Ep 141 Strength After 40: Are Your Best Days Behind You?

We've just passed the summer solstice; the peak of the light, and the precise moment it begins, very gently, to turn. It got me thinking about the thresholds we meet in midlife, and one in particular: strength.

In this episode I share a story about the heaviest weight I ever lifted on a competition platform and what happened next.

We get into the actual physiology of strength and ageing, why the cliff-edge narrative is wrong, and what genuinely changes whether you've trained for decades, are noticing a dip, or have never picked up a weight in your life and think it's too late.

Spoiler: it isn't. It might be exactly the right time.

Local to Hull? Try out the Strong Bones Club 2 week trial if you're curious about lifting in midlife and menopause. Learn more here

For gentle coaching through midlife transitions get in touch at carlykillen.com

For Breathwork 1-1 coaching and workshops head over to stillspacehull.com

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: carlykillenpt@gmail.com
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

Do you crave unshakable confidence in your strength from midlife and beyond? Would you love to achieve your goals without sacrificing family time or self-care?

Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit; your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at carlykillenpt@gmail.com

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

Transcript

0:02

Hello, and welcome back to Rooted in Presence. I'm Carly, your guide and host for this episode, which is now 141, bringing you all things breathwork, strength, with a touch of midlife and menopause wisdom sprinkled throughout. So here over in the northern hemisphere, we have just passed through the summer solstice. That was the longest day, the peak of the light for this year, and there's something I tend to find quite moving about the solstice because I guess it's the exact moment the light is at its fullest and also the precise moment it begins to turn the other way. Although, it doesn't happen instantly. It's not a switch. The day after the solstice isn't suddenly dark. The light doesn't drop off a cliff. It turns slowly, almost imperceptibly over months. We barely notice it happening day to day, and yet it continues to move, always shifting and always in a process. And that got me thinking about thresholds, as it often does. About the threshold points we meet in midlife, and this is for everyone listening today, women, men, all people that have decided to tune in Because midlife and the changes that come with it Do not solely belong to one sex. We all meet these turning points, these moments where we become aware that something is shifting in how our bodies work, how they feel, what they're capable of. And I'd love to talk to you today especially about that in relation to strength, Because I think strength is one of those places where that threshold is deeply felt and often most misunderstood. So I'd like to talk to you about this from a place of honesty with some actual physiology, but also a lot of compassion because I'm also right in the middle of this threshold myself. So we'll start with a story about some red plates. So a few years ago, I think it might be three years already, i was competing in Olympic weightlifting, not in the actual Olympics, just the actual sport of Olympic weightlifting. It's a certain kind of way of lifting. I often called it fancy lifting. It's the snatch to clean and jerk. You can Google it, YouTube it. You'll see what I mean. But during my last competition, I hit a personal best, Something I'd never managed in training, I literally only managed it there on that particular day and on that competition platform. So for those of you who know Olympic lifting, you'll know the weight plates are color-coded, and on that day I had the red plates on the bar, so they're the highest ones in color. And on a competition platform, which for me it was a big deal. Something I'd never done before, and I had to make a few brave choices to do it too. And here's the thing I'd like you to sit with for a moment, if you wish to. I have never lifted that weight since. Shortly after that competition, I developed an injury, and then a few months later, found myself in burnout. Not all of it relating to lifting. Maybe a little bit of it was, given how I was with my rest, work, and life patterns. We'll never truly know exactly the one cause. I don't think it was one thing. But I haven't been back to competition since, and honestly, I don't think I will return. Maybe I will. I don't know. But I don't know if I'll ever hit that weight again. And here's something that's really important about the story. On that day, lifting those red plates, in that moment of that personal best of triumph and celebration of having those red plates on the bar, I had absolutely no idea that that might be the heaviest lift I would ever lift. No idea. I thought it was a stepping stone. I thought there might be more. I thought it was the beginning of something that could progress even further, not actually potentially a peak. And I think this is true for many of us in so many areas of life. We can pass our peak without knowing it was the peak. We're so busy looking ahead to the next thing that we don't realize that we might be standing at that high point right now And I don't