What gets lost in the weight loss craze and how ripped you look is the importance of fitness and nutrition for your everyday life.  Before running a gym, I worked in a Physical Therapy clinic dedicated to workers comp injuries.  In almost half of the cases, a low fitness level had more to do with it than a bad work environment.  I would also hear endless talk about what they will do when they retire.  For a lot of them, walking a ½ mile would be a challenge.  Unless their dream is watching television or reading books all day, their retirement will be uneventful.

So, are you someone looking at retirement around the corner or have a vacation coming up?  If so, do you have the health and fitness to enjoy it? If not, no worries, it’s never too late to start.

The way you work out is going to be very important. At FCG, we are more of a functional training gym.  To us, functional training means designing workouts that allow you to complete daily activities and do the things you love.  For that to happen, you’ll need a level of flexibility/mobility, strength, power, and a strong heart & lungs.  For lots of people, usually one or maybe two of these qualities will be trained.  It’s important to address all of these qualities to achieve a higher level of fitness.

At FCG, we’ll look at increasing flexibility and mobility by foam rolling, stretching, joint mobility, and performing exercises in a safe range of motion. 

Regardless if you’re 40 or our oldest member at 77, training explosively is a must.  As we age, increasing power is extremely important.  We’ll address this by medicine ball throws, kettlebell swings, or doing basic strength exercises fast.

Speaking of strength, this is the cornerstone of our program.  We’ll spend more time building strength at FCG because it’s the most important quality.  But you’ll notice something different about FCG than most gyms, we don’t have any machines.  I am not saying machines are bad (I admit I did in the past) but we are looking at you to move at the gym, not sit in a fixed position.  We will look to address strength in different planes of motion, stances, speed, and intensities.

Unless you’re looking at competing in a bodybuilding show, being 40+ and big & jacked but not able to walk up a flight of stairs without passing out is useless.  You want to have enough conditioning to ensure you can do your job and every day activities well.  At FCG, we train “cardio” with different heart rates throughout the workouts.  If you’re someone new to fitness, we won’t go as hard as a member who has been with us 1+ years.  Like with strength training, you want to start slow and progress as needed.

Your quality of life, especially as we get older will be dependent on how well we take care of ourselves.  We have found that stronger more fit people are happier.   Like I mentioned earlier, it’s never too late to start.  Take control of your life but enhancing your fitness today!