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Thriving at 40+: Mastering Workouts for Optimal Health and Longevity
Episode 46 • 29th September 2023 • Own Your Calendar: Aligning Your Business & Life Goals • Stephen Box
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Hitting the gym past 40 and not seeing the results? ISSA Elite trainer, Stephen Box, reveals the workout mistakes he made after 40 and the five things he now does differently.

Host Bio

Meet Men's Health Coach, Stephen Box, founder of Unshakable Habits and the host of the Unshakable Habits Podcast.

Stephen's own remarkable 80lb weight loss story became the cornerstone of his passion for helping others achieve their health goals. Holding the prestigious title of a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC), he brings over a decade of expertise to his mission of guiding men towards prioritizing their physical and mental well-being.

His pursuit of excellence is showcased through an impressive array of certifications, including those of an Elite Fitness Trainer, PN Level 2 Master Health Coach, Online Fitness Trainer, Sports Nutritionist, and Sleep, Stress Management, and Recovery Coach.

This comprehensive skill set allows Stephen to address health and wellness from a 360-degree perspective, ensuring that no aspect of well-being is overlooked.

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Transcripts

Stephen Box:

Hey guys.

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If you are over the age of 40, your workouts probably need to change.

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And today I'm going to share with you some of the insights that I've

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gained in the first half of my forties and how you can utilize them to make

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your workouts even better as well.

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Intro/Outro: Are you ready to break free from your old habits and create a better

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life for yourself and those around you?

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If so, welcome to Unshakable Habits, the podcast dedicated to helping

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men be better husbands, fathers, and leaders by prioritizing their

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physical and mental well being.

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Each week we'll look at health from a 360 degree perspective with

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inspiring stories and practical strategies for building unshakable

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habits that'll transform your life.

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Join Stephen Box, a board certified health and wellness coach, and let's change

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the world together, one habit at a time.

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welcome to Unshakable Habits, the podcast dedicated to

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helping men elevate Your physical and mental well being so that

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you can get the most out of life.

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I am your host, Stephen Box, and I am a board certified health and wellness coach,

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as well as an elite personal trainer.

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So guys, I just turned 45 this year.

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Last month, actually, and yesterday I had my first colonoscopy.

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So, of course, when you have something like that, it gets you

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to start thinking about, man, you know, what's changed for me?

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Like, as I've gotten older, like, what's different about my life?

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And I've looked back at just the last five years between 40 and

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45, and I can see some of the changes right after I turned 40.

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I tore a rotator cuff.

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I had never had any big injuries prior to that.

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And I've had to have LASIK since then, because my eyesight was getting worse.

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And I just had noticed, especially like late 30s, early 40s, a lot

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of just soreness, always tight.

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My body would get out of alignment a lot of times, very easily.

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And I felt like I was going in the wrong direction despite the fact that I was

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doing all the things I thought I was supposed to be doing with my workouts.

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So, in reflecting back on it, I want to talk to you guys quickly today about some

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of the mistakes that I was making and what some of the changes that I've made are.

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And then at the end here, I'm going to kind of give you my recommendation

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for what things might look like for you going forward with your workouts.

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So the first thing is the mistakes that I was making.

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Just so you guys have some context for this.

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I have not really been the kind of person who's worked out my entire life.

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Now I was always very active.

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I played sports and even up into, you know, high school.

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I was still pretty active, but in terms of things like strength training,

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spending a lot of time in the gym, the only time I really did that for the

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most part was when I played football in high school and you know, they

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had us in the weight room for that.

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But for the most part, I've never really been a big thing for me.

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I've occasionally picked up some weights.

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It wasn't until 32, 33.

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That I started to get more into it, start really doing more focused exercise.

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And this was around the time that I lost my 80 pounds.

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So that was a big part of it.

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So naturally, like a lot of you guys, probably.

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I continued to follow the things that had worked for me previously, but the reality

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is they weren't working for me anymore.

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They were actually causing more problems than they were.

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And a couple of things that I realized in hindsight.

