Fitness
7 Ways to Maintain Your Fitness Level as You Age
Most people focus on fitness to begin a new habit or seek improvements in health and wellness. This largely requires consistency in basic physical activity. Many people are fit and trying to become extremely fit, which requires adhering to strict and effective programming with greater intensity and more complex progressions.
However, what if you want to maintain your current fitness? What type of program do you do then? Here is a question from a person who has enjoyed the habit of fitness for more than 20 years and is looking to maintain what he has:
Stew — Thanks for your fitness programs and training ideas over the years. I am pretty happy with my weight, body composition, and performance for my age (I just turned 50), and I am not looking at going hardcore in the future. I am looking forward to maintaining what I have. What are the next steps for me? Thanks, Stan
Stan, great job getting and staying fit and active over the years. I am with you. While I enjoy working out and even going hard on occasion, I am not really trying to beat my best record in anything. My goals are primarily health, wellness and a moderately high level of physical performance across the board.
My personal records (PRs) are now in the blood screening tests and doctor’s office. In fact, I heard a doctor say the other day that you prevent a heart attack at 50 years old by adding daily cardio at 30. You prevent painful joints at 60 years old by adding flexibility and mobility to your day when you turn 40. You prevent falling and breaking your hip at 70 years old by adding resistance training to your day at 50. You are well on your way to building a life with longevity.
Here are some guidelines for those who are happy with your current fitness and want to maintain what you have.
80% Is the New 100%
I started implementing this rule after a hamstring injury sidelined me from running for a few months. If you want to maintain what you have, you cannot get injured lifting too heavy, running too much, running too fast or doing too many reps. These are how most of us have injured ourselves while training.
Evolving with Age
As I have aged into my 40s and 50s, adding a focused Mobility and Flexibility Day has been life-changing for how I feel before, during and after workouts. After 50, I have added two mobility/flexibility sessions per week, mixed with moderately paced walking or nonimpact cardio activity. Although I still lift, run, swim and do calisthenics each week, the added sessions of working the joints and muscles differently have made all of the difference in how I feel about moving into my 60s relatively pain free.
Improve Eating Choices and Sleep Quality
As we age, these are essential to recovery, performance and longevity. Focus on a good night’s sleep of 7-8 hours and nutritious natural food choices with minimum or no processed foods. Portion control is also an issue, even if you eat clean. Check out these articles on food intake/caloric needs and sleep, nutrition and exercise.
Enjoy More Social Workouts
Fitness can be a beneficial health activity and enhance our social connections as we age. This combination can aid in maintaining mental health (or improving it). Engaging with a supportive community can significantly enhance your commitment to maintaining fitness. Joining a local gym, participating in group classes or connecting with friends who share your enthusiasm for staying active will continue to benefit longevity results.
Diversify Your Workouts
Stay balanced with strength training, cardiovascular and calisthenics training, mobility and flexibility, and a mix of low- and high-intensity workouts. Resist the tendency to fall into monotonous fitness programming. If you can mix cardiovascular, strength, flexibility and balance exercises, you will see results that stretch across all areas of your life. Instead of increasing intensity in a few activities, diversify your workouts to prevent boredom and challenge your body, promoting overall strength and flexibility and reducing the risk of injury.
Avoid Extremes on the Fitness Spectrum
Our country has a broad sample of fitness levels, ranging from poor to above average. The goal is to hover between the average and above-average zone, working to get good at every element of fitness but not particularly great at any of them. This will help you control body fat, maintain bone and muscle strength, and keep the heart, lungs and circulatory system working efficiently.
You Can Still Have Goals to Set, Even New Ones
While you may wish to maintain your current fitness level, setting achievable goals can provide motivation and keep your workouts interesting. These could range from participating in a local charity run to mastering a challenging yoga pose. Personal goals give you something to strive for and can spice up your routine throughout the year.
In the end, it comes down to: If you don’t use it, you will lose it. So keep moving to maintain what you have. As you navigate the lifelong fitness path, finding the proper knowledge and resources is essential. Seek expert insights into maintaining your current fitness level while enjoying the lifestyle you have built for yourself. Head to the Military.com fitness section now and equip yourself with the tools you can utilize to continue your journey confidently.
