Last month, a longtime client sent me an article about a 92-year-old sprinter: Emma Mazzzenga.
(aka the “sprint queen”)

Mazzenga was collegiate sprinter who competed in the 100m, 200, 400 and 800 - placing 4th in the national championships hosted in Rome. Then after college, she hung up her spikes, got married, had kids and became a chemistry professor.

More than 20 years later, she returned to the sport and started competing in Master’s Track events at the ripe young age of 53.

Fast forward to today…

She holds five world records… 9 European records… and 28 Italian records in Master’s sprinting.

At 90-years-old, she broke the 200m world-record in her age group (54.47). Then four months later, she broke it again (51.47). It was these recording-breaking performances that put her on the radar of researchers to figure out what makes her special.

Researchers at the University of Pavia in Italy took Mazzenga through a series of tests including muscle biopsies, knee extension exercises and cycling tests.

Here’s what they found:

• She has the cardiovascular fitness of a highly fit woman in her 50’s
  
• Her mitochondria function (the power plant of the cell)  was equivalent of someone decades younger
  
• She possesses “remarkably large” slow-twitch muscle fibers  (used in walking, jogging and long-distance cardio)
  
• And she has a “very high percentage” of fast-twitch muscle fibers (used in explosive exercises such as max lifting, jumping and sprinting)
  
• Her muscle function resembled someone in their 20’s!
  

What’s her secret?

While some debate how much is genes vs. lifestyle, here are some of the high-performance habits behinds the nonagenarian’s age-defying athleticism:

• She runs without socks
  
• She wears different shoes for competition vs training
  
• Her post-race ritual is having a beer with the other athletes
• She eats fried eggs, fish, beef and some pasta and rice
• She focuses on improvement even if she has no competitors “If I have no competitors, I know that I’ll win from the start, so my aim is to do a good time.”
• Competing has been an outlet for adversity:  “It got me through some difficult times, which of course haven’t been lacking in a life as long as mine.“
• She walks every morning with her friend, “[Running] also allowed me always to be surrounded by a lot of people, so that I was never alone,“
• 2-3 days per week (~75 minutes) she does intervals of 60, 80 and 100m.
• She mixes up walking, running and biking (and if it rains, she bikes at home)
  

In an interview with L’Unione Sarda, she was asked about her ingredients for success in sports, she replied:

Constancy, continuity. If you want to achieve a goal you have to work hard, with passion and be constant.

Kelan Ern
Elite Fitness Coaching

Recently, one of the fittest Hollywood actors had a confession.

Tom Hardy (Venom, Dark Knight Rises, The Revenant) has gotten beaten up over the years in his highly physical roles on the silver screen. Throughout all the fight scenes he even competed in several Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitions and won.

But his body has been flashing warning signs. Apparently, he’s had two knee surgeries, slipped a disc in his back, suffers from sciatica, has plantar fasciitis and then pulled a hip tendon.

In an interview with Esquire the 47-year-old shared:

“It’s like it’s all falling to bits now, and it’s not going to get better”

Someone recently posted online that they feel like Hardy.

Despite being 35 they feel 65 with knee pain… tennis elbow… chronic back pain… shoulder tendonitis… ulnar nerve impingement… and more. They really want to play sports pain-free again and not have all the aches and pains that their first half of life has been riddled with. But they don’t know if it’s really possible for them anymore, and wonder:

Is it possible to turn it around?

When I slipped a disc in my low back, I limped around everywhere and couldn’t tie my own shoes. It was one of the most painful and discouraging injuries I’ve ever had. There were moments where I worried if this shooting pain would ever go away or if I was going to be hunched over for the rest of my life.

What turned it around?

It was a wake-up call that simply running more… lifting more… had its limits. I couldn’t just focus on moving move. I had to focus on moving better – improving my mobility, flexibility and balance so I could “bullet-proof” my body for greater resilience. All this helped me limber up more than ever, heal from that herniated disc and build a much more solid foundation for fitness.

What’s possible for our battered and beaten 35-year-old friend?

I don’t know exactly.

But I know a lot can change when you shift gears and double down on moving better while you try to move more. I’ve seen people regain mobility they haven’t had in years, in some cases decades while also doing more outdoor activities and hobbies they love – without hurting for days.

If you’ve struggled with stiffness, tightness or lack of balance while getting in shape and want some guidance on this topic, I’m putting together a new program that might help. It will give you personalized, daily support with helping you move better, feel better and restore your athleticism.

Join the Mind-Body Breakthroughs newsletter to learn more

Kelan Ern

1. Your training volume may be too high – especially if you just started. You might find a better, more enjoyable (and sustainable rhythm) downgrading to three days per week. Then upgrading once you psychologically manage that.
2. Your intensity may be too high – and so you are creating a negative association to working out and stepping into the gym in general
3. Your mindset. You can want to enjoy it all you want, but if you are silently telling yourself, this sucks… I hate this… why is this so hard… so you’re dousing any spark of enjoyment with your downpour of negative thoughts.
4. You might have unclear goals or a murky fitness vision that doesn’t inspire you and so you feel like you’re going through the motions.
5. You might have unreasonable expectations about how long it takes to reach your goals. You might believe you can just go beast-mode for a few months and then “be fit”. This is a rude awakening for anyone who’s tried. It’s not the path to any sort of lasting transformation.

 
One last thought:

Some people expect that they should love exercise and should want to do it and if they don’t they believe something is wrong.

Let that relationship naturally evolve.

It doesn’t just happen. It requires a level of observation and reflection to find out what cadence and type of exercise works for you. You may despise the dreadmill and feel more at home with lifting free weights… trail running… or group exercise classes.

I don’t know.

But part of it is a discovery process.

Not forcing yourself to enjoy something, and when it’s not enjoyable you believe something is wrong or you aren’t a “workout person.”

Kelan Ern