The Marshall Plan: Staying fit in my 50s

If I had £1 for every time someone said to me, ‘I need to get fit,’ I would have enough money to pay for a month’s food shopping. If I had a £1 for every time someone told me about their ‘steps’ or ‘Strava’, I would have enough money to pay the Council Tax too.

I rarely talk about my training, and then only to our adult members and other colleagues who also understand training, because it is a Sisyphean task to clear out the clutter from the bystander’s mind. Training plans are easy to come by on the interweb, fads come and go quicker than you can say, ‘Peleton treadmill fiasco.’

I simply don’t have the energy or willpower to indulge in the noise.

Here is what I am currently doing and why

Knowing why you are training is important. So is defining what is ‘fit.’ Doing one single activity does not make you ‘fit’ it might make you ‘fit for purpose.’

As I get older, my focus has switched from ‘performance’ 20-years ago when I was in the mix of England training, to measurables 10-years ago, to just being able to move freely and enjoy my life now.

(For those of you around 41 years old here is my training plan from 10 years ago Yes, I did run sub 40 minutes at the end of the plan. No, I didn’t post it on Strava…)

Move freely and enjoy my life: sort of what I was doing 30 years ago.

Part of that enjoyment is learning new things: that can be walking somewhere different, or learning a new skill or stunt in gymnastics. Part of it is creating new routines like this one I did yesterday:

My current routine

• Weight lifting: Monday. Wednesday, Friday.
• Gymnastics: Tuesday, Thursday, 1 day at the weekend, plus rope skipping/ sprints.
• Walking: 40-60 minutes daily, long walk at the weekend (6-10 miles, loaded, using a map).

For those at the back who aren’t paying attention, there are two main changes from my programme 10 years ago:

1. A lot less running (I have done enough miles in my time) and a switch from complexes to weight lifting itself.
2. Gymnastics: 10 years ago I hadn’t started trying out gymnastics.

The two main reasons for this are:

1. My children are older: 10 years ago they were both under-5 and time was precious. I started my gymnastics learning so that I could teach my children how to do gymnastics. I still practice now to keep fresh and learning (From not being able to do a backward roll, I can now land a front somersault, back handspring and am nearly able to do an aerial).

2.GAIN: that last programme was written 3 months before I attended my first ever GAIN. That transformed my approach to training and gave me the tools to solve the problems that I was encountering with athletes (formal certifications are way off).

Some detail on the session plans

Weight Lifting. My goal is to get under the bar fast. I was progressing the load for the first part of the year, but I got slower. I snatch every session, doubles or singles. I warm up with movement off the platform, then hinge, press and overhead squat with the bar, followed by snatch balance, then work downwards from mid-thigh to hang to the floor.

I have added overhead squat and weighted snatch balance to get used to receiving the weight lower: this is quite fatiguing and I take out back squats on those sessions.

I do clean and jerk every session now too: (1+2) or (2+1). I don’t need to do a lot of cleans after the snatch. I back squat or do single leg step ups on a 20” box followed by behind the head presses one session a week. The single leg step up is challenging, that helps me when I try to change direction fast on the field (something I have to do when playing football with my son or demonstrating with the footballers and rugby players that I coach).

Gymnastics. I work on flow patterns on the floor, rolling and crawling before going into backbends, which are horrible, but necessary. I then work on balances before trying cartwheel, leap and roll variations in my limited space. The freshness is from changing the sequences and trying to do a different stunt each week.

I follow this with either 15 minutes of rope skipping, trying out new combinations or a series of shorter sprints. The act of moving fast is important (or as fast as I can go).

Walking. This is underrated except by people who walk. Years ago, Steve Magness gave an excellent overview at GAIN about the history of endurance training. Walking was a big part of it 100 years ago.

I walk briskly, about 4 mph, and in the countryside. The rhythmic quality of movement and enjoying the surroundings is food for the soul. Exploring new places ensures that my mind is focused on the route and not on the static of life. Walking for 2 hours is endurance training when without it being a chore. My eyes bleed when I see the sloggers out there doing 10-minute miles, badly and miserably. Life is too short for that.

The final part of the plan, or perhaps the first, is eating healthily. Like many others, I drank too much alcohol over the last year, not in binge sessions, but in the aftermath of homeschooling or another announcement from the government that ruined our livelihoods. As Colin, one of our weight lifters said, ‘January is miserable enough without cutting out alcohol.’

I stopped any drinking when I could resume coaching (one exception was a bottle of wine, but that was given to me by a Doctor, so it was medicinal) and had some sense of purpose again. The food plan is the one I have outlined here:

My GAIN colleague, Patrick McHugh, started to follow this plan in his recovery from cancer: he has lost over 20kg!

Summary

The Marshall Plan isn’t for everyone. But it works for me. I am not trying to copy anyone else’s goals or ideas for what I should be doing. I don’t need a charity event or competition to get me to train. I don’t need to post every meal and every workout on Instagram for social validation.

I train for me. I am an adult and know that eating healthily and exercising regularly are as important as wearing a seatbelt and flossing my teeth.

If I am in good health I can look after my family better. That is the most important thing.

Further Reading: How to take charge of your fitness training.