Embracing Change in Mid-Life: Redefine Your Goals and Embrace Personal Growth

Feb 20

[Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 48 seconds.]

Since the start of 2024, I have had a number of conversations with middle-aged women around competing with their former selves. It’s something that has come up with friends and clients under different scenarios as people decided to take up new routines for the new year.

Go Long covered this in one of our first posts under the banner of ‘Reliving Your Glory Years’. What predicated the post was a sign that advertised having the opportunity to train with college athletes.

Setting the Bar

As noted here, I wasn’t particularly focused on taking good care of myself until my early 30s. In terms of hitting PRs (personal records) in races and in the gym, I hit most of them in my early 40s. The only exception recently has been on the Peloton, which we have had for almost 3 years. I mix things up with some long and steady rides, along with HIIT style rides, which has helped with my VO2 max and endurance on hikes.

My running days are pretty much over, except for maybe a local 5k. A total hip replacement will do that to you. I miss the camaraderie of running and I feel very fortunate to have made some great friends through it, but I don’t miss the pounding. I was joking to a friend yesterday that in all of the years I was running regularly, I rarely ever experienced a “runner’s high”, even when I would PR.

As for my lifting, that phase started when I found CrossFit in 2010 when I was 39. I had never done weightlifting with any regularity before then so I had a lot to learn with all of the movements. The CrossFit experience varies in quality from place to place. In this case, quality refers to the focus on technique as opposed to going hard for the sake of going hard.

The CrossFit we went to for 8+ years focused on the latter. But in that time, I pushed myself with lifting weights and trying to lift as much as possible. I kept improving and set PRs from time to time. It felt empowering and it was great cross-training for the endurance running I was doing in parallel. As with running, I made friends with people who I am still friends with today.

I NEED HELP SETTING A REALISTIC BAR

Lowering the bar…. or not?

The phrase ‘lowering the bar’ tends to have a negative connotation. How about looking at it differently? Instead of thinking about how much slower you are or how much less you are lifting, how about thinking about if you are achieving your goals? And if you’re not achieving your goals, why is that?

It probably has less to do with your speed or the amount of weight you are lifting. Chances are it has more to do with the type of programming and the stimulus that is being activated. It also is likely that your nutrition also needs to figure more into the equation.

In the below video, I’m working on a movement called a squat clean. Since returning from Europe last summer, I have been working on cleans (e.g., power cleans, hang cleans, etc.) in general. Make sure you watch the 2nd attempt in the video.

It had been awhile since I had worked on them and I wanted to get back at it. To say it’s been frustrating is an understatement. My coach decided to break it all down so I could lift without hurting myself. In looking back at some of those older videos from CrossFit, my body wouldn’t have been able to handle the lifts with the technique from back then. My back would have been f**k’ed for sure.

Cleans are a compound movement, which means they work muscle groups throughout your body. They involve much more than just getting the bar up. Behind this video is a slow progression over the past 8+ months working on various cues to get to this point.

In the video above, you’ll see me hitting the highest weight I have hit since re-introducing cleans back into my routine. You’ll also see my failing at a weight that I used to hit… but with not so good technique from my CrossFit days.

I'M READY FOR MY OWN SUSTAINABLE PLAN

Grumble, Grumble

Sure, I get frustrated when I can’t do what I used to be able to do. We all do. Then you have to make a decision. Do you quit or do you figure out how to still get the MOST OUT OF WHAT YOU CAN DO?

For me, the downside of being injured is not worth the upside of lifting in an unsafe way. If I’m injured, I am now:

Spending time and money getting my injury fixed
Not lifting
Putting other activities I enjoy doing in jeopardy

Hard Pass. The reality is that no one has beaten ‘father time’. No matter how many longevity/anti-aging gurus (or Chris Traeger from Parks & Rec) say they have, no one has.

Does that mean you need to give up or ‘lower the bar’? Unlikely.

I’m still hitting my overall goals in terms of doing the activities I love doing. That’s what matters to me. The PR is secondary to being able to hike and to travel with the hubs.

“There is nothing wrong if your proverbial “bar” changes. It doesn’t mean lowering your standards. It means redefining what success looks like to you.”

It means you need to find the right partner to help you achieve the goals you want to achieve, including: