Why Do I Feel Weaker Than I Used To? It's Not Just Aging

What if feeling weaker isn't really about your age? Discover the hidden reasons strength changes over time—and how you can start rebuilding it.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
Have you ever caught yourself saying…

"Why do I feel so much weaker than I used to?"

You're not alone.

Many adults over 50 notice that everyday tasks suddenly feel harder. Carrying groceries, getting off the floor, climbing stairs, lifting luggage, or simply keeping up with life doesn't seem as effortless as it once did.

But here's the encouraging news:

Feeling weaker isn't simply about getting older.

In this episode of Making Muscle Memories, I share a personal story that completely changed how I think about strength, aging, and independence. Together, we'll explore the real reasons strength changes over time, including muscle loss, previous injuries, pain, changes in confidence, and the activities we gradually stop doing without even realizing it.

Most importantly, you'll learn why your body is capable of becoming stronger again with the right progressive approach.

In this episode you'll discover:

• Why weakness is about more than age alone
• How injuries and pain quietly change the way your muscles work
• Why confidence often disappears before strength does
• The surprising connection between muscle health and longevity
• How consistent, joint-friendly strength training can help you move with confidence again

Growing older doesn't have to mean giving up the things you love.

Your muscles can adapt.
Your body can improve.
And your best strength may still be ahead.

