Welcome to Mature Fitness

Since this is, December 26th, 2007, the day after Christmas I thought I would start something new and innovative, so here is some good news concerning a market of fitness that concerns mature adults. Well you ask, what exactly is a mature adult and I can say I have no written definition or magic age group. While I know that society, the government or some other organization has taken it upon themselves to determine this definition, commonly referred to as "Senior" I am going to be so bold as to originate my own definition. Since my age just became 69 on December 16th, 2007, I consider myself somewhat of an authority on the matter of age and aging. While I am not a medical doctor like Dr. Weil who wrote the book, Healthy Aging, I am just as much an authority in my own rights relative to the psychology and physiology of the mature adult fitness idea. Besides I originated this term and it is mine, unless someone claims to have written it before me. Then if it is proven I will simply say, "thanks" and continue to use it anyway.

Since this is just the introduction of the subject I will not go into real deep detail during this writing but I will give some ideas possibly of what is to come. First, I believe that some form of fitness is essential to a healthy and happy life style. But I will be the first to say that I don't think everyone should be a marathoner, an Ironman triathlete or some ultra-endurance person that loses all senses of moderation and becomes obsessed with this thing called "exercise." I believe that the most important muscle to exercise is the ole heart muscle, using aerobic means to exercise it. I also agree with Dr. Cooper who created the word aerobic exercise in the mid 60's, that anyone who runs over 3 miles is doing it for reason other than fitness. The idea is to exercise the heart muscle for 20-30 minutes, 3-4 times per week at a reasonable heart rate, have a varied moderate diet, don't smoke, drink moderately, and have some fun. Of course I realize this is very simply stated and most will say it is more complicated that how I have presented it, but really it can be this simple. Now, what will happen is that you will have the life long natural athlete who does all of this stuff as a matter of lifestyle or you have the person who nearly killed themselves early in life bad habits and no exercise and then reformed to stay alive.These people sometimes come from open heart surgery, strokes, cancer or other diseases that the doctors were able to repair, so now they want to adapt their lifestyle to a more constructive way of living. Then you have the more mature population that has decided late in life to exercise for a change of lifestyle. I am not critical of any of these folks since they have their reasons for how they have lived, but they are more of a challenge. Then I have the small problem of being in the category of being athletic all my life and have stayed in competition condition up to this point in my life and expect to continue to do so until going into the next life. One of my good friends in Florida died a couple of years ago while on a bicycle ride and I think of him quite often. There were no tears shed about his death, he died like he wanted to at age 83 while out with friends riding, talking, sweating and enjoying life. He was one of the legends in the sport of triathlon, but literally died doing what he wanted to do more than anything.

So, gang let's buckle up and get ready for some good stuff and be prepared to feel good about yourself and life in general. Be thinking, 20 minutes, 3-4 times per week!!

Mike Greer