Longevity comes from working with your body, not against it.
For a long time, fitness meant intensity to me.
At twelve years old—yes, at a time when gyms had virtually no regulations—I already had a membership. By eighteen, I was fully immersed in the industry, teaching up to twenty classes a week for many years. High impact, high volume, high demands. That was the culture. And I followed it relentlessly.
But after 36 years in the fitness world, I'm now feeling the effects. Not in the form of dramatic injury, but through cumulative wear and tear: tension that won't go away, joints that don't recover like they used to, fatigue that sets in, a nervous system that sometimes says stop.
At 55, the way I train is completely different.
I still love to move. I still love to train intensely. But now I train with intention—not ego. I choose what my body needs, not what I want to force it to do.
And that change is, by far, the most powerful lesson of my entire career.
The myth of “always more”
For decades, fitness culture has valued extremes. It has glorified exhaustion, normalized pain, and confused progress with constantly pushing boundaries. I believed in it for a long time—because it worked... until it didn't.
The truth is, your body doesn't thrive under constant overload.
It thrives under appropriate stress, applied with respect, intelligence, and strategy. Longevity isn't built on punishment: it's built on collaboration.
Listening to your body is a skill—and we all need it at some point.
Working with your body requires developing a keen awareness—of your muscles and joints, yes, but also of your nervous system, your recovery, your energy cycles, and even your emotional state.
It means recognizing the difference between:
- fatigue and overexertion
- soreness and warning signs
- challenge and compensation
- discipline and disrespect for yourself
When you're 20 and teaching 20 classes a week, you don't really think about it.
When you're 55, still active, still strong, still capable, still an instructor — you realize that listening to your body changes everything.
Longevity is built from within
What keeps us strong and functional as we move through the decades is not maximum effort—it's sustainable effort.
It's:
- Solid core strength
- Controlled, high-quality movement
- Mobility that supports real life
- A regulated nervous system
- Phases of intensity balanced by true recovery
- A body that is nourished, not punished
It is this type of training that not only enables you to perform, but to continue performing.
Your body is not a machine—it is a relationship.
For years, I treated my body like a tool: something to direct, push, and discipline. Today, I treat it like a partner.
And this partnership has given me more strength, clarity, and resilience than any “no pain, no gain” slogan ever could.
Longevity comes from respect—from listening, adapting, choosing an approach that supports you today, but also in ten, twenty, thirty years.
Working with your body doesn't mean doing less—it means doing better.
And at 55, that's a lesson I wish I had learned sooner.