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

Being in the fitness industry for as long as I have, I hear some of these questions nearly every day. The first one is, why is it that suddenly I feel so much weaker than I used to? I also hear, I used to be able to do A, B, or C and now it feels so challenging. And also, why does my body feel like it's aging so fast? In this episode, I'm going to tell you about a story about an interaction that I had with a neighbor of mine years ago that exemplifies these questions. I'm going to give you some real reasons why what you're feeling about weakness isn't just about you getting older. And finally give you some hope that it's never too late to get stronger. 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 Making Muscle Memories. My name is Lauren Eric and I will be your host. In this episode, I'm going to tackle the question: why do I feel like I'm getting so much weaker as I'm getting older? Now, there was a time when I was in, I was just out of college and I was living in a small home, and across the street, a neighbor of mine started walking over to my yard when I was coming home from work and unloading my car. At the time, I had just been from back from the grocery and I had loaded up each arm with some of those plastic bags with handles because I don't know about you, but like I don't want to have to take bunches and bunches of trips to get from my car to my house. I just wanted to get it all inside. So I had multiple bags on each arm, and I was getting my keys and I was getting ready to walk into my house. And my neighbor walks over and I look over at her and she made a comment. She said, Wow, I can't believe how strong you are. And I thought, how strong I am. To me, it just was easy. I was like in my late 30s. My body just felt completely resilient. And so as I was walking them into my house, she kind of followed me and I sat them inside and we started talking. And she said, You know, just yesterday when I got home from the grocery, I tried to do exactly what you were trying to do. And I had about three bags on one arm and two on the other, and I got halfway to my house and I had to sit them down. And then I found myself having to almost carry in one bag at a time. And so she and I just sort of had a chuckle. It was kind of funny because I thought, are you kidding me? You only had to take one at a time. Like I thought she was really joking. And so as I proceeded to continue to unload my car and we were sort of talking, I come to realize that she actually wasn't joking, which really shocked me. And so being in the fitness industry, this was interesting to me. And so I stopped everything that I was doing, and we actually sat out in my front yard and we started to talk for a while. And as we were talking, I was already, you know, ready with my spiel about how she could get stronger and I was going to invite her to my class. But what I started to recognize, this was way bigger than her not being able to carry on her groceries. This was almost an emotional change that she had been going through. So this woman was in her 60s and she was an awesome lady. She was, we we talked all the time. But she used to be a professional. She used to work in an office setting, she was a boss with a lot of people, and when she had a parent of hers that was aging, she had to leave her profession to take care of them. And I think a lot of us can relate to that. Our sort of work life changes because now we have to step up and take care of somebody else. Not to mention the fact her kids had gone off, they went to college, they got married, and they left the home. She was an empty nester and she was divorced. So just like me, I mean, I was a single person in, you know, out of college and just working, and I actually she she and I were both divorced at the time, and she had had kids that had left her, she was an empty nester. Both of us were alone, but for her, she felt really alone. So I listened to this and I and I definitely had empathy that there was sort of an identity change for her. And if you think about it, this identity change from me as a younger person to me now, this can be a really challenging thing. I know I've suffered from some of this myself. I think we all do. This is just a normal part of life. Then if you take all of this on top of aging, just looking at yourself aging, mobility is changing, skin is changing, my looks are changing, my strength is changing. All of these things can create a lot of emotional turmoil. And what I told her, and this is what I'm gonna tell you on this podcast here, it's not just about getting older. We have to think about where strength comes from. You know, we can say that when I was when I was younger, I was really strong. I remember running marathons. I remember taking multiple classes in a row. I remember lifting so hard that we couldn't push the gas pedal in at the end of our workouts. That was our goal, right? But I look back on myself back then and I wasn't that much stronger. I thought I was, but real strength comes from you know withstanding all these hardships and changes through life and saying to yourself, I'm still here. My body is still moving, I am so much stronger. Imagine taking this kind of wisdom and putting it in your 20-year-old body, right? That is real strength. So I think as we start looking at some of these real reasons why we might be getting weaker, I want you to think to yourself, you are strong. You are so strong, in fact. You have suffered through lots of things, you're still standing. And let me tell you, we have to look at our aging as kind of funny. I look at all the things that have happened in my body and I think to myself, well, I knew this was gonna happen, I planned for this, I've been going to school for years, I've been educating myself in fitness for years, and I know that this is gonna happen. But now my goal is I want this to happen slower. So if we think about aging, we think about getting weaker, there are several reasons why this might be happening. Number one, muscle. Muscles are the most important things that we need to take care of. Now, for me, as a muscle activation technique