By Bill Fleckenstein
If you intend to enjoy your life after 50 (and who doesn’t want to?), you must stay fit. It isn’t an option not to, otherwise the natural effects of the aging process will slowly compromise your body and the things that you are able to do and enjoy. Simply participating in a sports isn’t enough; you must actively stay ahead of the curve by building your strength and aerobic conditioning through regular exercise.
The way I attempt to slow down the vagaries of the aging process is by doing CrossFit workouts 3-4 times a week (and I play tennis on the other days). While CrossFit isn’t as much fun as tennis is for me, I find it to be a very efficient way to keep me fit. Though plenty of negative (and positive) ink has been spilled about CrossFit, the fact of the matter is that if you use your head and scale workouts so that they fit your own idiosyncrasies, it works extremely well.
I have found that it really helps to join a gym like Northwest CrossFit where the owner plans sensible – as opposed to macho – programming. Had I not started doing it in 2007, I am certain that today my quality of life would be severely compromised.
Hopefully this helps jump start a few folks into taking back control of their bodies instead of ceding it to the “aging process”.