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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – Finding time to work out as a mom with young kids can be a challenge in itself, especially when you’re new to an area and don’t know where to start. However, a new fitness option strolled into Sioux Falls today. iStroll offers moms the chance to work out and meet other moms all while their kids can play or even join alongside them.
iStroll is a national organization that has more than 35 locations in the country but this is the first time one opened in South Dakota. It’s a full body workout that incorporates dumbbells, body weight, and jogging strollers when the weather’s nice.
“I found iStroll in Oklahoma and fell in love,” said Kelsi Supek who started the affiliate in Sioux Falls. “We made friends. It became our entire social network. The kids loved it and then we moved to Arizona during COVID. And all the moms were stuck at home. They were inside with our kids and lonely, honestly. And we were like, why can’t we start an iStroll and be out at the parks with the kids every day? And it took off.”
When Supek moved to Sioux Falls, she was encouraged by her family to start an affiliate and own it herself.
“Gym daycares did not work out for my children,” said Supek. “I would get 10 minutes into a class and then I’d have that person trying to knock outside the yoga studio going, Can I have Kelsey and her kids screaming in daycare? And it just didn’t work for us. So at iStroll they could be with me or I could be breastfeeding the baby as I was teaching in class.”
Classes are planned to continue each Wednesday and Friday at We Rock the Spectrum and First Presbyterian Church. For a full schedule for January and February, you can look at their Facebook. The first class is also free and memberships are for the whole family.
“Letting the kids see you work out is, it’s similar to homeschooling where like, you know, how are they going to love working out if they don’t see you working out,” said Kelly Jardeleza, a stay-at-home mom of three kids. “Whereas at other gyms they put them in a room and they don’t get to watch you. And how are you going to inspire them if they’re not watching you do it?”
Copyright 2026 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.
There’s no bad time to take a more active interest in your health, but the new year, for lots of us, feels like a fresh start. Maybe you’re planning to sign up for a 10k or finally have a go at bouldering, eat a bit better or learn to swing a kettlebell. Maybe you want to keep up with your grandkids — or just be a little bit more physically prepared for whatever life throws at you.
To help things along, Guardian Live invites you to a special event with public health expert Devi Sridhar, journalist and author Mariella Frostrup, and health and fitness columnist Joel Snape. They’ll be joining the Guardian’s Today in Focus presenter Annie Kelly to discuss simple, actionable ways to stay fit and healthy as you move through the second half of life: whether that means staying strong and mobile or stressing less and sleeping better.
To make the whole event as helpful as possible, we’d love to hear from you about what you find most challenging — or confusing — when it comes to health and exercise. What should you actually be eating, and how are you going to find the time to make it? What sort of exercise is best, and how often should you be doing it? Is Pilates worth the effort — and should we really all be drinking mugfuls of piping hot creatine?
Whether your question is about exercise, eating, or general wellness, post it below and we’ll put a selection to our panel on the night.
Share your experience
You can post your question to the panel using this form.
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Jan 6 (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday that it will limit regulation of wearable devices and software designed to support healthy lifestyles, issuing new guidance to clarify its regulatory approach.
The guidance, along with comments from FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, adds to existing policy that classifies low-risk wellness tools, such as fitness apps and activity trackers that encourage exercise, as non-medical devices exempt from stringent regulation, provided they do not make claims related to disease diagnosis or treatment.
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“We have to promote these products and at the same time, just guard against major safety concerns,” Makary said in an interview with Fox Business about artificial intelligence software such as ChatGPT, adding that “if people are looking up a symptom on an AI-based tool, let’s have that conversation when they come in to see their doctor or do a virtual visit.”
“We want to let companies know, with very clear guidance, that if their device or software is simply providing information, they can do that without FDA regulation,” Makary told Fox Business.
“The only stipulation is if they make claims of something being medical grade … like blood pressure measurement. We don’t want people changing their medicines based on something that’s just a screening tool or an estimate of a physiologic parameter.”
The agency also sent out a broader warning to consumers about the risks posed by unauthorized devices.
Reporting by Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Henderson and Sherry Jacob-Phillips
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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