I’m just gonna go out and say it: it’s easier to get your best physique after 30. While your youth may be behind you and your athletic abilities might be noticeably dwindling with each passing year, getting older shouldn’t be something to be feared — but welcomed.
Some may think that this is a cope, and to some degree I’d be dishonest to say that I didn’t miss my elaborate workouts, being a faster sprinter, and to enjoy greater leeway when it comes to exercise form.
But still, as you get older, there is always a silver lining to how you can improve as a lifter and a person.
Training after 30 might look different in comparison to when you first started in your teens. For example, you might focus less on ego lifting and more on bettering your physique.
Getting a decent physique and upping your social status become less challenging vis-a-vis your peers, who, some of which, have begun to let themselves go.
Instead of playing sports, they desk-jockey and drink beer — finding little time to hone their physique.
Millions of excuses to avoid the gym are fabricated. Older age isn’t a pass to avoid training.
When I played rugby in my early 20s, I would always fear the dirty 40-something-year-old player who could manipulate the rules, body positions, and had a sixth sense for whenever the referee was not watching more than the 17-year-old highschooler who could run like a hare.
More often than not, the hare-like young ‘un was also harebrained when it came to knowing the game.
Likewise, soccer players and NFL quarterbacks can play at an elite level despite lacking relative running pace because of their experience, positioning, and ability to read the game.
And, as you age, you should use your ample experience to your advantage.
Why You Can Get Your Best Physique After 30
When you’re young, you’re a know-nothing. You’re only just becoming acquainted with the world and yourself.
You will be, inevitably, fed plenty of terrible misinformation on how to improve your physique.
And you will probably act on this misinformation well into your adulthood, but you can afford various advantageous supplements after a decade in the rat race.
Financial Freedom
1: Financial Freedom: being able to always afford gyms, suppz, good food, etc.
The first point is financial mobility.
After grafting for around a decade, you should be able to afford access to gyms, decent nutrition, and complete supplementation over your younger counterparts.
One obstacle to yielding the best results for many in their late teens and early 20s is affordability.
Usually, when it comes to three of the above — access to a gym, decent nutrition, and complete supplementation — at least one has got to give in your poorer, younger years and it can’t be the gym!
You can also afford better quality — or more expensive — coaches, eBooks, programs, and other informational resources to improve your lifting and body composition.
When your joints begin to creak, niggles stop going away, and medications become a daily necessity — for some, at least — health becomes a priority.
In fact, health should always be a priority, but this simple life principle isn’t always adhered to.
Some people shun it until it’s a little too late; others simply realize that the harmful, self-destructive lifestyle choices are simply unsustainable beyond their mid-to-late twenties.
You don’t want to go clubbing until 5am at 28 because it takes three days to recover now.
You can’t daydrink throughout Saturday and into Sunday because you’ve got a lucrative side-hustle that requires more of your time.
Whatever the reason may be, you become more conscious of your health — and it’s a good thing for your physique.
Lower Recovery Times: A Blessing in Disguise
2: Lower recovery times — actually a good thing: less drinking alcohol = better sleep; less eating junk food = no food hangover
Lower recovery times can be played to your advantage.
The risk of overtraining become a little lower since you don’t have the energy to train through the DOMS anymore, so you can focus your scarce time on what you know actually improves your physique.
You no longer force yourself to take rest days, but you cherish them at times.
Lower recovery times from drinking excessively also force you to reconsider these choices as said above.
Alcohol, in excess, is one of the worst things you can put into your body if you’re looking to attain a good physique.
Beer is especially bad, considering it’s morishness, high caloric content, and effects on hormonal balances.
In fact, beer is probably the worst thing you can consume, as a man, if you want to improve your physique — regardless of your age.
And while drinking excessively becomes less appealing as you age, so does eating excessively.
When you’re a teenager, equipped with a voracious appetite, you could probably chow through an entire family size pizza. Now, eating more than a few slices can leave you tired, sluggish, and feeling like garbage.
The “food hangover” is a real thing.
These lower recovery times from unhealthy consumption discourage you from putting random junk into your body, thus making it easier to eat for a better physique.
Sticking to a cleaner diet becomes far more appealing.
Provided you haven’t become a new parent, your sleep schedules should improve by cutting out fatty foods and frequent alcohol consumption.
As a result, performance in the gym, metabolism, mental health, mood, and hormone levels won’t take such a hit from failure to recover to bolster your physique.
Ironically, the natural lower recovery times that come with age can paradoxically improve net recovery times due to a shift in lifestyle choices geared more towards bettering your physique, social status, and appearance.
Training Evolves to Suit Abilities
3: Style of training changes, less ego lifting, experience & trial and error
With age comes experience — remember what I said about older athletes.
Through repetitive trial and error, you’ll discover what exercises, rep schemes, frequencies, volume, style of training, diet, macronutrient calculations, etc, work best to your advantage.
Many youngsters, despite the availability of information on the internet, are still stabbing in the dark when it comes to what is the right program for them.
And this occurs at a crucial time in their formation as a lifter.
This is when their so-called newbie gains will accumulate.
With age, comes more intelligent, structured, and tailored programs.
Much fluff and filler is eliminated, therefore making time-management more efficient.
The little niggles, injuries, creaky joints, lower recovery times, maturity, etc, all contribute toward a lower likelihood to injure oneself for ego lifting.
If you’ve been training for a decade or so, you’re probably training for you and not to impress a potential sexual partner anymore.
Everyone, at one point, has ego lifted.
While it can increase the risk of injury tremendously, it’s not necessarily a bad thing; but is part of the learning curve.
Most importantly, the experience amassed throughout one’s 20s also acquaints one with their limits.
If you’re still trying to squat 120% of your 1 rep max into your 30s, I can’t help you, but most people should be aware that this is not the best idea in the long run for your physique.
Maturity
4: Maturity
Again, maturity comes with experience.
Wisdom is an invaluable commodity to possess.
Aside from cutting out time-wasting exercises, meal plans, and whatever else, you’ll become far more efficient at choosing the correct paths to your success.
Another thing brought on by immaturity are the mental gymnastics used to justify poor dietary choices, for example: “I will eat a family size pizza and down 12 beers because I’m young, have a fast metabolism, and I’ll do 2 hours of cardio tomorrow.”
Maturity dictates you can’t outrun a bad diet.
Maturity dictates that sacrifices for a better physique become easier to make.
Even when you’re young, you can make ridiculous excuses for your failures; when you’re older, there’s nowhere to hide: you’re forced to be more honest with yourself.
When I was 18, and I had finally left school, I began partying 5-6 days a week and eating whatever I wanted.
My ballooning waistline would be dismissed by “my abdominal muscles are growing” — even though I’d hit the gym 2-3 times a week and never train my abs!
Without self-imposed reality checks, you can backslide far from the truth.
With maturity, you become more receptive to self-criticism.
If, say, you gained 20lb in a few months — unless you did dbol, deca, and tren for the first time — that 20lb is mostly going to be bad weight.
Being honest with oneself is the only way to enjoy long-lasting success — for your physique and any other endeavors you decide to undertake.
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