I’m not an elite athlete. I’m just a guy on the precipice of middle age who enjoys running, biking, soccer, and tennis. If I can push myself to my physical limit a couple of times a week and still have the energy to crawl around with my daughter, then I’m satisfied. That makes me a useful filter. The pros have unlimited budgets and few demands on their waking hours beyond making themselves fitter. If you want to spend thousands -or tens of thousands - to sleep in an oxygen pod wearing infrared pajamas, then knock yourself out. But chances are you care only about things that work, are safe, and fit your schedule and budget. So trust the guy with a day job, a bad back, and a new baby. Here’s what I learned in two years of reporting for my book Play On. The importance of periodizing and the risks of not doing so have been drilled into my head by the likes of soccer coach Raymond Verheijen and exercise scientist Trent Stellingwerff, Ph.D.
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For an elite athlete, periodizing can mean creating a structured program of buildup and tapering that yields peak fitness at a precise time. For me, it’s more about the principles: ramping up training gradually, preparing my body for performance enhancer for men specific demands, and avoiding fatigue. If you invite me to play soccer and I haven’t been keeping in soccer shape, or if I’m nursing an injury I could play through, I say no. Benching yourself sucks, but it doesn’t suck as much as missing an entire season because you got hurt. Elite lifters end their workouts differently than the rest of us do. Strength coaches talk about loading and unloading--that is, the former should always be followed by the latter. I now think in those terms. It encompasses both recovery and range-of-motion work that prevents the sorts of movement limitations and compensations that can build up over time and lead to injuries. I used to consider happy hour a valid cooldown routine.

Now I’m a fanatic about stretching and self-massage and have a closet full of straps, bands, foam rollers, and lacrosse balls to show for it. Committing to this is tough if your schedule is packed, which could tempt you to extend your workout and skip the stretching. That’s a bad tradeoff. A percentage of your workouts should be high intensity, and the balance - say, 80 percent - should be performed at very low intensity. Again, I don’t stick to any formal program of polarization, but I try to avoid what Stellingwerff says is the most common mistake athletes make: going too hard on easy days and then not being able to go as hard as you want the next time out. Instead, I make my hard workouts both shorter and more intense than I used to. Elite older athletes stay competitive by being Read more deliberate in their training, focusing their limited time honing specific skills, and correcting their fitness weaknesses.

For me, this often means taking two minutes before I start to write up a plan on a sticky note. A little intentionality goes a long way. If you’re looking for a new challenge to get in the best shape of your life after 40, check out Muscle After 40, a 12-week workout program from Men’s Health. Much of the nutrition “science” peddled to athletes is bunk. If you’re eating a healthy diet--lots of different fruits and vegetables, proteins, and whole grains, not too much sugar or processed stuff--you’re probably fine. But if you want to avoid losing muscle as you age, it’s worth making a couple of tweaks. I’ve increased the protein in my diet as well as the number of times I consume it during the day, following the advice of triathlete and nutrition scientist Asker Jeukendrup, Ph.D. A side benefit: Adding protein to anything you eat effectively lowers its glycemic index, says Chris Jordan, M.S., C.S.C.S., director of exercise physiology for the Johnson & Johnson Human performance enhancer for men Institute.

So if I want to have an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie without feeling a sugar crash, I’ll put a smear of almond butter on it. I also try to consume 3 to 5 milligrams of creatine powder a day, usually in a smoothie or a glass of milk, just before or after a workout. It’s had a noticeable effect on my ability to build and maintain muscle. For athletes with a history of injury or physical limitations (that’s all of us, eventually), the key to optimal fitness is separating desirable training stresses from undesirable ones. If you have access to an AlterG anti-gravity treadmill or Kaatsu bands, great. If you don’t, there are still plenty of ways to embrace this concept. Instead of adding weight to an exercise, I’ll incorporate a balance element, like doing pushups with my hands on medicine balls, or add a second force vector, like having a resistance band around my knees during squats.