If you haven’t been working out since the pandemic started, or you’ve been set back by an injury or illness or you’ve never worked out before, it’s time to change that! Fitness trainer Sarai White shares fitness tips to ease ourselves back into a regular workout plan after an illness or injury. Sarai grew up in a very active household, but it was when she was a teenager that she got into lifting weights. Her initial motivation was to get skinny and there is no shame in that. However, she started to love lifting weights. What Sarai loves about weight lifting is that you become confident in your ability to lift and it carries over to daily life. You are really stronger than you think you are.
The number one myth about lifting weights is that you are going to get bulky. It’s a myth because it is absolutely not true. The women and men that you see that are “bulky” worked really hard and intentionally to get that way. They wish that their muscles came so easily! It takes a lot of working out, nutrition modification, and time to grow muscle, so you are not going to get bulky by lifting weights a few times a week. The minimum that men and women should be doing in terms of strength training is 15-20 minutes 3x every week. The type of exercises that Sarai recommends are squatting, deadlifts, and over head pressing. These 3 type of exercises are all that it takes to keep yourself feeling young, vibrant, and capable!
If you need motivation, Sarai recommends to reflect on times that you felt really good from working out. Sarai shares that when she was struggling to get back into working out after her cancer diagnosis a few years ago, she thought back to what working out had done for her beyond physically. Lastly, she allowed herself some grace. “Don’t jump in expecting yourself to be where you left off.” Start off slow and it should feel easy especially if you are just first getting started!
To help us all out, Sarai created a weight training for beginners video for the Modern Aging YouTube channel that does not require equipment and is perfect for women over 50 and beginners. You can check that video out HERE.
