The Work-Out Plan

Your 40s have a way of making the gym feel like a negotiation with your knees, your schedule, and your pride. We’re gearing up for a Tough Mudder style mud run, but the real mission is simpler: build a fitness plan that gets us in shape without getting us hurt. If “go hard” used to be the default, this conversation is the reset button for training over 40, where staying consistent beats trying to be a hero.

We walk through how we’re mapping out workouts using the same tools everyone reaches for: Google, advice from people around us, and yes, AI. The catch is personalization. A generic “workout for a 40-year-old man” might be a great starting point, but it doesn’t know your bad knees, your recovery speed, or the moves you should stop forcing. Deep squats, for example, sound tough on paper and feel even tougher when arthritis is in the room, so we talk about scaling, safer substitutions, and why baby steps are not weakness.

Nutrition and hydration show up as the quiet drivers of progress: cutting down cheat days, being honest about what we eat, and finding ways to drink more water even when we don’t want to. We also get real about supplements like protein shakes and creatine, and why they’re not one size fits all. Then we hit the modern curveball: an AI-generated plan that comes back like it was written for an Olympic athlete, and how to use AI as a rough draft instead of a rulebook.

If you’re trying to get stronger, leaner, and more confident after 40, this is your reminder to focus on unbreakable discipline, stop comparing yourself to Instagram bodies, and tailor the plan to your real life. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s “starting Monday,” and leave a review, then tell us what workout tips have actually worked for you over 40.

Family, friends, frenemies, pull up. This is your invitation to laugh, reflect, and speak your truth. No edits. No filters. Just grown-folk conversation. New episodes every week. Your comments shape the show. #unscriptedafter40 

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Transcript

Training Past 40 Is Different

SPEAKER_00 0:13

When getting your mind and body right to work out when you're over the age of 40, it's a new challenge within your life that you are capable of doing. But we have to map it out a little bit and make sure that the choices we're making as we move forward into our journey is the right choices that won't only that will not only get us back in shape, but don't kill us in the process. Welcome

Mud Run Pressure And Accountability

SPEAKER_00 0:40

to another episode of Unstripted After Foy the podcast. So let's talk about all these situations that I have wrapped myself up into the last couple weeks. Okay. So those of you that have been listening to the podcast, you're tracking that I have signed up for a tough mother or a mud run, what we like to call them, right? It's events that we pretty much run through the mud, okay? Um I should have just kept them out shit because now I realize that they set me up. And they are listening to the podcast because in the podcast I say I'm gonna fake an injury. Why those fuckers talking about, yeah, Chief, you can't fake an injury. We we tracking what you tell me what you're gonna do. So um I'm gonna have to go ahead with the plan. Um

Baby Steps And Yoga Wins

SPEAKER_00 1:27

in what's going on the plan, I talked about find a good workout partner. So now that I am in the search for a good workout partner, I realize that I have to make sure that when I do find this workout partner, that I'm in shape enough to keep up with this workout partner, and I am not slowing them down. Because if you've ever been to the gym and you see all those people working out in the gym, all of them got a plan, all of them got a goal, and their goal and your goal might be different. My goal is to stay alive. That's primitive. I'm not because every time I go to the gym, I'm just like, you know what? Today's a good day, I'm working out, I haven't died yet in the gym, and I just don't want to be the person in the gym that you know lifting weights and then the weight comes down on me, and I'm like, help, help. I don't want to be the help person, I don't have to haul up for help. But as I think about it, like I say, I've been doing yoga. Yoga has been excellent for me. But with my experience with yoga, made me realize that when I am changing my workout, taking baby steps helped me out when going the process. So instead of, you know, going full blast like I was in my 20s, I bring it back and I reevaluating my life to make myself understand how me as a 40-year-old man, I'm gonna say 40, you ain't gonna ask me how oil staying, just like no, I'm over 40. How I need to conduct myself and get myself ready for the gym as I work out. So, first of all, I need to do something like a cardio versus crossfit versus heavy lifting. So the first step I did, like anybody else would do when they're trying to develop a workout plan that would suit them for their goals. What do you think I did? I waited. Yeah, I heard you. I heard you, uh I heard you. I went to Google. Okay, I know y'all say download the app. No, I went to Google, okay? I I Google it first. That's what old people do. We Google, we Google everything. We

Building Around Bad Knees

SPEAKER_00 3:44

use Google. So I did Google. I say workout for 40-year-old man. Now they gave me a couple of good workouts that I can use that I'm gonna implement within my plan. But what I need to do is write down the workout and then pull out the things that I cannot do. Because unfortunately, there's a lot of things at this point in my life that I'm not gonna say I cannot do, I will not do. And prime example, one of the exercises they represent, because I say, hey, I start with leg day, right? Come and get my legs stronger. They talk about deep squats. I don't know if you know what a deep squat is or ever seen a deep squat. Deep squats are horrible, okay? They was horrible when I was young and had good knees. Now that my knees are bad, I'm not doing a deep squat. My left knee, it got authorized in it. Then, you know, my right knee, it got authorized in it. So apparently, both my knees got authorized in it. Um, and doing a deep squat with authorized knees is not a fun time for anybody. And like I said, what I don't want to do is be that one working gym, doing a deep squat. And I go, you know, take it low. And while I'm trying to take it low and scrub the ground to the flow, like little John said, and can't get my black ass up. Um, no, I'm good. So I'm okay with doing squats. I just need a chair behind me now. You know, something to keep me balanced as I hit down. So that's what the thing. So like I say, went to Google, they gave me some good workouts. I just have to now go in there and start tailing it to what I think I can do. So now, as I'm thinking about my workouts, I say, you know what? It gotta be some other ways, some other stuff

