I am 46, struggled to “start something like this” for years. I am really enjoying and having good luck with an Android app for a “7 minute workout”. The one I use is from Johnson & Johnson, lets you use a premade workout or build one with faves from several categories to insure you still get an overall workout. (not sure if on iOS but this is just one of many 7 minute workout apps)
The idea of course being that it’s hard to convince yourself that you can’t carve seven minutes out of your day, e.g. before your morning or evening shower…
I’m in my mid 40’s and my wife and I just started going to the gym last October. In January I saw a similar video challenge to do a 100 pushups a day for 100 days. The first day I asked the trainer at my gym and he just kept having me do small sets of 4-6 pushups until I hit 100 varying it up with some squats and triceps exercises. I was fairly shocked that I was able to hit 100 on the first day, and even more shocked that I got there in about 30 minutes.
The first 10 days were bad, I was really sore. Now that I’m on day 39 it doesn’t seem like it’s that big of a deal. I can now usually do 50 pushups my first set and I’m consistently doing more then 100 now because 100 doesn’t feel like that many anymore.
The big thing was that it only took 15 days to hit “OMG, I can see my triceps” and the past 10 days or so have been “OMG I think I can see my pecs”, admittedly I still have a bit of moob action going on.
I am surprised at how quickly it got “easy.” So I have been starting to add squats in, I did 50 yesterday and today seems like a good a day as any to make sure I hit 100. Once that starts feeling easy I’ll probably start adding sit-ups. We are still going to the gym 4 times a week, but man do you start seeing the results quickly with body weight exercises.
sure, these people are younger, but i appreciate the point of the video which is that it’s good to do SOMETHING. any amount you can do is a good start, and then build on that. you’d be surprised what you can change in 30 days.
I’m in your boat too - getting to the point where I feel I need to change to something low impact for long term health…all avid runners get their knees blown out eventually.
i saw a video of an elderly lady doing squats (just body weight) …she was a phd in something or other… she said if you do them consistently throughout your life as you age they are the #1 reason you will have that you can still get around…I have taken her advice to heart.
Well, not all. There’s movements to change to what is supposedly more natural running form, Pose, Chi, etc. Mostly striking with forefoot first and rolling back to heel, instead of heel-toe. I can confirm that this puts a TON less stress on your knees. But in my case, a ton more stress on my achilles tendons–admittedly the lesser evil.
They’re called “noob gainz” for a reason, you will never experience the muscle mass and strength increases you experience in the first few weeks of exercising again in your life. I’ve been chasing them for 15 years.
There was an article/plug here a while back for the Gorilla Workout app (EDIT: which I purchased). The first workout is 4 rounds of 8 squats, 4 lunges, and 10 modified pushups (i.e. using knees). It kicked my ass, right away. I had trouble walking around the next day due to sore thighs. After a day or two it got better, but whenever I’ve stopped the regimen (3 or 4 times now) the pain returns all over again when I resume. So I’ve put off resumption… It has occurred to me to maybe start over with one round.
I don’t recall getting sore knees from squats or lunges, but I was getting sore knees and ankles from running (about 5k, several times a week, at one point). I figured I ought to at least postpone the knee replacement(s) so I quit that and currently the only exercise I get is from walking. (or chores etc.)
Squats are not hard on your knees, that’s been pretty thoroughly debunked. What is true is that people need to pay money to strength coaches if they want to lift weights properly without injury, though it requires digging around for an actual weightlifting coach instead of a gym trainer. Between high schools and cross fit, a lot of people learned how to do some very dangerous things in gyms.
