Training at 45 vs 25: How to Stay Badass for Life

If you’re reading this, you probably enjoy doing challenging things with your body. The feeling of pushing your limits, the confidence in knowing you can do things most people can’t.

Here’s what 27 years of physical therapy practice and a lifetime of martial arts have taught me: your training priorities should change as you get older.

And when they do, you actually become more capable, because you stop wasting effort on things that don’t build you up.

I’ve worked with clients from about 4 to 102 years old.

The ones who are strongest and most capable at 60, 70, 80 have something in common. They didn’t just keep training. They got smarter about what they trained and why.

We all know the body changes as we get older. You’ve probably seen people in the generations above you get weak and stiff and lose the ability to do the things they love.

But here’s what many people miss: the decline you see in sedentary people is dramatically steeper than what happens to people who train with purpose. The gap between those two groups gets wider every decade.

This article breaks down the three biggest physical changes that come with age and three strategies to stay ahead of them. Because the body will change. Your capability doesn’t have to.

But first, here’s Ryan talking about what’s shifted in his own training over the years.

Fitness at 45 vs Fitness at 25

Ryan’s making a practical case here: choose exercises that build strength, mobility, and control simultaneously, so every session does more for you without tearing you down.

Below, I’ll get into the science of why this approach matters more with every year.

And yeah, we get that 45 isn’t old. But the shift in perspective and priority is relevant at any age, and it’s something we’ve learned by working with thousands of clients across decades. If what Ryan’s saying resonates, you’re in the right place.

How Strength, Flexibility, and Control Change With Age

Your body goes through real physiological changes as you get older. Two camps tend to form around this:

1. After a certain age, you’re just going to get worse. There’s nothing you can do about it.
2. Aging doesn’t really have to happen. Any decline is your fault for not eating right, training right, supplementing right.

Both of these are wrong, and the truth is more useful than either one.

The body does go through certain physiological changes as you get older, which can make some things more challenging. However, there are specific actions you can take to dramatically slow these changes.

Let me go over the three biggest ones.

Exercisers Hold On to Strength for Decades Longer

When you think of common characteristics of older people, weakness or frailty probably come to mind.

As people get older, there is a definite decline in strength, but the age at which that sets in and how severe it gets depends largely on exercise habits.

There’s a massive difference between a lifelong exerciser who’s weaker in his 70s than he was at 30 and a lifelong couch potato who breaks her hip at 68.

Take a look at the natural decline non-exercisers go through over a lifetime, compared to what many lifelong exercisers experience:

The important thing to note: while both groups experience a decline in strength, exercisers hold on to their strength much better for much longer.

The decline is dramatically steeper for sedentary people.

So yes, you can expect to lose some strength as you get older. But as long as you continue to exercise consistently, you could be doing things at 80 that most people can’t do at 20.

Flexibility Loss Compounds Faster Than You’d Expect

Flexibility is something people of all ages struggle with, but the decline past age 55 or so is pretty significant. One study showed a decrease in shoulder flexion of 5-6 degrees per decade, and a decrease in hip flexion of 6-7 degrees per decade.

That’s a huge difference over several decades of life!

Even if you are currently quite flexible, imagine how limited your life would be if you lost 5-20 degrees of flexion in any joint.

The good news: flexibility training has a significant impact on retaining and increasing range of motion as you get older, even if you’ve lost some of what you had when you were younger.

A lot of people start lamenting the flexibility they “once had” the minute they feel changes. But losing flexibility is only a given if you don’t do any flexibility training.

Motor Control Is the One Most People Overlook

This is arguably the most critical of the three, because it’s what’s responsible for older people losing balance and falling, as well as other potentially life-threatening consequences of poor coordination.

Motor control is what allows you to put your flexibility and strength into controlled motion. People of all ages struggle with it because it’s rarely emphasized in traditional exercise programs, but that makes it more important to address.

Without specifically training your motor control, you can expect to lose significant coordination as you get older. Proper training, though, can help you retain it.

You’re probably not worried about falling and hurting yourself right now. You’re active and strong, and you know you can bounce back from a minor accident. But many adults over a certain age don’t have that same confidence.

Keep up your training, and specifically work on motor control, and you’ll retain that confidence 20, 30, or 40 years from now.

Next we’re gonna look at how menopause plays into all this.

If that’s not an issue for you, you can click here to skip to the next section about our favorite strategies for staying a badass as you get older.

3 (+1) Strategies to Keep Building Capability for Life

Being fit and healthy for all the things that you need and want to do with your life has little to do with your age and a lot to do with how you live your life.

