Sport is important for maintaining good mental and physical health. How to maximize its effects after 40 years? Advice from Adam El Khaiat, sports coach.
sports is essential for maintaining health. It allows you to maintain your heart: “by doing cardio, the heart, which is a muscle, will be strengthened, as well as the entire blood irrigation system of the body, which contributes to a considerable reduction in the risk of cardiovascular accidents”, informs Adam El Khaiat, sports coach and content creator for Foodspring. Practicing sport also improves your immune defenses, at all ages. “In simple terms, this amounts to strengthening the small armies that deal with the bacteria and viruses with which our body can come into contact. Hence the importance of not stopping your practice in winter! perhaps even when our immune defenses need it the most…”
Doing muscle strengthening or cardio work at low or moderate intensity helps to strengthen your bones, and to prevent osteoporosis, especially in women, which is a decrease in bone density, causing a weakening of the skeleton. Sports practice also has a positive influence on mood : “it allows you to regulate a certain number of hormones in the body, in particular those which are responsible for our moods. Doing a physical activity for more than 30 minutes allows you to release, for example, endorphins, also called hormones of happiness”. It also helps burn calories, which is useful if your goal is to lose weight (in addition to a healthy, balanced diet). After a certain age, sport can help you cope with phases of life such as pre-menopause, the weight gain sometimes induced by this pre-menopause or the loss of muscle density. How to maximize the positive effects of sport after 40?
How to maximize the effects of sport after 40?
Adam El Khaiat reveals his 5 tips:
- Find the sport that suits you : the first thing to check to ensure that the results of a sports practice are maximized is to take pleasure in doing it. “Going backwards in a gym, or being unmotivated in front of a screen at home… It’s not going to help engagement in the workout in question. So if you can, even find a physical activity that gives the impression of not being in effort.”
- Adapt your practice : “starting an activity by imposing an intensity higher than that which our body can support or too much beyond your comfort, could have the opposite effect than that sought: it could no longer make you want to return to it Start at your own pace, listening to your body, to develop in the short, medium or long term a real relationship of trust with your body and pleasure with the discipline(s) you have chosen.”
- Share this activity : the group effect on a sports practice has a real power. “Succeeding in sustaining the effort longer, expending more energy, doing more hours of activity… It is by sharing your efforts that you have even more chance of multiplying these effects.”
- Make sure you have no deficiencies : when a sports practice is installed, it is important to ensure that you can derive all the benefits from it. “Having deficiencies for some of these micro-nutrients could lead to general fatigue, poor muscle recovery, for some even small hormonal imbalances… It is therefore wise to ensure that potential deficiencies are not a hindrance to achieve your goals, and that you tick all the boxes to maximize the effect of your practice.”
- Look at the power side: Continuing on from the previous tip, take a look at your plate… It could be the solution to make up for certain deficiencies if necessary, but above all, it is the number one source of energy from which the body will draw. “Before drawing on its reserves, the body needs to fill these reserves: this is the role of macronutrients, which you can find in your daily diet. So make sure you have a balanced intake of proteins, carbohydrates and fats .” Protein is important for maintaining muscle mass. Carbohydrates are essential for providing your body with the fuel it needs. “And finally lipids, long considered to be banned, turn out to be our allies in a healthy lifestyle, our body needs them to function optimally!”