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Business & Tech

Personal Fitness Helps Women Over 40 Get Fit

Owner/Trainer Ed Darcey tailors workouts for a woman's fitness goals

Fitness for a woman over 40 may be harder to achieve than when she was 25, but it is certainly within reach, said Ed Darcey, owner of gym in Rocky Point.

“It’s just that women over forty have to work out more often and more consistently than they did when they were younger to get results,” Darcey, who has been training all ages and conditions since his gym opened in 1989, said.

He recommends an hour workout a day, five to six days a week, a mix of cardio and weight training, and stresses continuity is the key.

That hour in the gym would be broken down to 20-30 minutes cardio, “starting at low intensity,” Darcey said. “Let’s say on a scale of one to ten we start at two. The rest is weight training.”

As women age, weight training is especially important, as it provides needed stress on bone structure, which helps combat osteoporosis.

Diet change is just as important, maybe even fifty percent of the battle, adds Darcey.

"If they do everything right in the gym but eat poorly, they’re just not going to get the same results,” he said.

Darcey explained that the over-40 diet should have more protein and less carbs, eliminating nighttime carbs four to five hours before bedtime. After 40, metabolism slows down, and the carbs that aren’t metabolized before bed are stored as fat. This affects women much more than men.

Michelle Bonura, 58, said she had come to Personal Fitness eight years ago.

“I had just been a runner for 25 years,” she said.

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A regimen Darcey instituted that included weight training not only helped Bonura correct knee problems caused by her quadriceps being much stronger than her hamstrings, but also helped shave a half hour off her time in a marathon.

The retired teacher was in fact in training for a marathon in Hartford Oct. 15. She had already run six miles before coming to the gym and was executing a leg balancing exercise—leaning forward on one leg while holding dumbbells, the other leg raised back—she said was especially good for strengthening the sides of the leg.

Leeann Winters, 40, said she had reached a plateau at another gym and had “heard good things about Ed,” so she came to Personal Fitness.

Personal Fitness also provided daycare for Winters, who had her youngest at 38. She entered the gym’s eight-week “Mommy Makeover” program, and said she and her husband have been pleased with the results.

“I went down one size, I feel stronger, just better all around and by eating more protein it’s actually cutting down my old craving for sweets,” she said.

A typical workout for Winters begins with 20 minutes cardio on the elliptical that segues into lunges, squats, pushups, rows, leg press and the like, than another 20 minutes cardio.

“It’s been working here for me, that’s all I can say,” Winters said.




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