say that to make you feel miserable. I say that just to give you a moment of pause, And perhaps something you might want to reflect on for yourself So let's talk about what's actually happening in the body in terms of physiology, because I know you listeners appreciate the science, and I think the science here is genuinely reassuring rather than frightening. So let's explain it properly. So as we age, there is a gradual change in how readily our bodies build and maintain muscle. From around our mid-30s onwards, we begin very slowly to lose muscle mass if we're not actively working to maintain it, and this process is called sarcopenia. Now, alongside that, there's something called anabolic resistance, which essentially means that as we get older, our muscles become a little less responsive to the things that builds them. So that's things like protein and the stimulus of training. We need a bit more of the signal to get the same response, essentially. Now, I'd like to be really clear about how I'm framing this, because this is the exact point where most conversations about aging and strength start to go a bit wrong. They present this almost like a cliff edge, a decline, a slow, sad slide into frailty that we're powerless to stop, and that is simply not what the science says. So there we go, a moment of reassurance for those of you that need it. What the science actually says is that the stimulus matters more, not that the response is gone, but muscle remains highly adaptable across our entire lifespan. There are studies of people starting resistance training in their 70s, 80s, and making genuine measurable gains in strength and muscle. I've spoken on previous episodes about clients I've had do this too. But the capacity to get stronger does not disappear. It just asks for a little more intention, a bit more protein, a bit more consistency, and a lot more respect for recovery. So just like the solstice, the light doesn't just switch off. It turns gradually, and there is so much we can do with that turning. The threshold is not a wall, but more of an invitation to use our wisdom for our training So let me speak to a few different types of people that might be listening, because I think there are a few of you here with quite different relationships to this. So first, if you're someone who's trained for a long time, who's strong, who knows your way around the gym, who maybe even has a competition background a bit like mine. Okay, mine was masters competition. It still counts. But if you're starting to notice that dip, lifts that used to feel manageable feeling heavier, perhaps recovery is taking longer and maybe like me, you've kind of started to realize that personal best from a few years ago is something you might not touch again. And I want to say to you, adapting your training is not giving up. In fact, it's the opposite. It's the most skilled, most respectful thing you can ever do for your body, the body you have now And there can be a real grief here, a genuine grieving of a former peak. And if you've listened to my previous episodes, you'll know I think grief deserves to be honored, not bypassed. It's okay to feel something about the red plates you might not lift again. But adaptation means you get to keep going. You get to keep being strong, strong for this season, not in comparison to a previous one, and it doesn't have to be a downgrade. It's maturity. It's training, age, and wisdom really starting to work together And now to those of you listening that are perhaps on the other side of things, those of you who have never really done this, who hears all of this and thinks, "Well, that ship has sailed for me. I'm too old to start now. There is no point." And I need to tell you something, and I'm going to tell you with my full heart because I held this exact belief myself. I didn't start lifting weights until I was 34, and before that, I genuinely believed that being over 30 meant I was already past it, that fitness, strength, athleticism, those things were for other people, younger people, people who started in childhood. And I'm a little embarrassed about that belief now looking back because it was so wrong,. But at the time, that was incredibly present for me. And everything I went on to do, the competitions, the red plates, the strength I built, all of it came after the age of 34, after the age I'd written myself off. So when I tell you it's not too late, I'm not offering you a comforting platitude. I'm sharing something with you that evidence supports and that I have also lived. The research on starting strength training later in life is really quite remarkable. Your muscles will respond. Your bones will respond. They can sustain themselves, and that makes a huge difference because one in two women over 50 will experience osteoporosis And one in three men will be affected by this too, and in most cases it's preventable, and resistance training is one of the most powerful tools we have for building and protecting bone. So it is not too late. It is in fact exactly the right time And of course, there is another kind of person I would like to speak to. Perhaps you are a bit of a comparer, the one who does show up, who does train, but you're spending your whole time measuring yourself against somebody else. Perhaps someone younger, someone competitive, someone with years more training behind them. So there's something we don't