specialist, certified yoga therapist, personal trainer, I've been in this industry for a long time. And I have learned throughout all the decades of my work, muscles are the thing. They're more important than getting your skin injected with Botox. They're more important than getting your hair colored, they're more important than having cool clothes. If you're fit and your muscles are strong, you're gonna be younger. Hands down. They are your longevity organ. They are considered to be the largest metabolic organ of your body. But what happens if you haven't taken care of them in your life? Maybe you had those times you had to step away from work, whatever it is. Your body is going to get rid of that muscle. There's no reason for your body to maintain something that you're not using, right? I once had a chemistry teacher back in college, and we were we were um discussing like the it was organic chemistry, which by the way, I am horrible in. That was the only C that I ever got in college was organic chemistry. But you're never going to see something that is a weak acid or base be be or a weak but a weak base and neutralize into a strong a strong acid or something like that. It just doesn't happen. Everything in the universe is going to always fall to the lowest state of energy. Your body's always trying to conserve and maintain. There's a lot of things that your central nervous system has to deal with. And your muscles are very, they call this expensive real estate. They require a lot of energy to maintain. Fat does not require a lot of energy to maintain. They just they supply us with a lot of energy, but they just like to sit there and play cards. Your muscle, on the other hand, is constantly needing fuel. And if you're not putting force and doing energy, doing exercise and doing the things to maintain your muscle, your body is going to get rid of it. As a matter of fact, they say, studies say, that every year past the age of 30, we're losing about a percentage. So every 10 years, 3 to 8 to 10 percent, we're losing muscle mass. And this can happen even faster if you've been dealing with a chronic illness or you've had some times in your life that you've been extremely sedentary. So combating age-related muscle loss with keeping your muscles healthy is one thing that we can all do. You don't have to say, I'm just getting old. Work out, right? Really start to think thinking about what are the things that I can do to maintain my muscle mass, right? The second thing is we have to look at our injury history. So we think about how we're moving, and you maybe you're feeling some tightness, maybe you're feeling compensated motion. When you raise your right arm over your head, it's different than raise your left arm over your head because maybe you had an injury in your shoulder, right? When I was 13, I separated my shoulder playing baseball in the street with my brother and his friends. I was a pitcher and I wasn't paying attention, and the guy hit a softball in my shoulder, and I never told my parents. So now here in my 50s, I still have that separated shoulder, and I've definitely had some arthritic changes because when I was younger, I didn't take as good a care of it. So I know as an adult, if I don't maintain my muscles in this shoulder, I am going to really have a hard time getting older. And but I still notice compensations in my range of motion. I don't have the same amount of flexion on this side that I do on this side. It also affects how well I can actually rotate my shoulder as well. So I have to think about the activities that I'm going to be participating in. But remember, these injuries that we have had has caused us to compensate. Compensation is a good thing, but depending on the things that we choose, we may notice that this makes our joint wear out faster. So, like for me, I'm probably not going to be signing up for the butterfly contest in my swim meet over the weekend. I'm going to participate in things that are going to keep my shoulder intact because of my injury history. So something to think about in terms of, you know, if you're looking at your body and saying, you know, why can't I do these things? Maybe your injury history is something that you need to look at. Maybe my lifestyle choices don't match the injuries that I have had. That being said, pain is a big indicator of how we move. Now, if you're somebody who is masking your pain with, I don't know, ibuprofen every day, or maybe you've chosen a lifestyle to where you don't have pain. Or maybe you have pain, and whenever you feel it, you become scared to do anything. You know, pain is a signal. Pain tells you something is wrong. You know, we had a situation in my house recently where we had these um, I noticed these, they almost look like little fleas that came out of your drain, and I and I didn't think anything of it because you know you live in a house, you're gonna see bugs come in sometimes. It was in the summertime, but then all of a sudden I was doing laundry in my basement and I looked down the floor and there were like a lot of them in front of the water heater. Well, when I saw them, I knew there was a big problem. Um, I knew that there was a problem in our water system, and we had to have a water, we had actually had a leak in our in our water heater, and these spring, there were springtails, they got into our water supply, and apparently these little boogers um rapidly multiply, and if we and if you don't get a handle on them, they they can take over your house. You can have what's called an infestation. Believe me, I had so much education from the exterminator about this. But the point of this is not because I want to talk to you about springtails. The point, and by the way, we don't have them anymore. It took a lot of diligence, but we got it all fixed. The point of this is when when when I saw those, it was like, oh, we've got a problem in the house. We had to have the entire plumbing system analyzed and figure out because we had bought an old house and the water leak the water heater was leaking. We also had a problem with one of the the um what do they call them, the traps where some standing water was sitting, and