When I was in my 20s, I remember looking at men in their 40s and thinking, Man, 40 is old! A lot of them looked old too. They had guts, thinning hair, low energy, and generally looked worn out and beaten down. If I was training hard or talking about fitness, inevitably some older guy would tell me, “Wait until you get to my age.” The implication was obvious: enjoy it while you can, kid. Eventually you’re going to fall apart just like me.

Don’t even get me started on how I viewed people in their 50s. When I was a kid, a 50-year-old man on television often looked like someone’s grandfather. Now I’m in my 50s myself, and my perspective couldn’t be more different.

I still train hard. I still push myself. I still care about getting stronger and improving my conditioning. I can go for long walks, travel, have adventures, and generally do whatever I want physically. Do I have some wear and tear? Of course. Can I do everything that previous versions of myself could do? No. That’s called aging, and pretending it doesn’t exist is just as ridiculous as believing you have to completely fall apart because you’ve reached a certain age.

What I’ve realized is that those guys telling me, “Wait until you get to my age,” were leaving out one enormous variable: I wasn’t living the way they were living.

I was dedicated to training and taking care of myself in my 20s. I continued doing it in my 30s, then my 40s, and now my 50s. Those decades don’t disappear. The strength you build, muscle you maintain, cardiovascular conditioning you develop, nutritional habits you establish, and knowledge you accumulate all carry forward.

This doesn’t make you immune to aging. Nothing does. But there’s an enormous difference between aging and spending several decades neglecting yourself and then blaming the consequences entirely on your age. Maybe “Wait until you get to my age” should really be, “Wait until you’ve lived the way I’ve lived for another 20 years.” That’s a very different statement.

Forty Isn’t Ancient

Something else I’ve noticed is how dramatically our cultural attitude toward age has changed. It used to be considered impolite to ask a woman her age or weight. Today I see women on Instagram proudly announcing both: “I’m 47 years old and weigh 145 pounds!”

I actually think there’s something positive about that. There’s no reason anyone should be ashamed of getting older. But sometimes we go too far in the other direction and become overly self-congratulatory. I see people in their early 40s proudly announcing how amazing it is that they’re still strong and fit “at their age.”

Come on. You’re 42, not 92.

If you’ve taken care of yourself throughout your 20s and 30s, being fit at 40 shouldn’t be considered some incredible physiological achievement. It might look impressive to someone who’s 22, but someone who’s 72 is probably rolling his eyes.

My friend Steve Maxwell, an elite trainer and strength coach who is now in his 70s, once told me how much he wished he still had the recovery capacity he had in his 40s. Think about that. The 45-year-old on Instagram is posting inspirational videos about overcoming his advanced age while the guy in his 70s is thinking, Forty-five? I’d love to have that recovery again!

Age is incredibly relative. When you’re 20, 40 sounds old. When you’re 40, 60 sounds old. When you’re in your 50s, you start realizing 60 isn’t particularly old either. And I imagine plenty of people in their 80s would love nothing more than to wake up tomorrow morning and be 65 again.

The definition of “old” keeps moving.

Hormones Matter Too

There’s another part of healthy aging that I think gets overlooked or oversimplified: hormone optimization.

No, hormone optimization isn’t the fountain of youth. You’re not going to optimize testosterone, DHEA, pregnenolone and estrogen and magically turn a 60-year-old body into a 25-year-old body. That’s marketing nonsense. But going to the opposite extreme and pretending hormones don’t matter much is equally misguided.

I recently saw someone argue that testosterone isn’t that important for strength. His argument was essentially that once testosterone is within the normal range, increasing it doesn’t necessarily make you stronger. I understand the point. I just think it misses several salient points.

Strength doesn’t exist in isolation. Optimal testosterone isn’t only about how many pounds you can add to a deadlift. Testosterone plays important roles in maintaining muscle mass, bone health, sexual function, red blood cell production, energy and overall well-being. Then there’s something much harder to quantify: drive.