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Number one, I was focusing too much on individual body parts.

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Number two, I was not warming up properly.

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Number three, there was really no kind of flexibility training.

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in my routines.

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So those were to me that the three big mistakes.

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And I guess technically you could also add a number four is I was not getting

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enough cardiovascular conditioning in because quite frankly, I hate cardio,

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especially if it's just running on a treadmill or something like that.

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So let's talk about what's changed.

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What have I actually started doing differently?

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Well, for one, my warmups now look a lot different than what they used to.

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My average warmup time used to be about five minutes on the, on the bike or on

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the treadmill, just to kind of get the blood pumping a little bit and maybe a

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couple of warmup sets at a lighter weight.

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And that was it.

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So like we're talking maybe seven minutes total versus now my

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warmups are like 15 to 20 minutes.

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And I'll touch more on that here in just a little bit.

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The other thing is I've gone really to more of a full body workout, three days

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a week strength training kind of program.

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Because strength training is still very important as we age.

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We want to make sure we maintain some muscle because that's going

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to help with our metabolism.

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Our metabolism is starting to drop on us.

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It also helps with our testosterone levels.

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So obviously very important for us.

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Men as we start to age to help maintain those.

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So I very much believe in strength training, helping to maintain that

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muscle mass and also maintain strength.

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I want to, you know, make sure that I stay very strong as I age.

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So those for me are the primary things.

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I'm no longer as concerned about the looks.

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But yeah, it's, it's nice when, you know, you can have big shoulders

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or big biceps or whatever, there's nothing wrong with that stuff.

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And absolutely no reason to say you can't have those things still after 40, they

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just become less of a priority, right?

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So now I've gone from saying, I want to look like the rock.

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To, you know what, maybe I want to be more like Bruce Lee, right?

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That nice lean cut of Zeke.

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So that's kind of where I've changed from that perspective of what I,

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what I might be looking to do.

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And then the other thing is I've added a lot more flexibility into

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my programming and something that's.

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A new addition for me is balance training.

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and I'll touch more on that here in a few minutes as well.

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So guys, that's what I'm doing right now.

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So let's kind of break this down.

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And this also is going to kind of serve as the, what you can do, process

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is going to break down for you.

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What every part of my routine actually looks like.

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So let's start with the warmups.

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So like I said, warm up used to be like five minutes on the treadmill

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and then a couple of reps at a lighter weight of my primary exercise.

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And that was it.

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Excuse me, guys.

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So now, my warm ups are, they still start about the same.

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But one thing that I've definitely learned is that if you're going to warm up with

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some kind of cardio, whether that's the treadmill or, whatever, just like

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walking or whatever you're going to do.

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The thing is you have to work just hard enough to break a sweat.

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If you don't break a sweat in that five minute period, you might need

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to work a little bit harder on your warmups because you're not

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properly getting your body ready.

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Okay.

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I know a lot of times it's easy just to kind of go through the motions.

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I did it.

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I'm guilty of it.

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So I'm not judging anybody if you do too.

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But we really do need to break a sweat during that five minutes guys.

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And so I start with that and then I do, you know, a few minutes of some

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foam rolling and really kind of getting those, those muscles ready to, to go.

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And then I move into some dynamic movement type stuff and

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really get those muscle fibers.

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ready to go.

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You know, I want to get those, get them firing, get them

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actually ready for movement.

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And then if I have some overly tight muscles, like maybe

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I've been sitting all day.

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So my hip flexors have gotten, you know, you know, really tight or

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whatever, or maybe my hamstrings are really tight that day, whatever.

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I'll do some stretches on the specific muscles that are tight.

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Just some short, like 30 to 60 second holds on those muscles and that's it.

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So in total, that takes about 15 to 20 minutes for me to do.

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And sometimes if I'm a little bit more pressed for time, I do,

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practice some yoga stuff too.

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I have a strength training yoga program without all the, like

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the spiritual woo woo stuff and.

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I like doing those.

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They have some 10 minute routines that you can use for warm ups

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or cool downs for your workouts.

