My Biggest Health Coaching Course Surprise.
Two years in I realised to my astonishment that less time down the gym gave me more health and wellness.
I’m training up to become certified health coach. I’m in my fifties having been a full on athlete, a corporate careerist and a starter-upper (failed and successful). Around two years into my Health Coach training I had a revelation.
It started with the realisation that my body was more “fixable” than I thought. From my days of full on training and not so much working I had what I thought were the usual expected physical niggles and recurring gym aggravated inflammations. I toughed it out down the gym until one day I inflamed the L5-S1 disc in my lower back. Muscle pain, nerve pain, ouch.
“Failure is success if we learn from it.” — Malcolm S. Forbes
I had the good fortune to be recommended an excellent osteopath who together with the efforts of an experienced Personal Trainer turned my 51 year old body back more than 20 years (based on strength, body composition and nearly on rowing ergo performance). Since my revelation I spend a fraction of the time training and still feel and look like I have my thirty year old body. Here is how it happened.
Admittedly for the first year and a half I put some work in at the local school gym and at home. Not just when I remembered but a three times a week 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps kind of workout. I was stretching and rolling religiously for ten minutes before bed every night. At that stage I was probably above average in terms of how healthily I ate, I have stepped that right up since, but that’s a story for another day.
After 9 months I was starting to get slightly self-conscious when I took my kids swimming. It was starting to look like I had an unhealthy interest in bodybuilding for my age. Some of the looks made me feel mildly uncomfortable, I wasn’t used to it. I’ll just say here that my wife had a different view.
Taken aback at the changes and the way I felt, I wondered what else might be possible. At this stage of life and with the by now enthusiastic support of my wife I decided to invest 6 months finding out what else I could change. I researched diet, exercise for over 50s, sleep, stress management, hormones, mitochondria. In fact I started to soak up anything that looked remotely interesting including some of the wacky. One thing lead to another and I signed up for an accredited course to become a certified health coach. In fact I’m still working through the curriculum because there’s a lot of scientific detail to understand and tests to pass. It takes a bit of work and time.
Now over my previous careers I learnt that some relaxed thought can save a lot of time. So I tend to reflect on what I am learning and any new behaviours I’m creating. Bear in mind here that I had done a lot of learning and experimented with different approaches. While I was reflecting it became clear there were some patterns which have been remarkable for my increase in energy and health. This is when I had my fitness revelation.
Conventional wisdom had misled me.
My whole life I had worked on the assumption that an hour at a time of heavy weights and sweaty cardio other days with what felt like enough recovery was getting me as fit and healthy as possible. OK maybe my conventional wisdom was learned longer ago than some people but I looked fit and moved fast for my age. I assumed all that hard work would result in health and a long energetic life. What I had not understood was that along the spectrum from couch potato to full time killing it fit was a point where your activity level was sufficient to garner all the healthy, energetic, life extending benefits that you need. Beyond this point, sure there are athletic benefits if you aspire to go win medals or add to your achievements but going beyond this point doesn’t increase your health and wellness. I judge this by the change in how often I get ill with things like colds, and how I feel (maybe a proxy for testosterone level among other things) compared to previously when training harder. Oh and I also keep an eye on strength and speed.
It seems to me that in the long term the further you go beyond this point the more it will detract from your health and wellness. For example: increased injury risk, reduced testosterone, impaired immune function and more. There is an interesting position paper “The overtraining syndrome” by Dr Phil Maffetone which looks at overtraining in athletes that I think relates to this. I can see that this point on the spectrum probably moves for each of us over time. Maybe it is the point of overtraining or it’s related to that point. I have experienced some of these symptoms from working too hard at my fitness in the past. Maybe it was from a badly judged training plan compared to my ability but I dont think this fully explains the difference that I feel with my new approach.
I came to this from experimenting and reflecting on my studies. I walked in place of cardio workouts, I moved more frequently, I lifted heavy less and about 20% lighter than before. My mantra has become less work, more movement frequency and occasional (less than 90 seconds at a time) intensity. Light bulb moment: for me, by exercising less I have increased my health and wellness. I feel more energy in a constant way; getting out of bed easier, feeling clear headed, no more need for regular coffee. I’m aware these effects are coupled with diet, sleep, blue light exposure and stress management practices but what I am saying is I have found the the benefits easier and more fun to achieve with less time in the gym. Together with my minimal training approach I am strong, toned and for a middle aged man still a bit self conscious about taking my shirt off.
Together with changes in my diet and sleep pattern it means that my body seems to instinctively hover around the same composition, I think my optimal. It also means that I can give my children a run for their money up the hill at the back of our house. I didn’t used to feel like doing that.
I think as time has gone on the result of my fitness revelation has been the development of an intuitive training approach. Aiming for what feels good, I now have a much better instinct for what I think I should do.
In short I make sure:
- I’m enjoying it
- it’s safe
- it’s not boring
- I never aim for 100% (90% is my max)
- I can fit it in (being realistic looking at my schedule)
- and most of all it’s fun.
Sometimes I intuitively know I don’t want to do something and when this happens I tune into why that might be (helped by my Heart Rate Variability score). Sometimes it’s because my body is busy adapting and repairing so I take it easy, maybe walk the dog instead. Other times it’s because my body is lacking in mobility or strength and then I look for an easy start point, further evidence of this is when it feels easier next time.
Using this approach has a logic. If I really feel like doing a session and intuitively it goes well, it lifts me up. The resulting adaptation of my body is optimal. I feel energised and not fatigued. I guess I decided to quit fatigue. That enables me to enjoy training when I do it. Lacking the fatigue that so many people associate with hours down the gym or doing strenuous cardio makes my training easier to maintain over the long term.
I don’t think my health transformation is all down to my fitness revelation but it feels like the biggest part of it and it makes it more fun. Who doesn’t want more fun once you hit fifty? In fact I think fun and enjoyment are a common thread for easier health. I intend to make my next fifty years even better than the last fifty. To my astonishment I now think less time down the gym really does deliver more health and wellness.
