Your Best is Yet to Come

In today’s issue of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s daily newsletter, he writes about how you peak in new ways as you age:

“At every age, you are getting better at some things and worse at others,” according to Joshua Hartshorne, an assistant professor of psychology at Boston College, who The Wall Street Journal interviewed in an interesting article about physical and mental peaks.

Some of the physical advantages of youth are obvious, such as speed and explosiveness. That’s because your ratio of fast-twitch to slow-twitch muscle fibers decreases as you get older. But, muscular and aerobic endurance continues to peak later in age. And aging doesn’t mean you stop building muscle. Even if you’re starting late, research suggests you can gain new muscle as late as your 70s. And it can be done in as little as two or three weight training sessions per week, sometimes lasting just 15 to 20 minutes.

Your aging advantage isn’t limited to your body. Your mind also gets sharper with time. You might have more “raw processing power” when you’re younger, but your ability to strategize, stress less, and think more clearly improves with time and experience.

Our society’s obsession with youth has created a harmful view of aging. But Arnold’s perspective here offers a refreshing outlook: although athleticism and raw mental power may diminish with age, our endurance and wisdom grow stronger.