When you reach that time in your life when you are too old to compete as you use to, or when you realize that competitive sports have passed you by, what are you to do?

You still have that burning competitive desire in your blood and you know you are still in decent enough shape to play and play pretty well.

You decide to join a recreation basketball league and reawaken your dominance on defense, or re-establish your 3-point shot that won so many games for you in high school.

Maybe you join a flag football league with like-minded people in hopes that your speed is still good enough to burn anyone downfield that tries to defend you.

If organized leagues aren’t your thing, you might just get the guys you went to high school together once a weekend and play some tackle football, no-foul basketball, or any other sport you can come up with.

Some might just want to compete against themselves at the local gym…trying to put up close to the same amount of weight that you did in your early twenties.

The game, activity or the sport doesn’t really matter. What matters is that your competitive spirit still burns and burns so much that you have to do something. Age isn’t going to get in the way and it shouldn’t.

The problem that many people in this category find out pretty fast is that they can’t jump as high, run as fast, feel as dominant, or worse yet, recover fast enough to play again the following week.

Hamstring pulls, sore lower backs, trouble breathing, or injuries that are more serious occur all of the time with the common weekend warrior. Many give up and give into their age, claiming it just isn’t meant to be anymore.

I don’t agree. I think most people have the right attitude but go about it in the wrong way. Whether you are 27 years old and feeling weaker than you did in middle school, or you are 40 and cant run more than three pass routes without feeling like you are going to pass out, there is hope for all of you.

The common weekend warrior forgets, or chooses not to remember, all of the practice and training that they did when they did compete in high school or even college.

Most athletes didn’t just lace up the cleats or sneakers and have at it, once a week and then go back to doing something else the rest of the time. Athletes train and they get better each week.

Weekend warriors are still athletes and many of those rules still apply. “But I don’t have a coach, or training partner, worse yet, I don’t have the time!” All of these are legitimate answers, but still not good excuses.

What every weekend warrior needs to do is decide at what level he or she wants to still compete and how he or she want to feel each week after they do so.

Do you want to run fast, jump high, dominate with confidence…all while you feel good, stay healthy and come back the following week even better?

Do you want to get stronger than you have ever been, even though you are older?

If so, then you need to prepare, in the same manner that you did when you were competing. This doesn’t mean that you need to practice 2 hours everyday, for 5 days-a-week…what it means is that you need to get your body ready for the demands that you are going to be placing on it when you play or train.

Start by finding a well-balanced strength-training program that you can and will follow a few times a week. Make sure this program is a full body strength program.

Perform mobility work. Your joints will thank you for it. What is mobility work? In simple terms, it is teaching or re-teaching your joints how to move through space and stressing them in a positive way so you wont have problems moving around, running, jumping, or just training hard.

Make sure you plan your recovery each day. Sounds simple, but most people do not have a planned out recovery program. When you get older, it is necessary. Soft-tissue work, such as massage, self-myofascial release (i.e. foam rolling), stretching and active rest are more important than you think.

Finally, get needed rest. If you are going to play and train hard and want to succeed in doing it you need adequate rest.

If you are going to be that weekend warrior, do it right! Take care of your physical needs so you don’t end up hurting, injured or find yourself giving up. Age doesn’t matter if you go about it in the right way.

Congratulations to Quinton Miller for signing with the Pittsburg Pirates. Quinton is an 18-year-old baseball player who I have been training for the past year and a half. “Q” was selected by the Pirates in this year’s draft, and also was named player of the year in the state of NJ. Q is a right-handed pitcher that tops out at 95 miles per hour.

If you are over 50 years of age, and you have been training like crazy, watching your diet and still don’t seem to be dropping the weight and fat like you think you should be…get your metabolism checked out by your doctor. I have talked to two people just this last week that have found out (more than a year after starting their training program) that they have “slow” or not so functional metabolisms. It is worth finding out.

Michael Phelps’ coach, Bob Bowman, told a newspaper that the biggest difference between how Michael prepared for this Olympics vs. the ‘04 games is that he got himself in the weight room instead of just doing pushups. His physique has changed, his blood lactate levels…(used to measure recovery) are half that of most swimmers, and of course, he is faster than he has ever been.

Big props to Simon M. Simon is a football player entering his Junior year of high school. Simon started training with me to get his overall strength up for this coming football season. Today I found out that Simon squatted 430 lbs and bench-pressed 345 lbs as a 16-year-old athlete. Simon’s max on bench was 305 lbs and his best squat was only 315 lbs when I first met him in the Spring. We were able to put 115 lbs on his squat and 40 lbs on his bench in a few short months.