Nutrition Truth And Cheat Days

SPEAKER_00 5:41

I can do out there. So I did some more research that I advise all y'all to do that if we're trying to get back in shape, okay? Eating, eating better, okay. I realize that I cannot eat fried chicken every day with bacon and you know, still be in the best shape of my life. I realized that a while back, you know, but you know, we call those cheat days, right? I just have to, instead of, you know, three cheat days, I just need to cut down to one cheat day. So I guess I'm gonna work that out where I don't have to do the cheat days every time. And I'm gonna add that within my workout plan. Now, looking at the workout plan, it said that a man my age should work out at least, at least four times a week. Well, I got that covered, okay? I work out six times a week, okay? But doing that six times a week, I do a tailor time frame so that I won't hurt myself. So now I got to figure out the time frame and the duration that I should work out for each exercise and make sure I'm doing it properly right. Now, in keeping that in mind, I'm saying, what do I think I need to do as I get in the gym, right? Like what will benefit me the most that won't hurt me. So I went back to Google. Google didn't have too many great answers for me, okay? Now, Google did lead me in the right spot, right? They gave me a workout and they told me to work on my nutrition. Now I'm talking to people around me about what some of the things that I should actually do to kind of help me work out.

Supplements, Water, And Reality

SPEAKER_00 7:22

First of all, they say start taking more vitamins, okay? It's almost so much vitamin and protein I can do in my life. You know, that that that it never worked out for me, even when I was younger. Protein shakes. Um, I can't do milk like that because if I drink a protein shake, you know, and take that milk, I'm pretty much gonna go to the bathroom and ship my life away. Okay, so that doesn't help me keep the weight and the proteins in my body if I'm you know distinguishing it or defecating it away in my life, okay? So um I'm gonna have to find some distance. I can't do creatine. Um, creatine requires a lot of water. I don't like drinking water like that. Uh, you know, water is it's horrible, it's nasty. Okay. I love meal and all the stuff you can put, but you know, you can't keep drinking water meal all the time. You got to drink some water. So I try my best to drink as much water as I can. And that's even one of the things they said with the nutrition. I got to drink more water. So I'm gonna work on them. But I can't do the creatine because creatine is gonna make me drink more water. So those are good for people, but like I say, for me, and that's the thing that Google didn't get right when I was Googling stuff. I asked it to tailor a workout for the average 40-year-old man, which it did properly. It gave me a workout that I can do for my age for an average 40-year-old man, but then like I said earlier, I gotta take some things out, I gotta tailor some things to tailor towards

AI Spits Out A Hell Plan

SPEAKER_00 8:49

me. And then that goes to now using AI. Now, with AI, it's lovely as is, and it's getting better, but it's not 100% correct all the time. It's not accurate, most cases. In most cases, accurate, but you know, when you're trying to personalize something, it needs lots of details, which I gave it most of the details and add the stuff that I would need to make sure that I was good with the plan that it shot out. I shot a plan, told it my weight, my age, my you know, average physical build, what I do on a normal basis, what are my goals I'm trying to do, and what I'm preparing for. And it gave me something. Oh, it gave me something from hell. Um, the workout that it gave me was it had to have been made for Olympic God. Um, because I don't know what the fuck they thought I was. I'm looking at it, I'm looking at my prompt that I put in there. The prompt did not match out what they gave me on the back end. To them, I was an Olympic athlete that was had the you know the strength of Hercules. That's where it went wrong. But, you know, it did got me within the area that I am tailoring down. So now I'm going on other things.

Discipline, Comparison, And Proving It

SPEAKER_00 10:14

So um I look on Instagram, there's this guy that works out over 50, and he looked fucking awesome. Uh and really and that's what I also need to realize in my head. I can't look at other people and then look at myself and say, why I can't be like them. Because if you look at them, oh, he is fucking awesome. He's big. And like I say, the women too, freaking beautiful as 040 working out. So that that should be the thing, like I said earlier. Unbreakable discipline. Um, that is gonna be my new phrase for the week as I go through and try to get myself with working out. So that's pretty much my workout plan that I'm gonna go with. I like I say, I went to Google, Google gave me something. I went to AI, it gave me something. So this week, what I need to do is tailor it towards me and build my workout plan so that I can be successful as I go through. Because it's got to happen. I got to get ready. I can't be out here slacking in life. I gotta get my life together. So, working out over 40. It's gonna be an experience that we all are gonna take the journey with. So start doing your research and get it right. Because for me, uh it's coming. I have to prove myself to these young fellas that I still got it because I do. And that's the lie I'm keep telling them, and that's a lie I'm believing. So as I curtail or critique my workout plan, go out there and keep doing the same thing. 40 is just a number. Like it's Leah say, age ain't not but a number. Going down ain't okay, I can't use that part as that's a little explicit.

Wrap Up And Listener Requests

SPEAKER_00 12:09

But until next time, please leave me topic suggestions. And if you got any workout tips for a guy over 40, hit him my way. I'm still struggling. I'm trying to gather and get it done. Until next time, keep working out.