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And so if I'm a little shorter on time, maybe I'll incorporate those.

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I still do the general warm up first and then I do those and then that kind of

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counts really as your dynamic movements.

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because you're doing a lot of strength based yoga poses.

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it's also got some flexibility in there as well.

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And then maybe if I still need to, I'll do a little bit of foam rolling with that.

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so again, 15 to 20 minutes for my warmup.

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And then I like to also have a 10 minute cool down period where I'm

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stretching those muscles back out.

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So I'm doing the math for you here.

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So right now I'm already at about 25 to 30 minutes just on.

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My warm up and my cool down.

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So already you can see this is a massive difference because I used

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to do 45 to hour long workouts of just the strength training with

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just like seven minute warm up.

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And now I'm including the cool down.

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I'm getting 25 to 30 minutes of just warm up and cool down time.

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And so that means I've had to cut back on the workouts themselves.

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And so now I get about 30 minutes, which is why I like focusing on those full body

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workouts, because now I can just kind of hit each muscle group and over the

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course of three workouts per week, I'm able to hit them from multiple angles and

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really kind of get that full spectrum of.

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work into each muscle group.

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So those are the main things that have changed with that.

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Also, I found that I need to include more cardiovascular conditioning.

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And so at least 2 3 times a week, I will take out the time to, you know, do some

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stuff that might be, and this might be something I even do daily to an extent.

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Depending on the time of year, I'll get outside and go for a walk.

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And so, you know, that might count as my cardio for the day.

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A couple of times a week, I like to get on the heavy bag, do some boxing type stuff.

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Now that.

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We're getting into the colder months again.

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I'm going to probably start going to the gym, reincorporate

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swimming back into my routine.

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So some kind of cardiovascular thing.

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And I don't so much mind cardio.

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It's, it's really like the whole, like getting on the treadmill

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and just sitting there kind of thing that's just boring to me.

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So I don't know about you guys, but make it fun, right?

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Go play a sport, go hop in a pool, go.

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Get on a heavy bed, right?

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Do something that's actually fun for your cardiovascular health, but

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you definitely want to include some cardiovascular conditioning into your

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routine every day if you can, but if not, at least, you know, a few days

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a week, make sure you're getting some cardiovascular conditioning in as well.

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The other thing is flexibility.

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like I said, I started doing a strength training yoga program, and I really

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enjoy that because it is helping me to get stronger, especially where it's a

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lot of those little tiny muscles that maybe I miss in those full body workouts.

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And so it's really giving me the opportunity to really strengthen those and

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really get the, get that joint strength a lot stronger, it's improving my core

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strength, it's doing all of those things.

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That are very important to do.

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And so I do the yoga usually on my non workout days.

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And then on my workout days, like I said, I might include them as

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part of my warmup or my cool down.

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And then maybe like a little bit of flexibility at night before bed,

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just to kind of loosen everything up.

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So that's been a big thing.

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Another really huge change for me.

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And I feel like this is something that's so important that people

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don't talk enough about is.

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I try to include about two to three minutes every day of some kind of

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balance training into my routine.

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And when you talk about balance training, if you're in your 40s, you probably don't

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think you need balance training, right?

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Your balance is probably fine, but as you age, balance becomes such an issue

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and Especially once we start getting into like our 50s or 60s or 70s, our chances of

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falling and injuring ourself are so high.

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And when that happens, a lot of times you've seen older people.

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A fall just leads to multiple issues after that.

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And then, you know, they end up basically dying because of a fall.

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I mean, that wasn't the direct cause of it, but it led to all

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the other stuff that did cause it.

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And so rather than waiting until you start to lose your balance, start doing it now.

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It's literally a two to three minute investment of your day, and you

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can start to build up your balance.

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And it's just, it's going to help you now too, because what you're going to find

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is When your body's balanced, when you're doing all these things that I'm saying,

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and your body is more balanced, you're going to notice less aches and pains,

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you're going to notice less soreness, you're going to notice less tightness,

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because you're consistently doing all these things that you need to be doing.

