start playing sports at any age. For women who have crossed the age of forty, such activities are especially important. Sport improves health, improves psycho-emotional state and allows you to remain young and beautiful.
The main thing is to choose the right types of physical activity and not forget about a sense of proportion during training. Let's look at the most suitable sports for this.
Race walking or running
Running helps strengthen your heart, increases bone density and muscle mass, strengthens your joints, and relieves stress. But this is intense physical activity, so you should start running gradually. You can alternate the exercise with walking: for example, 3 minutes of walking and 2 minutes of running for 30 minutes. Over time, you should increase the duration of your workout.
For people with poor physical fitness, race walking can be an alternative. It has even more advantages than running: when walking, the stress on muscles and tendons is not as intense. This sport can be practiced every day. Walking helps you lose weight and reduces the risk of heart disease, and is good for preventing diabetes and thyroid disease.
What are the benefits of fitness after 40?
You can play sports at any age, naturally, the earlier the better. According to statistics, many people after 35-40 years begin to dramatically gain excess weight, which has an extremely negative impact on health. Excess weight in 30% of cases leads to the formation of malignant tumors in the breast, uterus, and intestines. Also, in 50% of cases, excess weight and a sedentary lifestyle cause many diseases and early death.
About the relationship between age and the start of active training >>
What changes occur in the body after 40 years:
- After 40 years, people experience a decrease in muscle mass as muscles begin to dry out quickly. Closer to 40 years, a person’s lifestyle changes, he works less, moves less, as a result of which the body begins to accumulate fats, which interfere with the normal functioning of organs.
- Also, after 40, many people constantly experience stress. Since with age, women react more sharply to negative factors from the external environment. As a result of constant stress, the body produces cortisol. The hormone cortisol leads to the accumulation of lipids throughout the body.
- Also, after 40 years of age, women experience serious changes in their bodies. And many people experience menopausal syndrome. At this age, a woman's estrogen production decreases, which causes lipid production to increase. And such fat accumulates on the stomach, in addition to this, it also accumulates under the skin. Fat envelops the internal organs of the abdominal cavity, thereby disrupting their normal functioning. This often causes serious problems, in some cases even leading to organ failure.
- Also, many women after 35 begin to suffer from venous insufficiency. It becomes difficult for a woman to walk or stand for a long time.
Only if you follow these rules will fitness be beneficial even after 40 years. If, for medical reasons, it is forbidden to engage in fitness, then a woman should not despair. Fitness classes can be replaced with swimming or water aerobics.
Organization of loads
First you need to decide where you plan to exercise: at home or in the gym. You need to train 3-4 times a week.
Exercises at home
You can exercise not only in the gym, but also in the swimming pool, cycling, and dancing. If you can’t go anywhere, you can do it at home.
Fitness for beginners after 40 at home has its advantages:
- do not waste time on the road;
- study when it’s convenient for you;
- you don’t have to be ashamed of your figure;
- workout to your favorite music.
Disadvantages - there is no desired equipment, exercise equipment, homework is distracting. And I consider another significant disadvantage to be the lack of recommendations from a professional trainer.
Group training in the gym
After working out at home, I learned from a colleague who regularly attended group classes about the positive aspects of group training.
These include:
- Availability of specially designed programs for each muscle group.
- A professional trainer who controls the process, advises and monitors the correctness of the exercises performed.
- There are no concessions or concessions. At home you can rest for about 5 minutes, there you only had a minute, you give it 100%.
Well, the main plus is that my rivals motivate me to achieve, and looking at slimmer women my age and older, I feel embarrassed about my appearance. There is a desire to prove to yourself that you can change and should!
Time, food and sleep control
Food is gasoline for our body. The higher the quality of the fuel, the better the engine performs. Sleep is maintenance. Giving up adequate sleep in favor of watching TV or staying late at night affects you more than you might realize. One of the problems here is work. Often, older people have quite serious positions, which also require them to work overtime. And also children. Or work and children.
Most people are completely bad at managing their time. They spend it on unimportant things and spend too much time watching TV instead of going to bed early.
Life is never perfect, and many times we have to change our plans on the fly (especially those with children), but getting those around you to respect your daily schedule is critical.
For example, all of Andrew's friends and acquaintances know for sure that they will not receive a response to their messages from him after 20:30. At these hours, preparations are already underway for the next day. It may have something of an old man feel to it, but without proper sleep you won't have the energy for an intense workout tomorrow. In order to have enough strength not only for training, but also for work, you need to sleep at least 8 hours.
Another important point: take a nap during the day. Although this sounds even more “old”, for a person who continues to exercise twice a day, this break is important. In total, Andrew sleeps 8 hours at night and 1 hour during the day.
About the training program
Each woman should independently create a training program, taking into account her physical capabilities. Therefore, it is very important to undergo a medical examination, since some exercises may not only not be beneficial, but also cause the development of various diseases, injuries and damages. It is advisable that the workout include both strength and aerobic exercises. Only then will it be possible to achieve maximum benefit.
With the help of constant training, a person can extend his youth by several years. Exercising allows you to avoid many health problems. Many people after 35 years begin to suffer from insomnia; fitness will help cope with this problem. Fitness also helps to get rid of excess weight, which is one of the main causes of serious illnesses.
About proper nutrition for women and girls >>
It's never too late to start playing sports, the main thing is that fitness brings pleasure. And then the woman will not only preserve her youth, she will also improve her health and maintain a beautiful body. In addition, playing sports will break up boring everyday life and put you in a good mood for several days. Therefore, it follows that fitness after 40 years is very important for women, as it helps maintain the overall health of the body.
