“Training age” is a term that relates to how long someone has been training in a particular sport or modality for.
It could be weightlifting, endurance sports, boxing…
Essentially, no matter how hard or fast you come in at your training later in life, it’s no match for training age – simply the years accumulated in practice.
Interestingly, “training age” seems to also transcend sports. It indicates adaptability to physical stressors, body and spatial awareness, coordination and often a level of general strength.
However, another more helpful way to consider “training age” is perhaps the term “moving age.”
This takes any perception of “intensity” out of the equation and simply asks, how much of my life have I spent with an active lifestyle with diverse movement, versus as a sedentary individual?
If “moving age” is low, when you do decide to get back into physical activity, we need to notice that the “level” of re-entry will almost certainly be at a more basic level than the mind may expect.
We can begin again slowly. We start where we are. And this is perfectly fine.