Aging is a natural process that occurs in every living being. It is not confined to just humans personal training. Plants, animals, and birds, even naturally occurring radioactive and chemical elements, age over time. This is defined as chronological aging.
As we transition into adulthood, our life undergoes several changes. We tend to excel in many aspects of life, such as career, business, and relationships.
Similarly, at times we have to experience various setbacks. The way we outgrow these complications dictates our strength, resilience, and persistence and indicates healthy aging.
Personal training is an essential part of healthy aging. It is very important to keep your fitness level in check to stay fit, not just in your twenties but in your fifties also.
Biological Aging
Besides chronological aging, there is one more type of aging – Biological Aging. Science defines it as “The impact of the accumulation of a wide variety of molecular and cellular damage over time.” This causes a sudden decline in mental and physical capacities. It also leads to an increased risk of disease. Various lifestyle changes are also indirectly related to aging and lead to early aging.
The Way Science Defines Fitness
As biologists and experts define it, fitness is the state of being mentally and physically healthy. A high degree of fitness is associated with a decreased risk of chronic diseases and a greater capacity to handle emerging health problems. Improved fitness encourages more functionality and increased mobility.
Movement and fitness are intertwined. Engaging in physical activities improves mobility, and mobility improves overall physical fitness.
We can break down fitness into two subcategories – physical fitness and mental fitness.
What Does It Mean to be Physically Fit?
Experts define physical fitness as the ability to perform everyday tasks efficiently. Our body systems coordinate to provide us with the physical strength, endurance, and resilience to execute various aspects of sports and all sorts of daily activities.
You must be wondering how our body coordinates to keep us physically healthy. Well, the answer is quite simple. Five subsystems harmonize and give our body the energy to stay physically active.
Cardiorespiratory System and Fitness
Our body needs energy continuously during physical activities. This energy is produced by Mitochondria present inside cells. The skeletal muscle Mitochondria require a sufficient amount of oxygen to keep generating energy.
The ability of the circulatory and respiratory systems to provide oxygen to the mitochondria of skeletal muscle is known as cardiorespiratory fitness.
Muscular Endurance
Muscular endurance, in simple words, is the potential of a muscle or group of muscles to sustain recurring contractions against a force over an extended period of time. Therefore, it is crucial to build muscular endurance in order to engage in physical activities for a longer time period.
People often confuse endurance for strength. Strength is only the ability to exert a force, but endurance is the continuous exertion of force.
Flexibility
Flexibility is the capacity to move joints efficiently over their full range of motion.
We often overlook the significance of this factor of physical fitness. It is important for everyday motion and to provide the joints with the necessary comfort.
Balance
Balance is a key element of fitness. It is defined as the ability to stay in a position both stationary or while moving.
Speed
Speed is the quick movement of the body or parts of the body.
How Does Aging Affect Physical Fitness?
The body is very quick to develop and grow during the early years of our childhood. Years into teenage, the body composition and proportions start to vary due to hormonal (mainly estrogen and testosterone) changes. This is when the body takes its ultimate shape and form.
The timeline between the age of 15 to 30 is when the body is at its best performance. Beyond this age, everything starts to deteriorate slowly. The level of calcium in bones starts to decrease. Bone density declines due to the loss of other minerals, which makes the skeleton weak and more prone to injuries and fractures.
Similarly, muscles also stop conserving calcium, electrolytes, and water, and this leads to the lowering of muscle mass and overall body strength.
With aging, the ligaments’ and joints’ flexibility declines. This limits our range of motion and stiffens the body. Because of this, some physical activities become very challenging to carry out.
The Effect of Aging on the Cardiopulmonary System
Aging affects the whole cardiopulmonary system. It weakens the heart’s muscles and reduces the elasticity of the lungs. This makes it difficult for the cardiopulmonary system to supply oxygen to muscles and organs.
This change, due to aging, directly impacts the body’s capacity for endurance and lengthens the time it takes to recover.
What Does It Mean to be Mentally Fit?
Unlike physical fitness, mental fitness does not involve muscular work. Instead, it focuses more on the mind and mental well-being of a person.
It is the ability to cultivate a positive and healthy thought process and adopt the best approach to process emotions.
A high level of mental fitness assists in staying healthy and vibrant throughout our lives. Just like physical fitness, there are four pillars of mental fitness – Emotional, Financial, Physical, and Social.
How Mental Fitness is Affected
Emotional
Emotional well-being is the state of being emotionally aware. If you can manage and process your emotions by adopting a positive and healthy approach, then you are mentally fit.
Sadness and anxiety are natural feelings that serve to alert us, protect us, and motivate us to act. This is good for you! However, when these feelings become upsetting, excessive, persistent, unreasonable, or interfere with daily life, they are considered unhealthy. Depression, anxiety, stress, and sorrow can all be treated with therapies and tactics such as cognitive behavior therapy, relaxation, mindfulness, and ‘talk’ therapy.
If you notice that you are not operating normally and that something is bothering you, now is the time to learn more about what is going on and possibly get treatment.
Financial
We often overlook this factor and forget how heavily it impacts our mental health.
Money causes more stress than we can imagine it to. When people are stressed, their mental health suffers from that stress.
Those who suffer from depression and anxiety are impacted by stress and financial worry. Money-related stress might worsen pre-existing mental health disorders. However, it can also exacerbate existing mental health issues, affecting your emotions as well as your mood. In addition, stress over money can have a bad effect on confidence and self-esteem.
Physical
Physical factors that directly alter brain chemistry and contribute to mental disease include birth trauma, brain damage, and drug abuse. More often than not, poor physical health can have an impact on a person’s self-worth and capacity to achieve their goals, which can result in unhappiness or even depression.
Social
The social environment plays a significant part in the development of psychiatry. It is influenced by a number of factors, including social class, gender, household structures, race and ethnicity, and other social situations, such as social security systems, disability, health care institutions, and labor markets.
The social structures impacting employment, family, income assistance, and medical care substantially impact an individual’s ability to manage their mental illness effectively.
The Role of Personal Training in Fitness
Everyone wants their 50s to be as healthy as their 20s. Our overall health personal training (be it physical or mental) deteriorates as we age. This does sound scary, but with a little motivation and the right strategy, we can achieve ultimate fitness.
Whether you exercise at home or prefer going to the gym, a personal trainer might assist you in achieving your fitness goals.
A certified personal trainer is someone who has received training in designing and putting their clients’ workout regimens into action. Alternatively, they’ll assist you in performing exercises and making other lifestyle changes to achieve your fitness objective.
A personal trainer will not just instruct you to exercise only but will also give you an insight into your own body, health, and fitness. They have also specialized in topics including exercise science, human physiology, behavior modification, body mechanics, and more. They can teach you the right technique, how to utilize particular equipment, and which workouts will benefit you the most.
In addition, they can instruct you on more advanced health and fitness subjects that will support your effort to live a healthy lifestyle.
Based on your unique experiences and talents, a personal trainer can help you set reasonable and doable objectives. They can also assist you in making progress along the way.
The hardest bit to do when it comes to exercising is being consistent with it. Working with a personal trainer will provide you with the motivation you need to exercise, whether in person or over the phone, not just during your meetings but also, ideally, at least a few other times during the week.
If you are looking for personal training or simply guidance regarding personal training, you can head to Strong Over 50. You can even register yourself as a personal trainer or member.