If you feel energetic, motivated and engaged with life, you’re probably much more likely to train consistently than if you feel depleted and apathetic. And consistency compounded over decades is where the magic happens.

The same general principle applies to the rest of your physiology, although not every hormone should be treated identically and more isn’t necessarily better. Estrogen is a great example. Men need estrogen. Trying to crush estradiol as low as possible is not hormone optimization. Healthy estrogen signaling matters for bone health, sexual function and other aspects of health.

The goal isn’t HIGH TESTOSTERONE! LOW ESTROGEN! The goal is healthy physiological function.

This philosophy is also why I developed Aggressive Strength Testosterone Booster (ASTB) and Estrogen Control (EC). I have never believed supplements are substitutes for doing the work, and I’ve never marketed them as magic pills or fountains of youth. ASTB was designed to support healthy testosterone levels and overall hormonal health, while EC was formulated to support healthy estrogen metabolism and balance. They are tools that can be incorporated into a comprehensive approach that starts with training, nutrition, adequate sleep, stress management and taking care of your health.

That’s an important distinction. You can’t supplement your way out of decades of neglect, and you certainly can’t inject or swallow decades of disciplined living. But when the fundamentals are already in place, supporting healthy hormone function can be another piece of the puzzle.

Hormones aren’t a replacement for training, nutrition, sleep or healthy lifestyle habits. Maintaining healthy hormone levels can, however, help support the physiological environment that allows you to continue doing the things that keep you strong and healthy. That’s why I don’t view hormone optimization as a way of trying to become young again. I’m not trying to be 25. I’m trying to be the healthiest and most capable version of myself at the age I actually am.

Youthful Doesn’t Mean Young

This may be the biggest shift in my perspective as I’ve gotten older. There’s a difference between being youthful and pretending you’re young.

I’m not physically identical to the person I was at 25. Why would I be? I’ve accumulated decades of training, injuries, experiences and life since then. Some things were easier when I was younger. Recovery was certainly better. But I also have something now that my younger self didn’t have: perspective.

When I was younger, I was obsessed with achieving certain training goals as quickly as possible. If I wanted something, I wanted it yesterday. Now? I’ll get there when I get there.

I’m working toward getting my deficit deadlift back to 495 pounds for five reps. I’d love to achieve it, but I’m in no hurry. I’ll keep training intelligently and enjoying the process. If it takes longer than I’d like, so what?

That’s one of the ironies of aging. Your younger self may have greater physical recovery capacity, but your older self hopefully has greater psychological patience.

The Goal Is to Preserve Capacity

I don’t think the goal of training as you age should be to prove that age doesn’t matter. Age does matter. The goal should be to preserve as much capacity as possible for as long as possible.

If you’re 50, don’t obsess over being an impressive 50-year-old. Build the strongest foundation you can take into 60. When you’re 60, preserve as much of that capacity as possible going into 70. Then do it again.

Strength matters. Muscle matters. Cardiovascular fitness matters. Mobility matters. Metabolic health matters. Hormonal health matters. But ultimately what we’re trying to preserve is something much bigger: the ability to live our lives.

I want to be able to train. I want to be able to walk for hours. I want to travel. I want to have adventures. I want to maintain my independence. And, most importantly, Rumi and Derby need me physically capable of paying the bills, driving them to the park, going on long walks and taking them on adventures.

They don’t care what my testosterone level is or how much I deadlift. Their definition of successful aging is pretty straightforward: Can Dad still operate the vehicle and get us to the park?

As long as the answer is yes, they’re happy. And maybe they’re onto something.

Healthy aging isn’t about desperately holding onto youth. It’s about maintaining enough health, strength, vitality and enthusiasm to continue doing the things that make your life worth living.

And if you’re in your 40s or 50s right now and think you’re old, remember: some fit 75-year-old is probably looking at you thinking, “Would you kids shut up? You have no idea how young you are.”