Back in the day… when I was younger, and supposedly fit and healthy. I was working out 4 or 5 times a week, both in the gym and kick boxing. I must add I was never super fit, but I could survive 90 minute sessions of kick boxing and a couple of hours in the gym – a hardcore gym… no girls allowed – no problem at all.
In those days… I had muscles and looked impressive. I was fairly strong. I could punch and kick hard. However my aerobic fitness levels weren’t fantastic. Quite frankly I use to detest jogging, so I never! Which is something I should have perhaps made more of an effort to do!
A typical gym session would begin with 5 minutes on the stationary bike and that was my cardiovascular workout done and dusted… hey that was typical of so many of the guys! Warm down would be a shower!
Kick boxing was tougher and it did provide me with a much more strenuous cardiovascular workout… each session would begin with around 12 minutes of skipping – 4 x 3 minutes, followed by lots of virtually non stop pad and bag routines and occasional sparring – each session was always fairly intense and I would truly be dripping with sweat and knackered afterwards. In fact, sometimes I use to almost crawl back to my car!
In hindsight, I don’t think my fitness levels ever reached the level they should have considering how hard I use to train. I definitely never use to eat healthily, I drank too much booze and I most definitely never got enough sleep – not the kind of lifestyle that I would recommend! But hey I was younger and enjoying life!
The only sports supplement I use to periodically take was creatine, which I would consume until the tub ran out and then take a month or a couple of months break from it. Yes it works…
The new me… older, wiser and out of shape will embrace a fairly healthy diet. I plan on getting 8 hours of sleep a night and I’m going to limit myself to a maximum of 3 pints of real cask ale a week! I don’t smoke: I never have and never will! And I plan on including plenty of cardio in my new exercise schedule.
Hopefully by eating and resting properly, my body and fitness levels will reap the benefits of my exercise efforts. Getting Fit at 40 is going to be a challenge that is for sure…