Fitness Secrets for Women over 40

Once you get to a certain age, staying in shape gets trickier. No longer can you eat what you want with barely any exercise, you actually have to pay attention to your body in order to stay healthy. Tracking your BMI can be one way of keeping an eye on how your fitness progress is going, but it is not always the perfect measure.

However, the general advice posted on the internet isn’t that accurate. Much of it consists of fad diets, unheard of movements, and basically, a whole load of nonsense. That’s why today, we’re going to go over 7 tips and tricks that actually work and explain why.

1. Do Compound Lifts

Compound movements are those which use more than one joint at a time. For instance, a leg extension only uses the knee joint, but a squat uses the ankle, knee, and hip joints all at once, making it a compound movement. Because of this, compound movements stimulate more muscle and also, burn more calories, hitting your body from two different directions in order to shape it exactly how you want. Compound movements also help to teach your muscles how to work together, putting you at a reduced risk of injury whilst also improving your balance and coordination.

2. 3-Day Workout Splits

In order to progress physically, you need to be able to rest physically. It’s all well and good going as hard as you can in the gym, but if you can’t recover from it, then you’re never going to be able to get stronger or more capable. Not to mention, you won’t be able to go as hard next time which means you can’t burn as many calories. At the end of the day, progressing with your body depends much more on recovering than it does on stimulation, so going 3 days a week means that your body will be ultimately rested on each workout so you can give it your all.

3. Barbell Back Squats

There are two main movements you need to do if you want to build and tone up your lower body, and one of those is squats. Squats are often called the king of lower body exercise and for good reason. They hit the glutes, quads, hamstring, calves, and lower back all in one movement.

4. Deadlifts

The other movement you need to do to progress with your lower body is deadlifts. Deadlifts hit the hamstrings and lower back slightly more than squats, meaning that you need to do both if you want to make the best progress. There are many variations of the deadlift, too, which place more or less emphasis on areas of the lower body and can be useful for bringing up lagging areas.

5. Dumbbell Goblet Squat

 Learning the proper technique for the squat can be tricky, but one of the best ways to teach the movement pattern is with the goblet squat. Most of the time when we squat in our day to day life, we carry the weight on the front of our body, the same as a goblet squat, making it easier for most people. It also helps you to get lower, creating a greater stimulus in your lower body to create better results.

6. Dumbbell Lunge

The dumbbell lunge is perfect for hitting one side of the body and really burning out your legs. Lunges can be done forward, reverse, or walking depending on how hard you want to go, and what you’re using them for. They’re perfect for the end of your workout when you really want to break down the muscle fibers in your lower body or they can be used at the start of your session to build strength.

7. Avoid Lifting Too Heavy

It may seem counterintuitive, but you actually want to avoid lifting too heavy so that you don’t get an injury. Injuries can keep you from exercising for days, weeks, or even months, which leaves a lot of time for you to just sit at home and undo all of the good progress you’ve been making. Instead of focusing on how much you can lift, focus on how well you can lift. Improving on your form still means that you’re making progress even if the weight isn’t increasing, and it also means that you’re becoming more effective and efficient in that movement.