that's where they were multiplying. So we had to treat that area and redo a couple of our pipes. Didn't this happen in our body? Have you had pain happen in your body where you're like, eh, my shoulder hurts, so I'll just go ahead and do these things instead. Oh my gosh, my shoulder hurts. If you don't deal with that shoulder hurting, guess what's gonna happen? Just like those springtails, it is going to spread. It is gonna spread towards multiple joints. And as a muscle activation techniques specialist, I have seen this play out so many times, right? When you're ready to take care of your pain, it's it's tough, right? Because you might have to do a very deep dive, just like I had to do with my springtails in my house and figure out that there are some problems that you haven't addressed a long time ago. Let's let's give you an example in the human body. I've seen so many people that have had C-sections and maybe they've had them 20, 25 years ago, but they never dealt with them. They were just told, go home, have a baby, and you know, just whenever you're ready, just start taking care of your kids and do normal life. Just start walking, which is the dumbest advice ever, by the way. You know, a C-section is huge. It gets like you're literally splicing through your right your transverse abdominus muscles, which creates interabdominal pressure, it's dialed into the pelvic floor, it's dialed in into our overall core strength, and we've had it sliced open. And many women have had this slip open multiple times, and then they wonder why they go and play pickleball and their lower back hurts. You know, if we don't deal with that core strength, that pain is going to manifest towards ultimate joint, uh multiple joints. We might notice inhibition or the nervous system not recruiting specific muscle fibers in the transverse abdominus. But if we neglect that transverse abdominus and getting them stronger, which can be done through isometrics, through diaphragmatic breathing, through movement-based calisthenics, through strength training, where you have to brace through the through the core while we're doing something else with our limbs. If we haven't taken a progressive approach to getting those muscles stronger, that weak abdominal region will transfer into weak glutes, into weak shoulders, into weak knees, all the way down to the bottom of the foot. It ends up becoming a full body issue with this whole inhibition problem. Now, on my platform, the FIS On Demand, this is an online platform. I talk about this all the time, and I always have clients writing into me that when they started with level one videos, which I have a five-step process where I can get the muscles healthy. Many of them say that when they started working with single-jointed isometrics, which is where I always tell people to start to eliminate those muscle weaknesses, what I hear from a lot of times is that they were amazed that this old injury that they thought that they had, you know, ignored, that they thought that it was, you know, basically fixed, it was still there. And so they noticed that every time they felt that pain, they started to shy away from it. And through doing isometrics, they can actually reduce pain because they're improving the communication between the central nervous system and the muscular system. But that can only be done with strength training. We've got to somehow begin to address our muscular system. Now, human nature, and this is, and this definitely plays in with my, if you can go back to my story in the beginning about my neighbor, human nature is when we're not good at something, we're not gonna do it. People start to find activities that they can do and they stick with that. You know, you hear people say, um, you know, I I injured my back, so I started a walking program and I and I stopped doing my Pilates, right? I just started walking and I decided I didn't want to go back to my Pilates class because that hurt my back. Or, like with me, with my shoulder, you know, I probably am not going to do, you know, a game of pickleball or tennis because I don't want to risk my shoulder getting beat up because I need it for my profession. But if I just started walking and didn't ever use my shoulder, you can see where I would set myself up for a lot of problems as I've gotten older. So this idea of losing confidence and stopping living life is huge when we think about aging and we think about why our body might feel weaker. Ask yourself, what have I stopped doing? What am I afraid to do? You know, there's a very big principle in life. The things that we feel pushed against, the things that feel hard, the things that suddenly feel like you know we may not want to do, though, that's our body's way of saying to us, you need to lean into that. So for me, like if I have a hard time raising my arm over my head, which it always is difficult for me on this side, if I don't every single day or every single week, let's just say, deliberately go in and isometrically and progressively strength train the muscles that flex my shoulder, I will lose that mobility, and I know that. So I can't be afraid of doing something. I have to figure out a way to where this activity fits inside my current structure and doesn't elicit pain. And that is only going to happen through regular, consistent strength training. And I know it's hard to find those things out. I hear this all the time on my online platform, and I'm always advising people, you know, people are always saying, Where do I start? This hurts. Can you tell me what video to start with? Or how I begin to do this exercise in a way that doesn't cause me pain. And we had these conversations all the time, and I always love it when people message me back and they're like, oh my gosh, I finished a whole hour of whatever it was and I didn't have pain, or I've been doing your app, or I've been coming to you for MAT or whatever it was, and now after all these weeks, I am ready to start running again, or I actually was able to garden all day and I didn't have pain in my lower back. I love these types of comments. But this really only happens through hard work. So I know that we talked about some kind of depressing things that happen, but remember that, you know, when we think about our body becoming weaker and you're noticing this happening, it doesn't happen overnight. It may seem like it does. It may seem like you wake up one day and it's like, I can't carry my groceries in. What is going on? Like my neighbor. But what I told my neighbor, and what I'm gonna tell you, is that we don't have to age poorly. