My physical therapy clients clients range from two years-old to 94 years-old. My personal training clients have ranged from ten to 80 years-old. My training clients have typically fallen in three psychographics.
The first group is young athletes. The start of my private practice was filled with figure skaters and synchronized skaters I trained and treated. Football players, baseball players, lacrosse players, runners, and triathletes made up the rest of the athletes. Training these clients is based on three, six, and twelve month cycles getting ready for the next competition or next season.
The second group are busy professionals age 40 to 55 who own their own business and vigorously attack their fitness and athletic hobbies. Training and treating them is a mix of building and rebuilding with the training focus shifting every month from skiing to biking to running.
The third group are clients age 55 to 65 with a parent who lived to be in their late nineties. They have 30 to 40 years ahead of them and want to be in better physical and mental condition than their parents. We work on undoing most everything they have done or not done since high school. Restoring and building joint mobility, strength, flexibility, balance, endurance are the main goals. These clients take the physical qualities they develop and pick up new sports including downhill skiing, kayaking, standup paddleboard. The training plan is based on maximizing function and athleticism while minimizing decline over the next three to four decades.
Working with a twenty to thirty year plan means I am always considering alternatives and consequences with exercises. Will this nick up their knee or shoulder? What are the benefits of squats over step downs? What step height will be challenging but not aggravate the osteoarthritis in their ankle or knee? How do we build chest or back strength while working around the old rotator cuff tear? It is less “Can we run up this staircase in under 5 seconds?” It is more, “Lets make sure I still go up and down stairs in fifteen years.”
What should your physical health and fitness be in thirty years? Do you have a five year, ten year, or thirty year plan?