When I worked at the high school a few years back, I used to witness many “school swappers.” These were athletes and their parents looking for better high school sports programs so their kids could excel. Rarely did switching schools do anything more for them. I have witnessed the same in fitness and personal training lately. Some clients that I have talked to have started “switching” trainers and gyms, (multiple times) looking for the “greener grass.” In most cases, like the high school athletes, the problem is with the client and not the program or trainer.

Table Tennis athletes (Ping Pong) train very hard. If you get a chance, check out Olympic Table Tennis. I found out that Table Tennis players lift weights, run and train harder than many “traditional” athletes that we see everyday.

I hate pre-season NFL games. Although I love football season, pre-season games signals the end of the summer. I love summer.

There have been a lot of reports about what Michael Phelps listens to on his IPOD before he swims…he listens to a lot of hip-hop. If you watch any sport, you will see athletes getting prepared to compete with good music. What do you listen to when you train?

I admit it…I am an Olympic junkie. I used to stay up late to watch the ‘84 games which were held in LA almost 25 years ago, and I have been hooked ever since. I love watching the competition and I have found myself watching even the obscure events like Fencing and Badminton. No matter what the event, the side stories of the athletes competing and the struggles that some have endured are just as fun to watch.

Dara Torres is a 41-year-old swimmer competing in her 5^th Olympic games, with her first being in 1984. Not only is it remarkable that she is going for number 5, but the fact that she is 41-years-old and is a medal favorite is the most remarkable thing. You see, when you are 40 years old, you are not supposed  to be able to compete at that level. When you are over the age of 35, you are considered “old” in Olympic years. Torres seems to be getting better as she gets older and her swimming times prove this. Over the years, her competitive times are decreasing, which means she is getting better and faster.

How can this be? At 41-years-old she can’t be getting better, can she? Well the answer is obvious, she is, but the answer to the other question is not so obvious…how?

I did some research on this 41-year-old phenomenon and found out just how she trains. I think you will see that her training is nothing revolutionary and nothing new, however, she has been smart enough to focus on what is important and allow her body to fully recover. This approach has helped her peak and become better than she has ever been.

Dara’s training focuses on the follow aspects:

• Fewer Workouts.

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  • Torres has decreased her volume considerably during this Olympic quest. She does not over train, she does not do what isn’t necessary, she does what needs to be done and then she is finished. Although this sounds like common sense, you would be surprised how many of my clients and athletes feel like they need to put in 2-3 hour training sessions and train 7 days a week. Torres is proof you don’t need to do more than necessary. In fact, less has been better. There is more research that supports this type of training. Recently, I have backed off while training my athletes. They are doing less volume, shorter workouts (but focused) and more recovery. The result of this type of training change has been incredible performances, better training sessions, and seasons that are injury free.

• More Strength Training.

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  • Torres is a swimmer and traditionally, swimmers do not focus on strength training too much. Dara has worked out, outside of the pool this time around. She has obviously seen the light in this regard. I have touted the importance of being strong and strength training to my athletes (and anyone else that would listen) for years. I hold strength training up there with the most important areas of training for any sport or activity.
  • Dara Torres has spent a lot of time in the weight room. Her routine consists of full body, compound movements like squats, dead lifts, presses and pulls. She understood that single joint movements like arm curls, are a waste of time for her.
  • Core training…I cannot overemphasize the importance of having a strong core for any athlete. Dara works her entire core religiously, Core work is essential for anyone that wants to be a good athlete or have an easier life. If you are not working your core in some way or another, you are going to have physical issues moving through life with be that much more difficult.
  • Torres also worked on stability exercises that developed the strength around her joints. She understood that being 41 meant that her joints are not as forgiving as they once were. Spending time on joint stability is incredibly important for everyone, but more so for people that are over the age of 35 and training with weights.

• Recovery.

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  • One of the biggest areas that Dara has worked on, this time out is her recovery. Recover is much more than just resting. Torres used soft tissue work almost daily. Deep tissue massage, Active Release Techniques and other soft tissue work was a must for her, and her results have been remarkable. If you are not incorporating soft tissue work into your training regiment, then you are missing a major component of your training and your results will probably not be as good.
  • I mentioned rest, as not being the only thing that needs to be considered for recovery, but it is just as important. Dara knows that she needs plenty of it to succeed. I argue with athletes all of the time about the lack of rest that many of them get during their training cycles. Staying up late, not incorporating naps into your day and never taking time off, are not good practices for success. You would be surprised at how many people do not follow that advice and suffer the consequences from lack of good recovery. Sometimes less is better.

