Where Do I Start If My Body Feels Broken After 50

Have you ever looked at an exercise program and thought, "I don't even know where to start anymore?"

If you're over 50 and your body feels unpredictable, stiff, or painful, you're not alone. Many people either stop exercising because they're afraid of getting hurt—or they keep pushing through pain, hoping things will eventually improve.

In this episode, Lauren Eirk explains why neither extreme leads to long-term success.

Drawing from more than 40 years of experience in biomechanics, resistance training, and muscle health, Lauren introduces the framework she uses to help people rebuild strength one step at a time. You'll learn why your muscles—not just your joints—play such an important role in movement, why progression matters more than intensity, and how restoring muscle function can help you move with greater confidence.

Whether you're returning to exercise after an injury or simply wondering how to train smarter as your body changes with age, this episode will help you take the next step with confidence.

Remember: You don't need to do more—you need to start in the right place.

If you’re ready to build strength in a way that supports your joints, reduces pain, and helps you stay active as you age…

You can explore my full training platform, FIS OnDemand, at www.fisondemand.com

WHO IS LAUREN EIRK?
Lauren is a 40-year fitness veteran, MAT-Rx Full-Body Specialist,  specialist,  Certified Yoga Therapist  C-IAYT, and Certified Yoga Instructor E-RYT 500.   She is the founder of FIS OnDemand™, The 5-Step Isometric Method™, and Fitness Integrated Science. She focuses on joint longevity for adults 50+ through science-backed resistance training to help you pinpoint your weak areas, correct strength imbalances, reduce pain and inflammation, and restore mobility.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Making Muscle Memories Podcast. My name is Lauren Eark and I will be your host. In today's episode, I want to talk about what not knowing where to start in your body when it feels like it's broken. After 40 years of work in the fitness industry, I have learned that real strength isn't just built through exercise, but through experience. I will share with you some of the science as well as the stories that have shaped my work. We are all building muscle memories. One rep, one story, and one day at a time. Welcome to the Making Muscle Memories Podcast. My name is Lauren Erk, and in this episode, I want to talk with you about what to do when your body feels broken and you're not quite sure where to start in your fitness program. Now, if you're someone that is over 50, you may notice that you're dealing with injuries a lot more often, your body is feeling chronically tight, you may notice a depletion of your energy, and you may be somebody that has stopped and started several different programs because either you weren't successful or your body just wasn't able to adapt to it quite well. Now, in my life, personally, I have dealt with this problem. I've definitely noticed my body changing throughout the years. I am currently in my late 50s. I'm getting ready to be 60 in a few years, and that's kind of daunting to think about, but the person that I was in my 20s and how I used to work out is very different than the person that I am now in my late 50s. So I want to talk with you about two interactions that I've had recently. The first interaction was with a woman that I used to work with. We ran into each other, and what she told me was that she had suffered a back injury years ago. And this back injury really set her up for in a tailspin. She was someone that was formerly very active. I can remember us doing all kinds of things together. We would push our bodies to the limit. But for her, even with all the education that she had had, this back injury very much halted her progress. She was afraid to do anything. She gave up almost every bit of exercise that she was doing. And she ended up working in a completely different field. She ended up working with crafts and things, and she stopped exercising completely. Her body was broken down. She had chronic pain. She had stiffness, she had a hard time getting up and out of a chair, and she was dealing with yet another surgery when I talked with her. She was completely unsure about where to even begin. And her words to me were, I feel like my body is completely broken and I don't know where to start, what to do, because every single time I exercise, I hurt. I was amazed by this. Literally, a week later, I ran into a former student of mine. Now, this girl, again, my age, she used to and still gets after it. She is someone that will not slow down. Everything she does has to involve some sort, some sort of cardiovascular function. She has to always be getting her heart rate up. She has to be jumping up and down no matter what she does. This woman is an avid pickleball and tennis player. She loves to participate in heavy weightlifting. She takes boot camp classes, and she still likes to run through her neighborhood. Now, just like the other girl that I ran into, she is someone that's dealing with chronic joint pain. She is someone that is dealing with potentially a surgery, but