|
I started CrossFit at 38, so training after 40 did not feel like a separate chapter. I was still learning the sport and trying to close a gap on athletes who had years of training behind them. My answer was predictable: do more.
At 40 and 41, some days ran three or four hours. I copied volume from younger elite athletes, under-ate, and began too many sessions carrying fatigue from the day before. I believed the effort meant I was serious. In reality, I had built a schedule my body could not turn into progress.
The breakthrough came when I moved to a Masters-specific plan. The sessions got shorter and every piece had a clear purpose. I slept better, recovered between sessions, and started improving again. Less volume did not make the work easier. It removed work that was not paying me back.
That experience changed how I think about training after 40. The body can still adapt, get stronger, learn skills, and handle hard conditioning. What changes is the cost of bad decisions. Poor sleep, wasted volume, loose technique, and inadequate food stop being small errors you can keep outrunning.
The useful question is not whether you are too old to train hard. It is whether your current plan gives hard work somewhere productive to go.
Three things I would audit.
|
1. Match volume to recovery.
Use the amount of work you can absorb and improve from. If performance keeps falling and soreness never clears, another piece is not the answer.
|
|
2. Give every session a job.
Strength, skill, and conditioning should each have a clear target. If the only goal is to finish a long list, the list is running the program.
|
|
3. Adjust before your body forces the decision.
A poor night of sleep or unusual soreness may mean changing load, pace, or volume while preserving the purpose of the day.
|
This is not a case for making every workout comfortable. I still train hard. I just want the work to produce something I can recover from and repeat. You do not need to train less because you turned 40. You need to make better decisions about the work that stays.
|
— Jason Grubb
7x CrossFit Games Masters Champion
Founder, Bolder Athlete
|
|