There are a lot of points to taken from an athlete like Dara Torres, but I think the major thing for people to focus on is that age should not be a factor for what you want to do. If you have a goal, no matter what your age, it is achievable. The big lesson is although you can do it, you just might have to work at your goal a little different than you did when you were 18. More rest, more focused routines, better recovery methods, and incredible desire will get you where you want to be. My advice to all of my over 30 athletes is always the same: Do some kid of soft-tissue work in the form of massage, foam rolling, ART, etc…, work on joint stability at all times, and work on getting stronger…full body strength, by doing compound movements such as squats, dead lifts, presses and pulls.

I always like to ask people that workout why they are working out, or why they are training. Sometimes I hear things like “To stay healthy”, or “To get into shape”, and I always follow it up with “why do you need to get into shape”?

That is a trick question for people. Many just stare at me blankly and don’t know what to say.

I like to offer up that people should be training for the most important event they will ever encounter…LIFE. “Train for life”.

Life is tough, and full of obstacles. Most people think in terms of emotional and mental hurdles when thinking of the trials of life. I believe that there are just as many physical obstacles in life as well, and if you are not ready for them, things can and will get very rough…Especially as you climb in age.

If you can continue to compete and play some sort of sport as you get older, that is great and yes, you should train for that, but life is a 24/7, 365 days a year contest. Are you ready?

Life has some basic physical hurdles that you need to be ready for each day. Below I have outlined what I think are the most important areas that should be trained as you go through life so you can not just keep up, but also excel and win!

• Squatting - You will have to squat in life. Sometimes a lot during the day. As you get older and your knees give you problems, squatting gets harder and most people try to avoid it. When training for life, have a component of squatting in your plan. This does not have to be Olympic weight lifting, or even using weights at all. Body weight or bands will work well too. But either way, make sure that you have some kind of squatting motion in your training plan.

• Pulling - You will have to pull things all day long whether you know it or not. Some things are so simple, we don’t even think about them, but others are much harder. Will you be able to keep up? Pulling a grocery bag or your child, grandchild and even pet off of the ground can be tough for people that don’t have the strength or body stability to do this. Pulling a cord on the lawn mower, or leaf blower can be tough for people as well. Include pulling in your plan. Again, weights are not necessary.

• Pushing or pressing - Whether you are putting something on a shelf above your head in a closet, or pushing a table against the wall, pushing is something we do everyday and all day. Make sure you have horizontal pushing and vertical pressing in your plan as well.

• Twisting or Rotation - Sitting at your desk and turning to answer the phone is a form of rotation. Picking up that baby, and twisting him/her straight so you can see them, is a combination movement, but is based on twisting. We twist and rotate a lot. It needs to be trained in life too.

• Combination movements - Putting it all together is essential in life training. Squatting down to grasp a bag, and then pulling the bag off of the floor, rotating as your press it over your head and push it to the back of the shelf, includes all of the motions that we talked about.

• Other movements - Grasping, gripping, stabilizing are motions that are just as important to train.

Take home message: In life movement happens and you need to be ready for it. As you get older, movement usually gets tougher…however it doesn’t have to. Remember, train for life, and you will excel at it and be able to take on anything it throws at you

 I am not turning 40…just wanted to clear that up. I am a few years off that number, but I have many friends that turn the big “4-0″ this year. I have some other friends that are turning or have recently turned 50 as well. Whether you see middle age as 40 or 50…or any age, it really does not matter. Middle age is not a physical condition (it’s not a condition at all), rather it is a mental outlook. Either way, if you are within the ages of 35-50 you probably are feeling a bit different about your fitness than you did when you were in your twenty’s and early thirty’s.

I am a firm believer that your age does not mean a whole lot. I have written in the past about age and how it isn’t a good excuse to stop doing what you want to do or perform how you want to perform. The only difference now is that you have to go about it in a slightly different way.

Once you pass the 35-year mark (give or take a few years) in most cases, you will have to do a small amount of “preventive work” to maintain your health and more so, make positive gains. Your body will not recover as it once did. Even if you feel “tremendous” and think you can take on the world, recovery rates will slow down. This is just part of the aging process. With that said, taking the proper steps to age like a competitive athlete, or a fitness god, will have you feeling invincible and you wont even know how old you really are.

Reaching Middle Age or just getting older does not mean you have to stop your hard-core training or stop competing in weekend flag football games. It does not mean you can’t be as active as you once were. It only means that you have to take a few extra steps along the way to ensure you improve and stay healthy.

I currently train an 82-year-old woman three times a week, for an hour each session. She does 45 assisted chin-ups per session, 45 full body weight squats, and a plethora of other “advanced” exercises for her age. She still works full time everyday and is more fit than many people are half her age.