she is trying to put it off. And she has tried multiple things to help her, but nothing has worked. So when I look at these two ends of the spectrum, it always reminds me of like the whole Goldilocks thing, and I'm sure you've heard this analogy before. I feel like one's too hot and one's too cold, and we got to meet in the middle. So let's just kind of reframe this. If we think about, if we think about our body and how we're gonna start a fitness program, because I, you know, as a personal trainer, I deal with this kind of thing all the time with with individuals that I work with. Either the person is needing to be brought up a little bit because they're not doing enough exercise, or the client is needed to be brought down a little bit because they're doing too much exercise. And either way, you know, as a trainer, it's like you can't win because the person wants you to sort of validate where they currently are. And there's been lots of people that I've taken exercise away from, just like there's been lots of people that I've tried to really push a little bit to go to that next step. If you're really successful in the field of training, you have to meet people where they are. And I know this was something when I created my platform, FIS on Demand, I took into consideration a lot because I know there's going to be multiple people coming on the platform. And so I'm constantly cueing all different levels so that everyone can benefit. But I have noticed that because I deal with a clientele that's over 50, a lot of people want to look at some very therapeutic videos a lot more than they look at the harder videos. But remember when we when it comes to fitness, this is a general principle. Where you want to go and where your goals are, those are important, but they're never going to be important as where you are right now. And even though it is painful for us to take a look at where we are now, because we're we're not we're not happy with where we are now, we have to pay attention to what our body is currently telling us. So let's think about the two ways that these people have decided to push through their problems. One person completely halted. That's not gonna work. We know that joints need compression, they need shear, they need distraction, our body needs load, our muscles need force. Otherwise, what happens is our joints start to disintegrate and our muscles get weaker, and a lot of times our organ systems start to get depleted as well. Muscles are the longevity organ. If we don't keep up with them, we are going to die a lot quicker, basically. The other person, what did they do? They pushed through, they ignored their pain. It was like every sample, every time something hurt, they would switch their activity and keep doing something else. They would quickly find practitioners to tell them what they wanted to hear. They would try to pick and choose certain things so that they can continue to stay active, never quite addressing anything that was problematic. Now you can keep this going for a little while, but it's not gonna last, right? It is not going to last. Eventually, tissues will break down. You will get to the point where you can't do anything anymore and you will be completely crippled, right? I mean, that's just a figure of speech. But for both of these people, whether you're pushing too hard or not pushing enough, they're running down the road of failure. So if we think about how are we going to start with these people? Now, each one of these examples that I'm giving you today are going to need a different type of step to get them out of the box that they're currently in. So for the person that hasn't been doing anything, well, that person, the very least amount of muscle contraction is going to be quite a difficult thing for them to do. And for the other person, anything that doesn't feel like, you know, getting my heart rate up, pushing myself to death, and sweating profusely, it's not going to feel like a workout. And this is one of the hard things I want you to consider for a minute, just how hard it is for a group fitness instructor to deal with this. Because we might have these two people in the same class, right? So I'm going to tell you some really good sound information, and I'm going to call this a sort of an idea of restoration. And this is going to be a framework. And you can take this with a grain of salt because I know that a lot of you are going to fit in different categories, but over the years, if this is 40 plus years, not only dealing with my own injuries, but dealing with the client problems that I've dealt with, you have to progress things according to where your body currently is. So the first step that we need to know, if we ever going to go into a fitness program, we have to start studying our own body. And when is the last time you've done that? Most people, it's like, I want to put the blindfolders on, I don't want to know, I don't want to know if I'm not capable of doing this thing, I'm just going to keep doing this thing, or I don't want to know if this thing's going to fix me or not because I don't want to be in pain, so I'm just going to stay where I am. Staying where you are is not the answer. So we have to understand