I’m going to say something you might not want to hear.

Time is not going to stop for you.

It’s not going to wait until work settles down.

It’s not going to wait until the kids need you less.

It’s not going to wait until you finally have more time, more energy, or a less complicated schedule.

It’s just going to keep moving.

I don’t say that to lecture you or scare you.

I say it because we have a tendency to treat our physical capacity like something we can deal with later.

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I’ll work on my strength when I have more time.

I’ll worry about my balance if it becomes a problem.

I’ll start taking better care of myself when things calm down.

Except sometimes later arrives and we realize that something we used to do without thinking now requires a little more effort.

Maybe getting up from the floor feels different.

Maybe carrying something heavy takes more out of you.

Maybe you notice yourself reaching for the railing on stairs you used to climb without thinking twice.

That doesn’t mean something has gone terribly wrong.

Bodies change. Aging happens.

But it may be worth getting curious about what you want your body to keep letting you do—and what those things actually require.

The Life You Want Has Physical Requirements

We often talk about exercise in terms of workouts.

How many times did you exercise this week?

Did you get your steps?

Did you do your strength training?

Those things can certainly matter.

But I think there’s a much more interesting question:

What do you want your body to keep letting you do?

Want to keep traveling?

Think about what traveling actually asks of your body.

You might need to lift a suitcase into the trunk of a car.

Walk through an airport carrying a bag.

Climb stairs.

Navigate cobblestones or uneven sidewalks.

Get yourself in and out of unfamiliar beds, chairs, trains, boats, taxis, or airplanes.

And then wake up the next morning with enough capacity to go do it all again.

That vacation has a physical job description.

So does gardening.

So does hiking.

So does playing with your grandkids.

So does living independently.

So does getting down on the floor with the dog and getting yourself back up.

The activities may be completely different.

But every one of them asks something of your body.

Capacity Gives You Options

This is why I talk so much about physical capacity.

Strength is capacity.

Balance is capacity.

Mobility is capacity.

Power, coordination, endurance and the ability to recover are capacities.

And when we have enough of the capacities an activity requires, we tend to have more options for how we participate in it.

That doesn’t mean we can control everything that happens to our bodies.

We can’t.

Bodies are affected by genetics, injuries, illnesses, hormones, medications, circumstances, access to resources and plenty of things that aren’t completely within our control.

Healthy aging isn’t a promise that if you do everything “right,” nothing will ever change.

It will.

The question is what we can influence.

And one of the things we can often influence is whether we continue giving our bodies opportunities to use and maintain the capacities that matter to us.

Maintain Before You Have to Reclaim

This is one of the ideas at the heart of everything I teach:

Maintain before you have to reclaim.

Because maintaining a capacity you already have is often very different from trying to rebuild it after you’ve stopped using it.

Think about balance.

If the only time we decide balance matters is after it has become noticeably difficult, we’re starting from a very different place than if we’ve been challenging it all along.

The same is true of strength.

Getting up from the floor requires strength.

Carrying groceries requires strength.

Picking up a grandchild requires strength.

Hauling your suitcase up a flight of stairs requires strength.

You don’t have to wait until one of those things becomes difficult before strength becomes relevant.

It was relevant the entire time.

That’s the shift I want people to make.

Not:

I need to exercise because I’m getting older.

But:

I want to maintain the physical resources that help me keep participating in my life.

Those are two very different relationships with movement.

You Don’t Need to Train for Someone Else’s Life

And this is where things get really interesting.

Your physical priorities don’t have to look like mine.

If your idea of an amazing life is spending three weeks hiking through national parks, your body has one job description.

If you want to travel to Italy and spend your days walking through old cities, yours has another.

Maybe you want to garden for hours.

Golf.

Kayak.

Dance at your granddaughter’s wedding.

Keep working on your own house.

Walk your dog every morning.

Get on the floor and build Lego castles with a five-year-old.

There isn’t one universal list of physical capacities everyone needs in exactly the same amounts.

Your life helps determine what matters.

And THAT is where exercise gets a whole lot more interesting.

Instead of asking:

“What exercises am I supposed to be doing at my age?”

We can start asking:

“What does the life I want ask my body to be able to do?”

Now we have something useful to work with.

Time Is Going to Keep Moving

None of us gets to negotiate with that part.

A year from now will arrive.

Five years from now will arrive.

Ten years from now will arrive if we’re fortunate enough to get them.

I’m not interested in spending those years trying to make my body look like it did when I was 25.

I’m interested in helping my body remain capable of participating in the life I want to live.

That’s why I train.

That’s why I teach what I teach.

And that’s why I think the conversation around healthy aging needs to become much bigger than simply telling people they should exercise.

Because exercise isn’t the prize.

Your life is the point.

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What Do You Want Your Body to Keep Letting You Do?

This is exactly why I created The EveryDay Athlete Decoder.

You tell it something you want your body to keep letting you do—travel, garden, hike, play with your grandkids, whatever matters to you—and it helps you uncover the physical demands and capacities hiding inside that activity.

We’re not grading your body.

We’re getting curious about it.

Tell the Decoder what you want your body to keep LETTING you do and discover its physical job description.

👉 Try The EveryDay Athlete Decoder — it’s free.
DECODER LINK

And if you want to go deeper into understanding physical capacity and how it connects to everyday life, you can continue with The EveryDay Athlete Mini-Course.

👉 Explore The EveryDay Athlete Mini-Course.
MINI-COURSE LINK