Your Strongest Years Are Not Behind You

Forget getting your old body back. Build the body that will carry you forward.

swinging a kettle bell

I had one of those moments this week where I caught myself thinking about what it means to get older. Not so much in the traditional sense of birthday candles and numbers, but in the perspective of what my body is capable of, how I train myself, and who I am becoming.

And this thought kept coming back to me: Your strongest years are not behind you.

Popular media will have you believe that we should all be striving to achieve the body we had in our 20's. But at 45, I am not trying to rewind the clock. instead, I am striving to become the strongest, healthiest and most capable version of the woman I am today.

We have been sold the wrong story about getting older

There is this idea that ageing is a problem and we have two choices: accept it and decline or fit it and try to maintain.

The truth is that ageing is inevitable; it's natural. But losing aspects of ourselves like strength, mobility , and energy doesn't have to be. Getting older does not automatically mean becoming weaker. It just means your body changes.And when your body changes, how you train may need to change too.

That is a very different narrative from giving up or fighting to rewind the clock.

I don't actually want my old body back

This is something I have been thinking about more and more as I move through my 40s. I don't actually want to be 25 again. Certainly there are things I miss from that season of my life but there are things I know now about myself that I didn't know then. And if I'm being really honest, I don't know if I really loved and appreciated what my body was capable of doing back then.

The kind of wisdom and love I hold now about my body took years to learn. I understand the importance of strength, muscle, mobility, nutrition and sleep in a way that I simply couldn't have understood or appreciated when I was younger. And perhaps most importantly, I have a much clearer idea of what I want my body to be able to do.

I want to push my body and lift heavy things.

I want to squat and deadlift.

I want to hike.

I want to travel and walk all day without worrying about whether my body can keep up.

I want to get down on the floor and get back up.

I want to carry groceries, luggage and whatever else life throws at me.

I want to feel physically capable.

I want to trust my body.

And I want to keep doing all of these things for decades.

All of these wants require training for the future, not trying to recreate the past.

You can still build muscle

One of the biggest misconceptions I encounter with women in midlife is the idea that their opportunity to change their bodies has somehow expired and they must accept that they are losing muscle, strength, and capacity. But those opportunities haven't passed you by; not at 40, 50, 60 or even beyond those ages.

You can still build muscle, get stronger, improve your cardiovascular fitness, improve your balance, mobility and coordination. You can still surprise yourself. Will the process always look exactly like it did when you were 20? Absolutely not. But why should that detail hold you back from starting?

Your training may need to be more intentional. Recovery strategies may matter more. You may need to pay closer attention to nutrition, stress and sleep. You may need to adjust your training around your life rather than trying to fit your life around your training. But those aren't reasons to stop. They are reasons to train intelligently and get the support that is designed to help you thrive.

Strength is about so much more than muscle

There is also something deeper happening when you become stronger. You may start to see yourself differently and realize that your body isn't something that simply happens to you. It is something you can work with, challenge and continue to care deeply for.

And every time you add a little weight to the bar, perform a movement that used to feel impossible, walk a little farther, or discover that something you once struggled with has become easy, you get evidence that change is still possible.

That trust in your body changes the way you move and interact in the world and there is a special kind of confidence that comes from knowing: I can handle challenges. And I think that is one of the greatest gifts training can give us as we age.

But you have to decide to begin

This is the part that is sometimes uncomfortable. Because you will always have reasons to delay the start.  From not being ready, or needing to perform another step first, to thinking that the season for this has passed so why try now. But what if you stopped asking, "What would I have to do to become the woman I was 20 years ago?" And started asking: "What do I want my body to be capable of 10, 20 or 30 years from now?"

That is a very different question. And it changes your path forward dramatically. Because you are no longer chasing something that once was; you are building a future of what can be.  You can begin building a body that can support the life you want to live. And you can start doing that today.

Because your strongest years are not necessarily behind you, they may still be ahead of you.

And at 45, that's exactly where I'm looking.

Forward.