5 Daily Exercises to Keep Your Muscles 10 Years Younger After 40
As a certified personal trainer focusing on women's wellness and longevity, I've seen firsthand how muscle strength changes after 40. Like many of you, I've noticed that tasks that were once effortless—climbing stairs, lifting luggage, or opening jars—can become more challenging. The good news? We can not only slow muscle loss but continue building strength at any age. Follow these five foundational exercises to maintain your youthful strength and mobility for years to come.
Muscle Changes After 40
Research shows that women begin losing muscle mass in their 30s but that loss is very slow and very gradual and most don't start to realize it until their 40s or 50s. That's when they discover that things that used to be easy for them – walking up a long flight of stairs, putting a suitcase in the overhead compartment of a plane, opening a jar of tomato sauce – aren't as easy as they used to be. The good news is that we can not only slow that loss, but we can continue to build muscle and get stronger.
My clients are those who have recognized the importance of continuing to exercise in a focused and deliberate way as they move into their 40s, 50s, and beyond. It truly becomes the period of your life when "use it or lose it" becomes an absolute fact. And while muscle recovery and occasional discomfort can be part of the journey, some techniques or products help them stay consistent – so they can push through workouts without pain holding them back.
We Get Old Because We Stop Moving
The technical term for the muscle loss that accompanies aging is sarcopenia. Simply put, it means that we begin to lose both muscle mass and muscular strength as we age. While this is a natural part of the aging process, we absolutely can take steps to slow it way, way down. As I'm fond of saying, we don't stop moving because we get old, we get old because we stop moving.
Top 5 Strength-Building Exercises
When you talk about exercises to build strength and muscle mass, there are none that you should do every day. Meaningful resistance training should be spread out over various days because a tremendous part of the mechanism that makes this kind of training effective is giving your muscles the opportunity to recover, remodel, and build up strength. Especially for people in their 40s, 50s, and beyond, doing the same exercise daily is a recipe for overuse injuries.
Moreover, if we are talking about building muscle and strength, doing the same thing every day will not get you there. Muscles get stronger from increased load and challenge.
That said, there are certain foundational, functional movements that should be part of everyone's exercise program. Precisely how these are executed depends on people's levels of fitness. And while consistency is key, recovery is just as important. With the maximum-strength, fast-acting formulas and lidocaine to numb pain at the source, it helps relieve discomfort so they can stay on track with their activities, without pain slowing them down.
Sit-Down-Stand-Up Squat
Simple step-by-step instructions
Begin by finding a stable chair or bench. Stand in front of it with your feet about shoulder-width apart. Sit down in a slow and controlled way. Then stand up. Voila, you've done a squat.
How many sets and reps to do daily
This depends entirely on where you are starting. Ideally, build up to 10 reps for 3 sets.
Why this exercise is particularly effective for maintaining muscle strength
- Squatting mimics the act of sitting down and standing up and we want to be able to sit down and stand up – unassisted – throughout our lives.
- It challenges our quads, glutes and even our core and a bit of balance. It is a fundamental, functional movement.
How to adjust it based on current fitness level
- The beauty of the sit stand squat are the many variations you can use to make it easier or more challenging. If you find it too difficult at first, you can push off from the arms of the chair and work up to where you can sit stand without using your hands.
- If you find it easy to execute 10 reps 3 times through, you can make it more challenging by adding hand weights or a weight vest. Or, and this is one of my favorites, turn it into a sit-stand-jump where you add a little vertical jump each time you stand up.
3 Common form mistakes to watch out for
- Dropping your chest forward as you go to stand up. People often do this when they don't have sufficient leg strength and they use their upper body for momentum. Strive to avoid this and simply stand straight up.
- Sitting down without control, sort of flopping back down to the bench. Strive to sit down in a slow and controlled way.
- Letting your knees come together as you stand up. Strive to keep your knees tracking over your toes, rather than caving in toward one another.
Push Up
Simple step-by-step instructions
As we will discuss in a moment, push-ups can be done in a variety of ways to activate slightly different muscles and different degrees of intensity, but the general movement pattern remains the same.
With your body in a plank position, place your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and slowly lower your body as low as you can go safely before pushing through your hands to return your body back to the starting position.
How many sets and reps to do daily
Once again how many reps and how many sets depends entirely on what your level of fitness is when you begin. Once again work up to three sets of 10 reps.
