Five minutes after your workout could be the most important five minutes of your whole session. I'm going to be honest about something. I teach fitness for a living. I know the importance of recovery. I tell people regularly to listen to their bodies and give them what they need. And then I finish a day of classes, do the bare minimum stretches and head straight home. Every time. My hip has been letting me know about it lately. Just that low level, persistent kind of discomfo

The answer looks different at 48 than it did at 28. When I was younger, being fit meant something quite different to me. It was about how fast I could run, how hard I could train, how much I could push. There was a version of me that measured a good workout by how exhausted I was at the end of it. More was better. Harder was better. Doing less felt like falling behind. At 48, I still like feeling strong. I still enjoy a good session. And yes, there's still a competitive part

Because staying in the game matters more than how you play it. This week I taught five classes in one day. And as I was moving around the room, I kept hearing the same kinds of things. My knee's playing up. Got a bit of a sore shoulder. Still recovering from the lurgy. This bit isn't quite working properly today. And yet there they were. Every single one of them. In class. Moving. Doing what they could with what they'd brought with them. After 26 years of teaching, I still fi