I remember working in a hospital where there was a 90-year-old patient who was incredibly sharp and strong, and the only reason she was there was because she had broken her hip. I would compare her to a different patient, a 60-something man who could barely stand up and had been like that for years.

A closer look at their respective histories revealed that she was continuously active in all areas of her life, while his listed “hobbies” included watching TV and drinking.

Certainly, there are medical conditions and such that can occur more frequently in older folks, but excluding that, the primary indicator of quality of life as we age is how active we remain. The fountain of youth exists, and it’s been proven again and again to be exercise.

The following three strategies will help you continue to do the things you love for a lifetime.

1. Train Now for the Movement You Want at 70

There are countless examples of masters-level weightlifters, gymnasts, runners, martial artists, and other athletes that have prolonged competitive careers.

What is it that distinguishes these lifelong athletes? What keeps them going when many others are content watching old footage of themselves while digging into the next bag of chips?

These lifelong athletes simply never stopped.

Though your absolute level of strength will decrease as you get older, and you’ll likely not be hitting personal bests when you are 70, your relative strength as compared to your peers who don’t exercise will be remarkably high.

And at a certain point, even maintaining a level of strength will put you head and shoulders above everyone else.

The important thing is to think about how you want to be moving 20, 30, 40 years from now. Start moving that way now if you haven’t already, and keep at it. That’s what ensures your success much further down the line.

Having a passion and joy for moving your body, training and working hard because the act itself means something to you — that’s the recipe for lifelong fitness. Find something you enjoy, something you want to do for as long as possible, and there’s a good chance you’ll still be going many years from now.

2. Cycle Your Training Focus Instead of Doing Everything at Once

One key component of the GMB Method is the concept of cycling your goals.

This idea is applicable throughout your training lifetime, and maybe even more so for the older trainee. Rather than attempting to do everything at once in your workouts and spinning your wheels, a targeted plan of attack for a short period of time is much better for continued progress.

It’s also much easier on the body than banging away at the same workouts with the same intensity.

Even for youngsters, that’s a quick trip to a dead end. Patient, directed, consistent effort wins out over frenzied, unfocused exertion every time.

3. Prioritize Your Weak Links Before They Become Problems

Take a hard, critical look at your current levels of strength, flexibility, and motor control.

Though we can always improve, there are often glaring deficiencies that we tend to gloss over and think “oh, I’ll work on it later.” Well, later needs to be now if you want to get anywhere.

A systematic approach to tackling your weaknesses doesn’t mean neglecting everything else.

The easiest tactic: prioritize that lagging area by moving it to the beginning of your routine. After your warm-up, your energy level is higher and you’re more likely to actually get it done than you would by tacking it on to the end. Work on it first with good concentration and then move on to your other training.

Taking the time to bring up your deficits leads to bigger and better improvements later on, and for the rest of your training life. Have the discipline to start on it now and you’ll reap the benefits for years.

Bonus: Take Recovery Seriously

In the video above, Ryan talks about how much more important recovery has become as he’s gotten older. If you’ve been training for a while, you’ve probably noticed the same thing.

Rather than gloss over this topic in a few sentences, I’ll direct you here:

👉 Our 4 Best Recovery Strategies for Faster Recovery

Find Your Role Models

A lot of our ideas about age and health come from our own experiences with family and whatever the media shows us. If those sources aren’t very inspiring, seek better role models.

One person who’s been a major inspiration for me is Guro Dan Inosanto.

He is amazingly fast, coordinated, and powerful. It’s no exaggeration to say he puts most 30-year-olds to shame. He teaches regularly at his academy in California and has maintained a grueling seminar schedule for over 40 years, all while continuing to train and attend classes himself.

People like Guro Dan are out there in every sport and discipline.

Find the ones who are doing what you want to be doing at their age, and pay attention to what they do consistently. That kind of inspiration keeps you motivated and engaged for the long haul.

Build Capability That Lasts

Too often, people take an all-or-nothing approach to training after a certain age. They think it’s “too late” to start, or things are only bound to go downhill.

Yes, your body will change as you get older.

But everything in this article points to the same conclusion: the people who stay strong, mobile, and capable are the ones who train all three attributes consistently. Strength, flexibility, and motor control. Together.

That’s exactly what Elements is built to develop.

It’s a structured program that trains all three in every session, with built-in autoregulation so you’re always working at the right level for where you are today. Over 125,000 clients have used our programs to build the kind of physical capability that holds up year after year.

You don’t need to train more. You need to train with purpose. Elements gives you the structure to do that.