What Nine Years of Strength Coaching Taught Me About Age Beliefs

A remarkable new Yale study confirms the need to “redefine aging so that it includes the possibility of improvement.”

Photo by Sebastian Herrmann on Unsplash

People find me. They see what I can do at 68 years old on my video reels on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, and they reach out.

This is a rough estimate, but I would say only about 10% of the people who see me sit-to-stand on one leg or perform a Navy SEAL Shoulder Crusher are actually exercising or trying these moves themselves. Even fewer sign up to coach with me, and budgets do come into play.

More people entertain the idea of improving their strength, balance, posture, confidence, mood, etc., than actually take steps to do so.

What I love about the insights from the Yale study is that even if you stay seated in a chair, how you think about yourself can influence how you age.

We are taught that the aging process is a long decline. We have the ingrained impression that as we add years, we will reverse the process that occurred when we were growing up. Instead of adding skills, we will inevitably lose them.

We categorize those who age without decline as Super Agers. We make them unique. We treat them as exceptions. We are more than likely to think we are not one of them.

What if anyone at 65, 79, or 92 could improve?

Yale researchers Becca Levy and Martin D. Slade conclude their study with this important statement: “It would be accurate and beneficial to expand the prevailing definition of aging to include the possibility of health improvement.”

Over the past nine years, my clients have ranged in age from 14 to 95. If someone decides to pay for coaching, they are signaling that they believe they can improve.

That positive attitude is my starting point as I add challenges and help them discover they can lift a ten-pound weight when they were sure they could only lift five.

As I add challenges, some clients will say no. They will choose to stay where they are comfortable. The majority, knowing and trusting me, take a breath and try.

And then they discover what they can do.

It is natural—and I do this for myself in my workouts—to both progress and regress. You may have less energy on a particular day, or you may have slept poorly or tweaked a muscle. I dial it down as needed. Conversely, if you are feeling particularly strong and well, that is a great day for an extra challenge.

The point isn't that we can prevent every decline or control everything that happens to our bodies as we age.

The point is that decline isn't the only possibility.

We can improve.

And believing that improvement is possible may be one of the things that gets us out of the chair to find out.

The truth I'm training for is that how I think about my aging body will influence how I age.