What exercises are best for a woman to do after 40?
The benefits of fitness for women after 40 years of age have been proven. However, not all exercises are beneficial. Therefore, drawing up a training program should be taken seriously. After 40 years, strength exercises are not recommended for women. The following exercises will bring more benefits to a woman’s body:
Sprint in place
This exercise helps protect bones from weakening and strengthens them. You need to start the exercise with a warm-up run, and then increase the speed, moving your arms more energetically. It is advisable to raise your knees as high as possible. For people with a low level of physical fitness, 20 seconds will be enough for the first time; those with a higher level need to do the exercise for at least 30 seconds.
Burpee with wiggle
With this exercise you can quickly lose weight, as it is aimed at speeding up your metabolism. It must be performed as follows: you need to sit down and rest your hands on the floor. Then sharply throw your legs back. The body should assume a plank position. Then you need to do one press. After which you need to return to the starting position.
For people with a low level of physical fitness, 9 repetitions in several approaches will be enough for the first time. The load should be gradually increased, so the number of repetitions should reach 20-25 over several approaches. The break between approaches should not be more than 60 seconds.
Reverse lunges
This exercise is useful for a woman’s figure; with its help, a woman, even after 40 years, can tighten her gluteal muscles. For best results, it is recommended to do it using dumbbells. It should be performed as follows: take dumbbells in your hands and move one leg back, squatting slightly.
After which you need to return to the starting position and immediately after that raise the same leg up to chest level, and simultaneously raise your arms with your leg. For a woman who has just started playing sports, it is enough to do 8 repetitions on one leg. Women who have been involved in sports for a long time are recommended to do at least 10 repetitions.
Grand plié with arm extension
This exercise targets the triceps and inner thighs. To perform it, you need to stand up, your back should be straight, your legs should be shoulder-width apart, your arms with weights should be raised. After the starting position is accepted, you need to rise on your toes. Then squat smoothly. Your hands should be behind your head while squatting. For a woman with a low level, 12 repetitions are enough, for a woman with an average and high level, 20 repetitions are enough.
Pendulum exercise
This exercise is beneficial for all muscle groups. In order to do it you need to: stand up and keep your back straight, your hands can be placed near the body. Then you need to sharply throw one leg to the side and distribute all the weight on the other leg. Then the same must be done with the other leg.
On the third repetition, it is advisable to hold the leg in this position for several seconds when abducting the leg. It is advisable to move your legs as far as possible to the side; the other leg can be slightly bent. To begin with, 10 repetitions are enough; it is recommended to increase the load to 17-20 repetitions. 3 leg kicks to the side count as one repetition.
The following types of exercises are also useful for women at this age:
- Squats, but no more than 30 approaches.
- Ordinary lunges.
- Torso bends.
- Exercise "Bicycle".
- Exercise "Scissors".
- Push-ups, but no more than 20 times.
- Walking in place.
- Jumping.
Do men need fitness?
Fitness for men after 40 is no less important than for women. Using the example of my husband, I noticed: they also suffer from excess weight, joint pain, muscles weaken, fatigue and shortness of breath appear.
Attention! A sedentary lifestyle, alcohol and smoking lead to increased blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases, which in turn provokes a decrease in testosterone levels and, as a result, problems with men's health.
Abdominal exercises, pull-ups, push-ups are important for men. You should select a program depending on your training and health status. Start with minimal loads, gradually increasing them. Do not neglect swimming, cycling, walking, give up bad habits.
Fitness for beginners after 40 is available to everyone; if you don’t have the money or time for a gym, you can exercise at home. At the same time, work with breaks, change programs, do not exercise occasionally and lead a healthy lifestyle. If you do everything correctly and consistently, the results will be visible within a month. Don't sit at the computer, let's go for a walk!
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Misconceptions women have about working out in the gym
If I go to the gym, I will become a “jock” with a bunch of muscles and a masculine figure
I can declare with full responsibility: this does not threaten us, that is, women. A lot has been written about this; on the special “women’s page” of any specialized bodybuilding website you can find popular explanations from masters of their craft. But we don’t really believe them, because all this is written by men, and we are women. And you try to organize a trial visit to a couple of different gyms, and talk about this topic with the instructors, I assure you, their reaction will be completely identical. And a condescending grin with an eloquent sigh (how naive they all are!), and a slightly contemptuous look at your not at all athletic figure (You should at least bring yourself into divine form!) will make you doubt your own fears. And practical training in the gym will quickly convince you that the “mountain of muscles” is like the moon for you. Really like the moon. Tested by our own experience for 7 years.
Working out in the gym is useless
In the gym you can get injured, “strain yourself” or something like that
And in general, weights only cause harm to women’s health. No, none of this is true, you just need to study the issue, contact a competent instructor, follow the principle of gradualness and listen to your body.
I hope I managed to convince at least someone. Look at a selection of photos of these adult women (found on the Internet). They all deserve respect and admiration - some are just starting to attend the gym, while others have even become models and instructors.
Why are you worse? All that's left to do is start!
With age, every woman needs more effort to keep herself in shape. After the age of 30, fat folds become more and more visible on the waist and hips, muscles lose their tone more and more, and the skin loses its firmness and elasticity. By going on a diet, of course, you can lose weight, but not for as long as it was in your youth. Metabolic processes slow down more and more over the years, and fitness after 40 for women is the right decision and option that will help maintain an ideal body for a long time.