what's going on with our body. And this is so hard for people. I am a muscle activation technique specialist and MAT, Greg Roskoff's MAT, he's one of my mentors. This is something that we actually evaluate how people are moving with a range of motion evaluation to determine where to start. So let's just give an example of a tennis player that can't serve a tennis ball because they can't bring their arm over the head. If I'm going to take a look at someone's shoulder flexion from one side to the other, and I notice that their ability to flex their shoulder on the right is 50% less than their ability to flex their shoulder on the left, or excuse me, on the right. I can't remember which I said. One side or the other is very, very different, right? Then we have to look at the limited side as problematic. And so we have to ask ourselves, why would our body lose it, lose its ability to move? Well, we know that what moves joints are muscles. And so if our muscles can't contract efficiently, we're going to see a lack of range of motion. So the first step, and this is what I call in my platform the five-step isometric method. It's all based around isometrics. The first step is we have to restore that weakened tissue. And why does our body grow weak? Well, we go weak from trauma. And trauma can happen from doing too much or too little. It also happens from aging, it happens from poor nutrition, it happens from previous injuries that we've ever had, right? Previous trauma. All of those things can cause our muscular system to become weak. So we have to first and foremost identify what's going on with our body, where are the deficits. And you're going to see deficits in the sedentary lady as well as the person that was pushing way, way too hard. There's going to be deficits in both. So we have to figure out if I'm moving not very far on one side than the other, then the side that I'm limited in range of motion, those muscles cannot contract efficiently. So for my first step, I always tell people that they have to start with activation. We have to perform as much as we can isolated isometrics to jumpstart the tissue. And in my platform, what I have people do is push very lightly against an immovable object so that their joint can achieve a certain joint position, meaning the muscles achieve a specific length. Then I press against that immovable object with a certain amount of light force just to get that muscle to start squeezing again, and then holding that anywhere from six to eight seconds so that it gives time for the central nervous system to acknowledge and recruit those weak muscles. And this process needs to be repeated a lot and practiced a lot to really hone that. Now I've noticed when people that are really sedentary versus people that are way, way going overboard, both people will notice an immediate response. Our muscles are just little electrical entities. They have motor neurons and they communicate with our sensory motor neurons, and both of them have a feedback loop detecting on what's going on in our environment and how our central nervous system can recruit muscles that were actually going to go against what's happening in our environment. So this process can take an ongoing process of months or even years, maybe ongoing for the rest of their life. But the second step is we've got to integrate that, right? So bringing my arm over my head is just one step. How do I get my arm over my head? Well, it's going to come from my cords, maybe even coming from how I push off the ground with my feet. So before I even think about moving through a swing, I've got to see if I'm going to do an isometric into shoulder flexion, let's see how it happens when I am standing versus sitting, or when I'm standing on one leg or as I'm rotating and holding. So I always say that we went to integrate these isometrics across multiple joints. So that might be standing with both arms over your head. Now we're seeing both shoulders working simultaneously. We're evaluating trunk motion, we're evaluating hip position, knee position all the way down into the foot and ankle. This position actually gives that weak area a chance to participate with other weak joints. And I've seen amazing things happen. I call this yoga. This is how I've always taught yoga because yoga really does introduce you about your bodies. And I have seen so many people run out of a yoga class because they absolutely did not want to see what was going on in their body. But if you choose to stay and if you stick with it for a while in a slow, controlled manner, you will one undoubtedly feel your body changing over time. Now, eventually, in step number three, we want to progress into movement. Now, in the movement phase of this, this is where I get to hone all these great muscle contractions that I've been performing and move the body from point A to point B. Now, if you think about it, a lot of people when they start an exercise program, what are they taught? The doctor says, start a walking program. Oh my gosh, walking is a lot of joints kicking in at one time and it's repetitive. What if I have a problem at my ankle on one side? Or what if I have a problem at my knee or at my hip and I just go out and start walking? You can