Last year, I trained a 70-year-old competitive baseball player. He is a pitcher that still throws in the 70s. He trained with me 3 days a week and did a full spectrum of sports specific drills and a lot of what some would call “hard-core” training. Sled dragging, barbell squats, resisted running, etc… were common training exercises for him. He went on to play in the World Series in his league and won, while pitching a two-hitter.

You see, age is really just number and to use it as an excuse for not being able to train or play sports is pretty lame. People are doing it all of the time, and these people are doing it into their 60s, 70s and 80s.

Here are some things you can do if you have already crossed that “middle age” line:

• Work on your hip strength and hip mobility every day. Simple exercises such as leg swings (front and back and side to side) will do wonders. Stretch your hamstrings, hip flexors, and keep your hips mobile. Also, incorporate squats, and lunges into your routine.

• Keep your shoulder complex strong. Make sure you are including pulling exercises into your weekly plan. Whether it is chin-ups, or rows of some sort, pull more, and push less. If you are a bench press fiend, get out of that mind set. You do not need to bench all of the time to be strong and healthy. If you are only benching and not doing the right amount of pulling to offset the imbalance that you are creating, you will be in trouble very soon. Download my free report for more information on the “Push/Pull” problem.

• Take extra time to warm up before you exercise or compete. If you play pick up basketball, or tackle football, or just workout in the local gym, take about 10-15 minutes before to get all of your joints moving and warm. Do some body weight squats, lunges, small hops back and forth, jump rope, etc… just move all of the joints for a few minutes. Break a sweat and make sure you do not forget about your ankles, knees, and shoulders since those are the three areas we see the most injuries among everyone, especially older athletes.

• Do not forget about working on your grip. Your grip will be one of the first things to go as you age. Work on it. Again, download my free report to find out great grip saver exercises that you can do. Having a strong grip will make your life much easier and make you a much stronger and better athlete.

• Force recovery. Many people forget to recover. Once you are done playing or training, make sure you take active steps to ensure your body’s recovery. Lying on the couch and popping some Advil will not cut it. Do some slow stretching after you are done, followed by a 15-minute walk. Many people make the mistake of going home and not moving. You need to allow your body to fix itself. Finally, do not underestimate the value of ice. If you are sore or hurting, ice it. Cold application can go a long way. Get a bag, fill it with some ice, and place it on the area for 20 minutes. Do this as much as you need too. It might seem uncomfortable at first, but it will go a long way.

• Get your core going. Make sure you incorporate “core” strengthening into your workouts. The core is much more than abs. Low back, all abdominals, upper back and glutes make up the core. Try some planks each training session, followed by some standing medicine ball work.

Unstable training came from the ‘rehab’ zone. Back in the 80’s rehab really took off. Physical therapy was becoming more popular, sports teams were hiring Certified athletic trainers, and sports medicine doctors were popping up on every corner. If you had a physical problem, you went to rehab. Therapy became first-rate and research was being done in alarming numbers. Soon enough, the “functional training” era was born. Therapists started introducing new techniques that would change the industry forever. The industry started paying attention and new rehab toys were produced that made rehabilitation not only more effective, but fun too. Balance discs, Bosu Balls, foam pads, etc… were found in every PT clinic and Athletic Training room across Northern America. Soon functional training took on a different identity and was full of activities that encouraged unstable training.

Unstable training had and still does have its place in the rehab setting. I still use it with my athletes that need certain kinds of therapeutic exercise. The problem was when the other side of the fitness industry started stealing from the therapists and implementing unstable training into strength and conditioning programs.

If you are trying to increase your strength, unstable training not only is a waste of time, but can actually be a detriment to your gains. You cannot possibly get stronger when you are squatting on a Bosu ball. You feet need a solid, stable surface to be able to increase loads progressively that will cause strength increases. Training on an unstable surface will not allow you to do this and will even make your weaker in the long run. Besides lack of strength increases and getting weaker, it also sets you up for injury. I have rehabbed many injuries that were caused by unstable training accidents.

Worse than anything is when I see golfers, or other athletes using unstable training as part of their program. Training like this will program your body and central nervouse system to perform the wrong way. You will actually learn to swing the wrong way, and your performance will go down. It boggles my mind to see “trainers” out there having their athletes swinging a bat or golf club while standing on a foam pad. Unless you are training to play during an earthquake, unstable training has no place in your fitness plan.

This one is simple: Train on solid ground. Unless you are injured and in a rehab setting, there is really no good reason to train on unstable ground. In very rare instances would I ever train a healthy person on an unstable surface. Usually it is to help work on a problem area and in that case, I chalk that in the rehab category. Keep your feet on the solid ground below you and watch your numbers soar.