A few key routines and habits have helped me not only improve athletic and physical performance but also minimize small recurring injuries and pain that is familiar to anyone over, say, 45 who's still pushing their physical limits.

We all want to be strong in the ways that most matter to us, but we're not really interested in thousand-dollar supplements in a bid to live forever, like tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, who brought his "Don't Die Summit" to Los Angeles earlier this year. (I wish I were making that up.) And we all hopefully see through the charade by now of pitchmen like Andrew Huberman, Stanford's in-house "Neuroscientist Gone Wild," who in between paid YouTube product promotions now calls aging a "disease" that can be reversed.

No, we're just trying to age with strength and resilience in each of these vital areas of our lives. And if we can also lower our biological ages by a few years or so, just through a more mindful focus on doing what makes us feel and become stronger, well, that's even better.

Improving Physical Strength in 2025

Here are some ideas for becoming physically stronger — not handed down to you by an expert, but offered up by a deeply curious crash-test dummy of sorts — me! — who believes in improvement through improvisation, experimentation and a willingness to fail forward, as they say in tech.

If there's one thing I learned, personally and as a social entrepreneur, it's that we are each capable of achieving so much more than we think we can.

To age optimally, regular strength training in some form is simply non-negotiable. Working out, with weights or some kind of resistance, just has so many indisputable benefits that go beyond maintaining and building muscle mass. It improves your mood, lowers stress, boosts confidence, improves brain health, reduces inflammation and risk of injuries and can even mitigate the damage from moderate drinking. But even if none of that is compelling to you, the fact that strength training slows and reverses biological aging should be. Who doesn't want to look stronger, tighter and younger in jeans and a T-shirt?

I'm not looking for bigger muscles but rather to increase neuromuscular efficiency, which develops by training the nervous system to control muscle fibers. I equate neuromuscular efficiency to what is often called "old man strength" or "old woman strength," because it's about increasing physical power through movement, not just mechanical muscle strength.

More than anything, commit in 2025 to being a chronic mover. My 2025 physical goals are focused on maintaining durable core strength that enables three main athletic or personal pursuits:

— Staying quick and aerobically fit on the tennis court.

— Surfing and being able to paddle for at least an hour in the ocean without losing shoulder strength.

— And being able to hold a semi-automatic rifle on target for a good two hours of shooting at my local outdoor range, for which proper technique involves core strength and breath work.

To address these goals, I've started jumping rope, for lower-body and ankle strength and the aerobic endurance required for tennis. It's a complete core workout, especially with a weighted rope that also builds shoulder strength and mobility. And you can carry a rope anywhere.

I also started combining bar squats, with about 75% of my body weight, with immediate follow-on sets of box jumping. I follow three supersets of that with some relatively easy deadlifts or, alternatively, kettlebell swings. I'm a big fan of using lighter weights at higher reps. That combination keeps my core and lower half strong and balanced, and keeps away the lower back pain that had plagued me for years.

However you decide to regularly put your muscles to work, even with the lightest weights imaginable, the act of developing a routine of core-focused strength training is as winning a combination for people over 50 as any I've come across. You don't need big weights or an expensive gym membership to grow strong.

One thing I'm trying to incorporate more in my day are micro sets: 10 or 15 reps of whatever exercise I choose, on the way to the kitchen or bathroom. I place dumbbells, a jump rope or a weighted ball in common areas, so that when my smartwatch tells me it's time to stand up, doing a 30-second micro set becomes almost impossible to avoid, and they act like compound interest in building physical strength.

Gaining strength is only half the equation. It's nice to have big muscles, but if you can't touch your toes or stand on one foot for 30 seconds, are you in balance?

Flexibility, Stretching and Foam Rolling

Strength without flexibility is not a winning strategy, especially after 50. My relentless focus on being maximally flexible is born of great personal pain — mainly through the hell of debilitating lower back spasms and overtaxed quadratus lumborum (or QL). So I've learned to make a routine out of daily stretching and fascia manipulation, in the form of foam rolling.

If you haven't discovered the miracle work that a $24 foam roller provides, I urge you to buy or borrow one immediately. A foam roller is the closest thing to an in-house chiropractor you can buy, and if used regularly, it will change your life for the better.

I also know there are a lot of people like me and you. And for us and those like us, a foam roller is worth its weight in pharmaceutical-grade naproxen sodium. Using it in combination with regular, morning and night stretching routines keeps hamstrings loose and my lower back and QL quiet, which means a lot.

So that's my 2025 physical strength regimen, as succinct as I could make it.

Next time, I'll get into the effect that alcohol and drinking have on aging with strength, in pretty much every sense of the word. Until then, let's make 2025 as sane as possible under the circumstances, and by all means, let's keep moving forward.

To find out more about Paul Von Zielbauer and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Victor Freitas at Unsplash