Jan012023January 1, 2023January 15, 2023by Masters TTRacer

Tip #7: How do you reduce your fitness age by 20+ years?

Posted in Active Lifestyle Tips

Obesity levels for the senior population in the U.S. are now over 40 percent. If you are a former high school/college/post-college athlete who has been on the couch for the past 20-30+ years, this series of twice-monthly tips will show you how to resume an active lifestyle.

Fortunately, numerous studies have confirmed that it is never too late to resume an active lifestyle. I will show you how to reduce your fitness age, a more reliable indicator of longevity than your BMI, by 20+ years over the next 12-24 months. You will definitely be healthier, happier, and an inspiration for your family, friends, and colleagues. What’s better than that?

How do you reduce your fitness age by 20+ years?

If you calculated your current fitness age in Tip #4, recall that the three exercise factors were 1) frequency (how often do you exercise?), 2) duration (how long is each workout?), and 3) intensity (how hard do you exercise?). The following two charts illustrate the relationship between these three factors and an improvement in the fitness age of a 60 year old.

Generally speaking, the more frequent your exercise, the longer you exercise, and the more intensely you exercise, the greater the improvement in your fitness age. What level of fitness age improvement do you want to achieve?

What have I learned?

By the time I discovered the concept of fitness age in 2015, I had been training for almost 10 years, competed in 64 bike races, and logged over 100,000 training miles. I had already met all of the requirements for the maximum fitness age improvement of 30+ years. As of 2022, I’m approaching my 110th bike race and 142,000 training miles. I continue to train six days per week with a mix of one-hour high-intensity interval workouts twice a week, twice-weekly one hour resistance training sessions, and two endurance workouts each weekend of two or more hours (unless I have a race). At this moment, I have no reason to doubt that I can continue this training regime until age 100 when my fitness age will be equal to a 70-year-old.

Any questions?

If you have any questions about living an active lifestyle or about your cycling goals, training, racing, or gear, I’d like to hear from you. I may address your questions in a future tip. Just drop me a note.

Tip #8 Preview: How much sleep do you need?