A former Olympian says the mindset trick that helped him win two gold medals also keeps him strong at 42

Alex Gregory is very good at rowing.

He’s a five-time world champion and won gold at both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics as part of the men’s coxless four.

So you won’t be surprised to hear that he’s fit and healthy at 42, although you may be surprised that in Gregory’s opinion, that’s not down to his Olympic training.

“When you’re training for the Olympics or with an Olympic team, it’s not that healthy,” he explained at an iFit and NordicTrack event.

“It’s not good for your back, it’s not good for your heart, head, or soul, really. It’s only good for one day every four years.”

Instead, he credits a change in approach to his training that brought him sporting success as the key to staying healthy after he retired.

But Gregory says that he only got really good at rowing when he stopped focusing on intensity and started prioritizing consistency.

“When I joined the [British rowing] team, I was a young guy. For the first eight years, I was always pushing, always trying to win the training sessions,” Gregory says.

“Then by the time selection happened, I was dead. I was ill, or I was injured. For eight years on the trot, I would scrape selection and then not be able to compete at the World Championships or the Olympics because I was knackered.”

His performance improved when he stopped treating each training session as a competition with his teammates and started prioritizing consistency instead.

“What I discovered was that [my coach] Jürgen Gröbler wasn’t looking for perfection. He wasn’t looking for every session to be great. He was just looking for me to turn up.

“My second eight years in the British team were all about turning up and doing my thing each day. Not comparing myself to other people.”

The results speak for themselves, with a string of gold medals following this change.

“That idea of consistency matters even more now,” he says, as he squeezes in workouts around parenting duties and his day job as an iFit trainer.

Asked about what he recommends for others who want to get in shape and stay healthy as they age, he suggests making exercise as simple as possible by doing short follow-along workouts that fit around your life.

He also says we should take the pressure off, not worry about results, and just keep turning up.

“That's where I am right now. If I can get through these 10 years being consistent in a steady, calm way, then that’s gonna be good for me in 10 years’ time.”