Stay Fit Over 40

The older you get, the more important it is to stay in shape. The key is finding exercise regimens that help and don’t hurt.

- Sandra Block

JULIE LASTRA HAS BEEN ACTIVE FOR most of her life, but she never had much interest in lifting weights or working out at a gym. “I hated those machines, and I hated all those people looking at themselves in the mirror,” she says. She preferred to go for a run with her dogs after work. All of that changed in 2014, when Lastra, 42, a planning director for the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., injured her knee in a downhill skiing accident. She wore a brace for a month, and her muscles atrophied. Running was out of the question. A friend suggested she try Solidcore, a boutique gym program that requires participants to do a 50-minute, high-intensity, low-impact workout on resistance-based machines. First Lady Michelle Obama is a fan of the program.

Lastra became a fan, too. “I could get that runner’s high and still protect my knee,” she says. Lastra now goes to Solidcore several times a week and has become a part-time coach. The workouts strengthened the muscles around her knee, so she’s able to run again and often does laps around the soccer field while her daughters, ages 8 and 10, are practicing. Her pace has slowed, but Lastra says that if she hadn’t done Solidcore, she probably wouldn’t be able to run at all.

Not everyone over 40 has a reckoning as painful as Lastra’s, but her experience is instructive. Although some people continue to run long distances into their seventies and beyond, many are no longer able to put that much pressure on muscles and joints. Injuries are more common, too. But even as working out becomes more challenging, it’s more important than ever to stay fit.