The Lost Secrets of Health & Fitness After Age 50

Here’s the bad news: You lose up to 5% of your strength, flexibility and balance for every decade after age 20. But here’s the good news: With a little effort and determination, you can maintain 90% of the strength, flexibility and balance you had at age 20 well into your 60s, 70s and even 80s.

It sounds incredible… but it’s true! That means that if you could do 60 pushups when you were 20, you could actually do a mere 54 when you’re 65 (90% of 60). If you could get up at 5:00 a.m. and surf for two hours, you could, at age 70, get up at 6:00 a.m. and surf for only an hour and a half. (After all, you must make some concession to age!)

How is this possible? The answer lies in TRAINING FOR AGING.

As you age, you can maintain your strength, flexibility and balance… but you must train to do that. You must develop an exercise program that seeks to develop the very capabilities that we know you will lose as you age.

One way I do this is with the esoteric Japanese martial art of Aikido. I love Aikido because it trains all three of the physical attributes you lose with age — strength, flexibility and, most neglected of all, balance. If you want to fight, try Brazilian jujitsu. But if you want to age with grace and dignity and agility, try Aikido. There is nothing like it.

I also lift weights, do yoga, run on my treatmill while watching the news, and practice a little Tai Chi. I’m an ugly, crotchety old bastard… but I can do more pushups than many 20-year-olds I know and I’ve never felt better in my life.