Matt Gunning Helps Us Stay Active as We Age

The Recipe for a

WRITTEN BY MATT GUNNING, OWNER, GUNNING ELITE TRAINING

My mindset has changed a lot since I first got into the business of fitness.

I used to think that the harder the workout was, the better results you would get. Ten years later, so many things have changed with my own training as well as that of the clients I train. A mentor of mine said, “If you haven’t changed your program in 10 years, you were either way ahead at one point or way behind now...and I’m pretty sure I know which one it is.” This statement is so true. Fitness has evolved so much in the past 20 years. It has gone from bodybuilding/machines to more of a functional approach. The term “functional training” gets thrown around a lot, and can mean different things to different people. For me, functional training means being more durable and able to handle the stresses of life. Let’s face it: life is a lot busier now and with the advanced technology of cell phones, video games and various other things, we are much more sedentary beings. This causes a plethora of issues from body aches to many other more serious health problems.

Long, Healthy Life

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We are a reactive, not proactive, society. We indulge in bad habits, go to the doctor to find out we have high blood pressure, then take medication to lower it. However, if we were more proactive and moved our bodies daily throughout the week, many of these issues can be avoided— and this has been proven through many studies. So, if I gave you a pill that would allow you to live 10 to 20 years longer, would you take it? You’d say “yes,” right? Well, movement and exercise can do that for you. Here is the tricky part, though. What do you do? I have found, through my 10 years of training clients every day, that there is a right way that l’ve learned through trial and error, because it’s important to remember that the key is to continue training for the long term. With fitness training, everything is about balance. Think of your fitness program to long-lasting health and longevity like a recipe. If you are making your favorite meal, you’ll need all the ingredients to make it taste the same, right? If you are missing something, it will change how it tastes. The same is true with your body and training. There is a necessary recipe to follow that will keep you mobile, strong, powerful and well-conditioned for years to come.

Here is the recipe that we follow at Gunning Elite Training. Again, the goal is to keep doing this for the long run. I always tell people that if you are doing something or training in a way that you couldn’t keep up for the next 10 years, then you need to fix something. Consistency is a big theme at our gym. Like a doctor, our goal is to first, do no harm. To consistently progress means not killing yourself at the gym doing “insane” workouts—it will be hard to keep up with that down the road.

Here are our Five Essential ingredients:

1. FOAM ROLLING/MOBILITY

We always start off with this combination to prep the body before we start moving. Our body is composed of various joints, some that are meant to be mobile and others to be stable. For example, our hips and lumbar spine. Our hips are meant to be mobile and our lumbar spine meant to be stable. If we are tight in our hips, we will probably be using our lumbar spine, which usually causes lower back pain.

2. ACTIVATION

This is very similar to #1 but our goal is to get our clients to activate their glutes and core so that when we move, either by doing exercises at the gym or through daily activities, we are utilizing the right muscles and not the wrong ones.

3. POWER

This is super important and probably the number one injury prevention tool—if we do it correctly. The best example is if you are coming down the stairs and you forget about that last step, the ability to react and land safely vs. getting injured falls in this category.

4. STRENGTH

Just like power, research has shown that we begin to lose our strength at the age of 30 at a rate of 1% per year. That may not seem like a lot, but if you are not doing anything for 20 years, you have lost 20% of your strength by age 50. If it’s 20 years later and you’ve still not done anything, you’re now down 40%. It’s going to be a lot harder to handle the daily stresses of life such as going up stairs, getting up and down, etc. Movement is the best preventative medicine we can give ourselves. Make sure you are incorporating a well-balanced strength program that covers all the fundamental movement patterns.

5. CONDITIONING

This is the last ingredient in the recipe. We want to make sure our cardiovascular system is strong. The key here is choosing safe exercises that get the heart rate up. We always want to think risk vs. reward. So, I will choose a bike rather than, say, burpees which I never include in a workout because most people don’t do them properly and they come with a higher risk of injury. Again, think 10 to 20 years down the road—this is for life. Each ingredient here is important and necessary if your goal is staying strong, healthy, and happy for the long run. We only get one life on this Earth so let’s make the best of it. SF