As you progress, consider doing each set of 10 in a different position, perhaps 10 push-ups against the wall, 10 push-ups against a bench, and 10 push-ups from your knees.
Why this exercise is particularly effective for maintaining muscle strength
Pushups are highly effective pushing movements that engage pretty much your entire upper body with the added benefit of engaging your core. As we'll see in a moment, they are also scalable in a host of ways, enabling you to start where you are and continue to build, build, build.
How to adjust it based on current fitness level
The key to understanding how to scale pushups is to recognize that the greater the angle of your body to the floor, the more challenging the moment becomes. So for those just starting out, you can begin with push-ups against the wall. Once you feel strong and secure with those, you can progress to doing push-ups with your hands on a bench, bed, or couch. When those feel good, the next step is doing your push-ups on the floor from your knees and once you've mastered that, you are ready for a full push-up with your feet and hands on the floor and your body in a plank position.
Common form mistakes to watch out for
The most common mistake people make when they are executing a push-up is failing to maintain a strong plank position. That can go in either direction, either letting your belly sink down toward the floor and putting an arch in your back or sticking your butt up in the air. Remember to maintain a straight spine throughout the entire movement.
Plank
Simple step-by-step instructions
- Once again there are several variations to a plank but here are the basics.
- Start on your belly. Place your elbows and forearms on the floor right below your shoulders, raise your body off the ground, keeping your entire body as flat and straight as possible (hence the name, plank).
- Hold that position for as long as you are able to comfortably. Lower your body back to the ground. Rest for about 30 seconds and repeat.
How many sets and reps to do daily
As always, it depends, but I recommend starting with 3 sets, holding each on for as long as is comfortable, building up to at least 30 – 60 seconds per set.
Why this exercise is particularly effective for maintaining muscle strength
This is the granddaddy of core stabilizer exercises using pretty much all of our core and back stabilizer muscles, along with your legs and glutes.
How to adjust it based on current fitness level
You can start from a kneeling position to make it easier and add more time to your hold to make it more challenging.
Common form mistakes to watch out for
The biggest mistake I see is people not holding that key "plank" position and letting their belly sag down toward the floor.
Bent over row
Simple step-by-step instructions
- Begin standing with your feet hip-width apart and a slight bend in your knees and a dumbbell in each hand.
- Hinge at the hip so your upper body is tilted toward the ground.
- Stay grounded in your feet and pull the dumbbells up, keeping your elbows tracking close to the body. As you do, think about engaging your upper back as if you are trying to squeeze a pencil between your shoulder blades.
- Lower the dumbbells back down in a slow and controlled way and repeat
How many sets and reps to do daily
As always, it depends on your level of fitness, but strive to build up to 8 reps 3 times through with challenging weight.
Why this exercise is particularly effective for maintaining muscle strength
This is a complex pulling movement that works your upper back, arms, and core stabilizers, lots of bang for your buck.
How to adjust it based on current fitness level
Simply reduce the number of reps, reduce the weight, or both.
Two common form mistakes to watch out for
When you pull the weights up, be sure that your arms and elbows track close to your body – don't let your elbows splay out.
Keep your back straight and core engaged, don't let your back round over or arch backward
Walk – with incline and or ruck
Simple step-by-step instructions
- Though most of us have been walking since we were about a year old, there isa technique that will enable you to get the most out of your walks.
- Before you head out on a walk stand still for a moment and check in with your posture. Be sure that your shoulders are stacked over your hips, hips are over feet, and imagine that there is a string from the top of your head pulling you tall. This is the posture you should strive to maintain throughout your walk.
- Take a moment to engage your abs. My favorite trick for doing this is to open your arms wide and imagine that someone is throwing a heavy beach ball right towards your belly button and on the count of three imagine catching the ball. You should feel your abs engaged.
- Finally, as you head out, aim to keep your feet parallel to one another like railroad tracks, neither turned in nor turned out.
How many sets and reps to do daily
- Walking is the exception to my advice that you don't do the same movement every day. You can, and should, walk almost every day.
- How far? Research suggests that you get the most benefits from walking 8,800 steps/day (slightly less than the arbitrary 10,000 we hear about so often). Now that doesn't mean more isn't better, it is, but if your focus and goal is longevity, you will see diminishing returns over 8,800. So at the very least, aim for 8,800 steps a day.