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And so, again, you only really need about 30 to 60 minutes a day for this.

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Now, I realize that some of you, maybe you don't have 30 to 60 minutes a day

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right now, so start where you are.

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right?

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Start with like 10 minutes.

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And if you only have 10, 15 minutes to be able to do, I would focus more, probably

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more on the strength training type stuff.

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And, you know, obviously you're not going to have as much of a warm up period.

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So just make sure that you're not going too heavy on the weight.

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You want to go lighter weights, higher rep type stuff.

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That way you're not straining your muscles.

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and then try to add time to it, right?

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Make sure that you're adding that in there.

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Make sure you're getting some cardio in on, Those days that you're not

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doing strength training, try to incorporate some flexibility, but

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again, even if you only have 10 minutes a day, you can do something.

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Are you going to get fantastic results from it?

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Probably not.

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But, you know, there is a study that the company I have my, one of

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my certifications through Precision Nutrition, they did a, Well, I

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said a study, but really what they do is they looked at their

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own data from, from clients that they had coached in their program.

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And what they found was the people who were about 10 to 49 percent

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consistent still saw results.

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Now, yes, they were much lower than people that say were like 80, 90 percent

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consistent, but even at 10 to 49%, people were seeing pretty good results still.

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So.

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Even if you can only do 10 15 minutes right now, start there.

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Yes, you're going to need to add to it if you want to ultimately see results.

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You can't just stay at 10 15 minutes forever.

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But start where you are and kind of go from there.

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And then we can build upon it.

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And ultimately, at the end of the day, guys...

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You need to incorporate all these different things, right?

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You need the strength training.

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You need the cardiovascular conditioning for your heart health.

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You need the flexibility.

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You need the balance training.

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You need to do the proper warmups.

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Because once.

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We turn 40, man.

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Things change with our body.

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And if we're still doing the same workouts that we did when

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we're 20 years old, you're not going to see the results from it.

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You're actually going to see a lot of setbacks and setbacks mean injuries and

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injuries mean time out of the gym and time out of the gym means less results.

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Right.

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We want to make sure that we're able to stay in the gym.

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So I want you guys to think about how can we start training

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smarter after we turn 40?

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And I know it's just for myself that the first probably like

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year or two, I was stubborn.

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I stuck with the old way of doing things.

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And then finally I said, you know what?

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Enough of this.

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I gotta, I gotta change some stuff and.

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Ever since I have, it has just made such a huge difference for me

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in the quality of my life and my movement quality and everything else.

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So I love the fact that at 45 years old, I can still be active, that I can still

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do all the things that I want to do.

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I can feel confident in my body and I don't worry about that I'm going to

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tear something or I'm going to severely injure myself when I do anything.

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I'm taking proper care of my body.

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And so I wanted to come on today and give you guys those tips and that advice.

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And I hope that that's something that benefits you.

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And if you enjoyed this episode today, if you could actually Go to unshakablehabits.

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com forward slash podcast.

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You'll see a link on there that says rate, and that will take you to a page

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where you can go and leave reviews on Apple, Spotify, or on Podchaser.

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And I'd really appreciate it if you guys would just take out

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a minute to do that because.

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One of the first things that people do when they start looking for a new

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podcast is they look at those reviews.

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And if all of this stuff that I gave you today sounds overwhelming, you're

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like, Hey, look, this sounds good.

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I had no idea how to do it.

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you can also on the website go and schedule a free roadmap call, and I

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will be happy to chat with you and talk about how my programs can actually

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help you to fully incorporate them.

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With that, guys, that is it for this week, but I want to, of

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course, remind you as always.

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That while none of us are born unshakable, we can all become unshakable.

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Intro/Outro: Thank you for listening to the Unshakable Habits

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podcast with Coach Stephen Box.

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Be sure to hit the subscribe button and help us spread the word by

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sharing the podcast with other men.

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If you're ready to create Unshakable Habits, you can learn more and

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connect with us at UnshakableHabits.

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com.

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