see that this is going to progress into another problem. And again, you're going to be someone that's going to be sidelined with pain, with tightness, and with chronic tension, right? Or chronic tension and tightness. So we have to figure out when we start to move, how do I move in such a way that allows me to contract the very muscles that I have been working on? Now, to me, calisthenics or body weight training has to happen before we add some sort of external load. Even a tennis racket is a load, right? We want to practice rotations and movement through the shoulder, through the torso without a tennis racket and maybe pushing against something so that we can get used to honing and generating these muscle contractions. Now, the goal for everybody after they finish with their moving is to add load. But a lot of times what happens if people add load too quickly, you see they haven't spent that time learning how to engage muscles on the inside of their body from an intrinsic perspective. If you're just sitting right here listening to this podcast, if you bring your arm over your head, what you're gonna notice is that the opposite side of your torso bend sideways and the side of the arm that's raising, you're gonna find that your body will sit up tall. You're immediately gonna feel different when you bring your arm over your head. So imagine if I started moving that over and over and then eventually started to add weight without really working on the muscles that are associated with bringing my arm over my head. So a lot of times I will tell people that if they start adding weights and it becomes too detrimental, maybe they're sore the next day, which by the way is not the goal in fitness. I know we've all been told that, but it's not. I might have that person go right back into isolated isometrics. And I do believe that feedback loop really does need to cone and be worked on for a period of time. In my program, this is how I teach all of my stuff. And what I've noticed with people is that when they do take the time to load and progress the body properly, all of the things that they came to me for, feeling unsure, feeling unsteady, feeling that their body is kind of unpredictable, like they could at any point fall and do something, those tend to go away because they've spent the time to address the weak links, integrate the weak links, and use those muscle weaknesses as they move from point A to B. When we pick up load, there's so many things, and I'm going to talk with you a lot more in other episodes, but you know, how much load am I lifting? How fast am I lifting it? Is my body able to stabilize or hold still while I'm moving this weight, right? How many repetitions am I going to do with this exercise? How many different sets of repetitions? How many times a week, meaning the frequency? And how far beyond my normal state did this weight come from? So I definitely believe that there has to be this step-by-step process to really frame how your muscles work. So if I go back to my two examples, my sedentary person as well as my overdoing it person, you can see that both of those people lacked direction. They both lacked a fundamental program to get them from point A to point B to point C to point D, layering on one appropriate stress at a time. Now the idea of layering down appropriate stress stress, adding one little thing at a time, is called progressive overload, right? We want to make sure that our body is able to adapt to the next change. Now, if you think about if you're somebody that's constantly getting injured, remember muscles are the first thing really to combat or to actually have a reaction to a strength training program. Did you know that tendons and ligaments, they're going to be at the bottom. They're not going to be able to adapt as quickly. So you can see that if I'm just going to keep on hoisting up a body a lot of weight and go into that program too quickly without giving my body a chance to get stronger, I am going to get injured. And by the way, isometrics are great for developing strength in your tendons. So I hope that when you think about in the next time, I don't feel ready or I don't know where I need to go, and you're feeling frustrated about your body. I want you to think to yourself, what is one little small step that I can take in the right direction to get me where I want to go? Not one big giant leap, like I'm going to just join the marathon and I'm going to do it with my girlfriend next weekend, right? This is one little baby step. Noticing how you feel when you finish, and then over time, adding more. If you do it this way, your body will absolutely perform for you without having so many injuries. You're going to notice that you're going to feel more youthful, you're going to have more energy, you're going to have less pain, and you're also going to feel much, much more confident in your body. So I hope that this episode helped. If you know anyone that I can that I can help, please forward this podcast to someone. Make sure that you're subscribed so that you never miss another episode. And as always, if you have any questions, please leave it in the space below. I really appreciate you watching, and I will see you on the next episode.