Why this exercise is particularly effective for maintaining muscle strength
Walking is a full-body exercise. Not only are you moving mass through space, your core muscles are engaged to keep you standing straight and tall, your leg muscles are powering you through, and your arms are moving in opposition to your legs. Everything working in perfect unison.
How to adjust it based on current fitness level
- There are several ways to increase the intensity and benefits of your walk. Here are five:
- Build up distance. Simply put, add more walking to your walk
- Build up speed. Simply put, walk faster.
- Add inclines. Walking up an incline, no matter how small or large it is challenges your body in different ways. It also helps to move some of the intensity into your glutes and hamstrings and raises the cardiac benefits of the walk. As I always say, assuming your fitness level supports it, if you see a hill climb it and if you see a set of stairs take them.
- Add intervals. Interval training is incredibly effective to both build your cardiovascular endurance and up the ante of caloric burn. There are a wide variety of ways to do this but the principle is simple; increase your speed for some period of time (anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes) then slow down to let your system recover and then do it again. Begin adding intervals slowly and make them part of your walking routine.
- Add weight. Adding a weight pack to your walk is one of the most effective ways to make your walk more challenging. You can do this easily by putting a few books in a backpack or invest in a ruck sack or plate carrier that enables you to safely and slowly add weight to your walk.
Common form mistakes to watch out for
- Walking is one of the safest forms of exercise. That said there are a couple of things to be aware of.
- First, be aware of your environment keep your headphone volume low and stay aware of your surroundings.
- As you walk strive to maintain that erect posture and avoid the tendency to look down at your feet thereby rolling your shoulders forward or looking up at the sky thereby putting an arch in your lower back.
- Last but not least, strive to keep your feet parallel to one another neither turned in nor turned out.
Best Time to Exercise
The best time to exercise is … whatever time works for you. The most important thing is that you exercise regularly – that regular practice is far, far more important than when during the day it happens.
That said, research does suggest that people who exercise first thing in the morning are more likely to stick to their routine, probably because getting your exercise done before the demands of the day take hold gives you the best chance to make it a priority.
For some people, exercising late in the evening disrupts their sleep while for others, it improves their sleep. If you are thinking about adding evening exercise to your daily routine, test it out and notice how that impacts your sleep.
Bottom line: as I often say, every step counts and every mile matters. It matters less when you do it and matters far more that you make it happen.
Nutrition and Recovery
Consider it a trifecta of wellness: exercise, nutrition, and rest & recovery. All three are crucial and fuel one another.
Rest and recovery is the unsung hero of the three. Especially when you are talking about building strength, your muscles must have time to recover and rebuild – that adaption is how you get stronger. Putting it differently, you don't get stronger from the exercise; you get stronger as your body recovers from the exercise.
And here's the reality that most people in fitness don't talk about. Exercising, especially in your 40s, 50s and beyond is likely to cause some aches and pains. So key to the exercise journey in your 40s and beyond is learning to navigate those inevitable aches and pains.
Nutrition is equally important. And with so many different diet plans out there it can be difficult to figure out what's really right for you. That's because everyone's system is truly unique and what works for one person may not work for another. Experiment and find what makes you feel at your best. That said, I believe that there are three universal truths for nutrition for women in their 40s, 50s and beyond.
- Most of us should be eating less refined sugar.
- Most of us should be eating more protein.
- Whole foods are better than processed foods
Positive Changes to Expect
Just this week, one of my clients (a woman in her mid-50s) came back from a two-week trip to visit family in Brazil. "I couldn't believe how much easier it was to put my suitcase in the overhead when I got on the plane," she said. "I didn't have to ask anyone for help."
One of the amazing things about our bodies is how quickly they begin to adapt. I've had clients who found it challenging to walk around the block who build up to a couple of miles in just a few months, while others report being better able to climb stairs, carry their groceries, and basically manage all of the activities of daily life.
But my favorite thing that people say is simply this: "I feel so much better in my body, and I have so much more energy."
Starting Safely After 40
If you've never engaged in strength training, it is important to get cleared by a physician and then get some expert advice to help get you started. Even just a few sessions with a qualified personal trainer can be enough to get you started.
Expect some minor aches and pains, and don't let them derail your progress. As long as you've been cleared by a doctor to continue, products like Aspercreme can help you keep moving with odor-free pain relief. And that is mission critical because, as I often say, we don't stop moving because we get old, we get old because we stop moving. And if you enjoyed this article, don't miss How Long Your Walking Workout Should Be To Shrink Belly Fat.
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