often talk about enough, and there's a concept in strength training called training age, which is simply how long you've been training and it's completely distinct from how old you actually are chronologically. So someone who has been lifting consistently for 15 years is going to be operating from a completely different place from somebody in their first year, regardless of how old chronologically either of them is. So comparing your beginning to someone else's middle is not just unkind to yourself, it's not even an accurate comparison. You're looking at two different points on two completely different journeys. So your only meaningful comparison is to yourself. Where were you last month? Last year? What can your body do now that it couldn't before? That's the focus that you want to give yourself, and possibly the only race worth running. Now let's talk about how this actually works with what I do, because it connects to all of this, and because it might actually be different from what you'd expect. So I'm not the kind of coach who supervises people in the gym week on week, watching every rep. The people who do best with me actually only have sessions, formal sessions, with me twice a month. And there's a real intention behind that, because my goal isn't for you to depend on me. It's for you to feel empowered and capable of adapting your own training, fitting it into your actual life, making the adjustments you need as things change. So yes, we do build that program that works for you. We make sure it works. We look at what your body needs, your schedule, your season of life, and then I give you the space to go and live it, to make it yours, to come back and refine it together. The rhythm tends to create far more genuine, lasting strength than someone standing over you counting reps ever could And alongside the physical training, there is the coaching side, because this is the thing I really care about, and apparently this has been called my stealthy reason for doing what I do, or so my clients tell me. So the last thing I want is for someone to rest all of their self-worth, all of their identity, all of their sense of enjoyment on the strength training itself, on the number on the bar, the scale, how their body looks, how their body performs. Because if your entire sense of self-worth is built on your personal best, what happens when the body changes, when you age, when you hit your own red plates moment and don't know if you'll ever lift that again? And it can be the same in career, in different points of life. I feel like strength training is actually quite a good metaphor for a lot of other things. But if strength itself is the whole point, then any natural change becomes a loss, a downward slide, something to grieve and resist. But if strength is in service of something larger, if it's there so that you live a fuller life, to keep you doing the things you love, to be able to lift your grandchildren or carry your shopping or hike up a hill to see a view or just simply move through your days with ease or confidence and trust that you've got this, this life thing, well, that changes everything. And then strength isn't a destination. It's just part of what helps life tick along. So the work I do isn't really about getting people physically strong, though we do actually do that too. It's about how I help people live a strong life, a life anchored in values, your joy, your desire, in genuine connection with yourself and the people around you. The strength that serves life, not the other way around. And yes, I'll be honest with you, this is exactly the threshold I am standing in myself right now. Competition doesn't pull me the way it used to. Changing my body to fit a particular image holds no interest to me anymore either. So I've had to ask myself honestly, like, what is my motivation now? What is strength for for me in this season? And I don't have a perfectly tidy answer for you. I'm still in that question. But what I'm finding is that the motivation was maybe never really the number on the bar. It was what the strength allowed me to do and who it let me be and how it allowed me to meet my life. And that day doesn't retire after the competition does. It's available for the rest of my days So as the light turns very gently from this solstice, wherever you are with your strength journey, whatever threshold you might be meeting, I would like to offer you this. The strongest version of you isn't necessarily behind you. It might just look different than what you expected. Adapted, maybe wiser, but more in service of the life you actually want to live. So if this has stirred something in you and you'd like support building the strength in a way that fits your real life and your real season, this is exactly what I do. My Strong Bones Club program is starting again soon, so if you are local to Hull, you may wish to explore that. I'll pop the link in the show notes, and I also work with people one-to-one, both at Still Space Hull and online. You'll find the details on my website at carlykillen.com. So whether you're returning to strength, adapting it, or starting for the very first time at an age you perhaps had written off, you are always welcome here. It's not too late. It might be exactly the right time. So until next time, may you meet yourself with compassion, walk with presence, and remember you already have everything you need