By Dr Jerry Lynch
The recipe for self-improvement contains many important ingredients. These ten, crucial, essential principles should not be overlooked, particularly when you seek improvement in your forties and fifties and beyond.
Coaching: Align yourself with someone who understands the direction you wish to go and can help you to get there. Coaches are usually willing to work with anyone who wants to improve.
Hydration: Most athletes fail to drink a sufficient amount of water throughout the day. If you wait until you’re thirsty, you’re not drinking enough. Water will help you to stay fresh, limber and less sore and fatigued. A minimum of 2 quarts per day is advised.
Stress: To experience breakthroughs, you need to extend a bit beyond your normal comfort zones. But you don’t want to stress your body or push it too hard. This is where coaching really helps – someone to evaluate how far you should go.
Rest: Many athletes are quick to stress, but fail to rest. Most research from reputable sports physiologists indicates that sufficient rest after stressful workouts facilitates improvement. Without rest you risk severe burnout, injury, or illness.
Stretch: When you stretch, you enable your muscles to reach their full range of motion. Failure to stretch creates stiffness, soreness and tightness, and leads to injury. This becomes even more curcial as we age.
Fuel: Too many of us see food in terms of weight gain. If you want to improve as an athlete, see food as the fuel your body requires to sustain energy. Complex carbohydrates (vegetables, wholegrains, fruits, etc.) store themselves as glycogen in your muscles, ready to be used at a moment’s notice.
Equipment: Improvement will come much faster and more easily if you purchase decent equipment. You do not need to be fashionable and buy hundred-dollar running shoes, but you should avoid the ten-dollar clunkers. Be sure that whatever you buy is comfortable.
Consistency: Improvement in anything is a direct result of how consistently you engage in the activity. It’s better to work out for thirty minutes four times a week than to spend two hours each Saturday to cram it all in.
Gradualness: The journey to continual self-improvement is a slow one. Significant gain takes time. Be patient and persistent, and celebrate small strides.
Emptiness: Establish an attitude of openness to new and better ways. When you think you have all the answers, you won’t see other ways. See yourself as an empty vase, ready and willing to take in all that may help you to improve.
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I am thanks Matt!! 
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I hope you’re doing fine.
Take care and best wishes.
Matt