How to Keep More of Your Hard Earned Money as You Age

This headline in The NY Times, “Getting in Shape in Middle Age“, caught my attention.

Unfortunately, the article was a generic template that you probably have heard a gazillion times: walk and lift weights.

But the title caused me to ask myself this –

How do you know when you’re “out of shape”?

The only way you would know if you were out of shape is to know what being “in-shape” means.

What Does Being In-Shape Mean?

Does being in-shape mean I need to look a certain way?

I can run a 10k in a certain time? Run up a flight of stairs and not be gasping for air?

I can lift a certain amount of weight?

I can work in my yard all weekend and not feel like I got run over by a truck?

Just what exactly does being in-shape mean?

As I was researching this topic, I noticed a pattern.

Most articles about what it means to be in-shape conclude that it’s different for everyone and there is no standard. Being in-shape is whatever you want it to mean.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, fitness is defined as –

“Physical fitness is defined as “a set of attributes that people have or achieve that relates to the ability to perform physical activity” (USDHHS, 1996).

That’s not too helpful since “physical activity” could be anything from a walk around the block to competing in the CrossFit Games.

It appears that no one wants to draw the line and say, “If you don’t meet at least this level of ability, you are out-of-shape”.

And that’s a mistake.

Why?

Because a lot of people assume they are in reasonably good physical condition because they don’t feel bad, they don’t hurt and they can do basic things in life.

I recently spoke with a gentleman who had performed some of the exercises in my book “Build a Rock Solid Core: Stop the Sit Ups and Save Your Spine“. He said he was surprised at how challenging the beginning exercises were for him. “I had no idea how out-of-shape I was”.

His situation is not uncommon. How could you know if you’re in or out-of-shape if you don’t have a set of standards to measure yourself against?

Why You Should Care About Being In-Shape

My definition of fitness is “the state of being suitably adapted to the demands of an environment or situation and across a set of specific physical standards.”

Someone who competes in triathlons requires a different level of fitness than someone who is not a competitive athlete. But each person should meet a basic set of minimum standards.

The standards should adjust for gender and age.

When you’re 25, you have greater strength, for example, than when you’re 50. I believe you can regain most, if not all, of the strength of a 25 year old, but as a minimum standard of fitness you should meet age and gender requirements.

But maybe you don’t care about being “in-shape”.

Well, here’s a practical reason to care.

Money.

Money seems to matter more as you age. You think about it more. You think about how much you’re spending. Medical costs can be devastating. And most of us, as we age, won’t make a lot MORE money and have a lot MORE to spend. So, the last thing you need is to be dipping into your savings account to pay doctors for things you could have prevented.

Taking care of yourself and being relatively fit, is an investment in your future.

What better way to improve your financial health than to avoid medical costs?

And one of the best ways to avoid medical costs is to get and stay in-shape.

Why The President’s Challenge Adult Fitness Test Misses The Mark

Before you take a fitness assessment, make sure you pass this questionnaire:

American Heart Association Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire
If you mark any of the following statements, please talk with your physician or other appropriate health care provider before engaging in exercise.

__ I have a heart condition and my health care professional recommends only medically supervised physical activity.
__ During or right after I exercise, I often have pains or pressure in my neck, left shoulder, or arm.
__ I have developed chest pain within the last month.
__ I tend to lose consciousness or fall over due to dizziness.
__ I feel extremely breathless after mild exertion.
__ My health care provider recommended that I take medicine for high blood pressure or a heart condition.
__ I have bone or joint problems that limit my ability to do moderate-intensity physical activity.
__ I have a medical condition or other physical reason not mentioned here that might need special attention in an exercise program.
__ I am pregnant and my health care professional hasn’t given me the OK to be physically active.

The President’s Challenge Adult Fitness Test is an attempt at establishing certain fitness standards for adults.

While this is a step in the right direction, there are certain tests you should avoid and there are several tests missing for it to be a complete assessment of your fitness.

The tests to avoid are:

• Half-sit up. Why this keeps showing up in fitness tests baffles me. The research is clear about the spinal injury risks associated with this type of movement.
• Sit and reach. While this is a flexibility test, for almost everyone, it’s invalid. A flexibility test should assess your motion from a position of rest or neutral tension to a position of maximum tension.  To just get into the starting position of this test, you need a certain amount of flexibility in the hips and hamstrings. So, if you’re already inflexible, the test is invalid.

The tests that are missing are below. Keep in mind that the suggested targets or goals are general and not age / gender specific.

• Balance. As you age, balance becomes increasingly important. And, once you know your balance ability, it’s relatively simple to improve.

Try this test. Stand on one leg, eyes open, arms crossed on your chest. You should be able to do this for at least 30 seconds.

• Core endurance. The ability to recruit the supporting muscles of your spine and sustain the contraction is key to something called “spinal stiffness”.

A safer and more spine friendly test is the plank. Assume the position as in the picture. Your goal is at least one minute.

• Lower body strength. The ability to climb stairs, move freely, carry heavy objects depends in large part on a strong lower body.

A simple test for lower body strength is to use a chair and stand up and sit down as many times as you can in one minute. Men should hit 40 repetitions (where up and down is one repetition ) and women should hit at least 20 repetitions.

• Flexibility in less used patterns of motion. Most flexibility tests only look at bending forward but your spine moves in other directions as well. Knowing how flexible you are in these directions is important for your overall flexibility.

Try this test to assess your trunk and hip flexibility. Stand with feet apart. Raise the right arm straight up next to your ear. Now bend to the left sliding the left hand down the side of your leg. Your fingers should go to at least your knee.

• Overall health risk. The President’s Challenge Adult Fitness Test uses Body Mass Index (BMI) as an indicator of your body composition and health. Unfortunately, the BMI is inaccurate for very fit people who may have a higher body weight with lower body fat (for example, Michael Jordan during this professional basketball career had a BMI of ~29 which placed him in the “overweight” category).

Use the waist to hip ratio. Using a soft tape measure, measure the widest part of your hips and then your waist. Divide the waist measurement by the hip measurement to obtain a ratio. For men, you want the number to be less than .90 and for women, less than .80

references:

McGill, S. M. (2004). Spinal Pressures in the Curl Up. Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance. Waterloo, Ontario, Wabuno: 235