How I Got Back in Shape After 40

I’m skipping training for the second week now. I had my ribs X-rayed last week — everything’s fine, and the pain is getting better. But considering my age, I think it’s better to let myself heal completely rather than push too hard and risk making it worse.

In the meantime, I’ll tell you how I started doing something for my body and health after almost 30 years of doing nothing!
Below is a text I wrote about ten years ago on another blog.

How I Got Back in Shape After 40

Like most boys growing up, I spent my childhood chasing a ball around and trying out a few martial arts. But once I got to high school, I “grew up,” started smoking, going out, and slowly lost the motivation to do anything sporty. By my second year, I had completely quit any kind of physical activity.

For the next 30 years or so, I can literally count on my fingers how many times I did something even remotely athletic.

Then came my twenties — I could still get by on leftover youthful strength and energy. I wasn’t serious about working out, and honestly, I thought I was already too old to start again anyway. In my thirties, I realized I couldn’t perform like I used to, but I still believed that if I really wanted to, I could get back in shape in a week or two. Of course, I never did — and I still thought I was too old to start training again.

Before I knew it, I was in my forties, realizing not only that I couldn’t anymore, but that I probably never would get back to the shape I had as a teenager. Around that time, my parents started showing the first signs of old age, and it hit me — I was still young enough to do something about my health and my body. Because before long, I’d be their age, and we all want to be active and healthy retirees, right?

A friend of mine, a few years older, once said something that stuck with me:

“Once you hit your fifties, the surgeries start.”

Well, I’m hoping that won’t be my story!

That’s how my rebirth began. It wasn’t smooth sailing, of course. Like most guys, the first thing I did was grab some dumbbells and start curling my biceps. It took me about two years of “warming up” and false starts before I got consistent with my training, and then another year to get my body strong enough to actually perform exercises properly. It took one more year to settle into the kind of workouts I do today — mostly bodyweight training — though I plan to bring some weights back into the mix soon.

To put things into perspective, just four years ago I couldn’t do a single wide-grip pull-up, and I could barely do oneclose-grip pull-up. Today, I average between 500 and 800 pull-ups a month. For the past two years, I’ve been keeping a detailed workout log. I write down every session, and it really helps me see my progress and stay motivated.

On this blog, I’ll be sharing how I got started, how I train now, what challenges and injuries I’ve dealt with (like golfer’s elbow, for example). I’m not a professional trainer or a fitness expert, so when I start to “philosophize” about something, don’t take it as gospel — it’s just my personal take, based on what I’ve heard, read, and, most importantly, experienced firsthand... in a body that basically took a 25-year break from training!