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to start this podcast. I have a lot of stories in my head and I want to get them out there, and that's why this that's this whole podcast is called Making Muscle Memories, because I want to frame science around real stories that only I've experienced. And let me tell you, my neighbor really, I think I'm I think it was sort of like a God wink because had she not come over to my yard that day and talked to me about her experience of not being able to take groceries into her house, I think that was one of the many things that made me want to go into this field because I was like, man, I I don't want people to feel that way. You know, in the beginning when I started doing in fitness, it was it was kind of, you know, I just wanted to look good. I just thought it was, it made me feel important to be able to get up there and be fit in front of people. But as I've gotten older, it's all about service. I want to pass on the things that the mistakes that I've made in my body and help people to age better. But remember that, you know, strength does not get lost overnight. And so if you're somebody listening to this and thinking, gosh, I've got to get back to this, I've got to get back to this. And I did a whole episode about how to get started on an exercise if you're feeling like, you know, where do I start? But I digress. I look at people in my life, whenever I start to feel down about my body, I look at people that I've seen that have really inspired me. Now, one of the one of the one person that I've always been inspired by from a physical standpoint is Arnold Schwarzenegger. I mean, this guy is still on social media talking about working out. I watched a special on the other day, and he has like a whole gym in his house and he's set in his 70s. Like he's still smoking cigars and whatnot, which, you know, that was that's his thing. But he has a whole gym in his house, and I thought, that's how I want to be. I want to have a whole gym in my house when I'm in my 70s and 80s, right? He never stopped working out. And that's why he's continuing to be healthy and to be able to be someone that people listen to. What about Tina Turner? There's another example. Have you ever had anybody talk about her and not in that conversation mentioned her legs? This is a woman that changed her entire life. She could have just been held under the thumb of her abusive husband, but she got away from him, started singing, belting out her voice, worked out her whole life, and even in her 60s, had the most ripped arm and legs of, I think, of any woman that I've ever seen. And then another one that I think is really inspiring is Mick Jagger. If you've seen him running up and down the stage, you know why he was able to do this? Because he never stopped. So we can't think of ourselves as like I'm an old person or this is just happening because I'm aging. That is an excuse, my friends. And I want to end this episode by giving some kudos to my amazing dad. My dad, and I know if you're listening to this dad, you don't like me to talk about you, but I can't help but talk about you because I hope that I have half of your genetics. My dad was born with a severe valgus. He was very knock-need. And by the time he was in his late 70s, he was having a lot of knee pain. And his first knee replacement, now granted, he's had me talking in his ear, MAT, isometrics. He's been doing my app, we've been training together. But he had his knee replaced, and his therapist was pushing his knee, it was he was trying to, you know, guess force his knee to bend and force his knee to straighten, and he told them, We're not going to do any of this. We're going to do isometrics, we're going to get stronger. And he sort of dictated to them how he wanted to rehab his own knee. He never stopped coming to see me. He did not act scared. He was so motivated. And I watched him struggle, go to his physical therapy appointments, talk to his doctor, research things. He would text me and ask me questions, you know, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? And I would slowly give him exercises, and lo and behold, within six weeks of him having the knee replaced, his knee was fully straight. And within six to eight weeks, he was back to squatting under load. He was doing leg presses, and now he can do leg extensions and leg curls. And this guy is amazing. He does more in he works in my facility, works out my facility. He does more than some of my 40-year-olds as far as with his appointments. He's always upbeat and he never talks about aging. He's always doing stuff. He takes part in his church, he sings in the choir, he goes on hikes, he's in the vestry, he does things around his house, he does things in his yard, he comes and he works out, and he is regularly consistent. And I think my dad is the is the whole uh uh example of how we can decide how we are going to age. Now, if you like this episode, I would love for you to give me a great ratings, either in YouTube or what is it, pub, Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to these podcasts. And make sure that you're subscribed. Most importantly, I would love it if you could forward this episode to anybody that needs inspiration. Guys, getting older is a privilege that not many people get to have. So I hope that I can throughout the this podcast inspire you to take control of your aging process and maintain your muscles. If you'd like more information about FIS on demand, there is a link below. You can sign up for my seven day strength experience where I can take you through some isometrics, some calisthenics, and some strength training and get some real quick wins. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you on the next episode.