I've now been working out over half my life

I started when I was several weeks shy of 17 and a half, I’ll be 35 in September; I calculated it, and at some point in the past couple I crossed the point where I had been working out for half my life. Looking back to when I started, it seemed like your early or mid 30s was pretty much when you started to decline, and I wondered what would happen when I got here. Turns out nothing has really changed at all. I figured I’d share some of the hyuuuge points that got me here; none of this is groundbreaking, but really I’ve tried so many different things over the years, I can tell you this advice works.

1. Compound movements. Pick a routine, it doesn’t matter which, someday once you know enough about your body you can even make your own, like I do. Whatever routine you do, have it based around the compound movements. My first couple years I tried every machine in the world, and after my noob gains were finished I made 0 progress.
2. Diet. When you start out, track every single molecule that goes into your body (and yes, alcohol counts. Every drop of it). Pay attention to the nutrition advice on the gainit/loseit forums. Yes it seems boring at first, just have some discipline and follow some sort of nutritional regime for a couple months; the progress you’ll see eventually reinforces continued healthy eating. Eventually you can branch out into more exciting foods, but you kind of have to ‘reset’ eating habits. This was the biggest one for me. I started out 5′ 10″ 130 lbs. I started eating a bit more, hit 160…and then never gained another pound or ounce of strength. I wasted my first 5 years on this. It wasn’t until my early-mid twenties that I started tracking how I ate, and found that I was only getting about 1900 calories per day, and barely hitting 90g of protein. Once I fixed that and did some bulking cycles, I hit 190+ lbs at around 10% bf within 3 years. I’m still above 190 now, and below 10% last I checked, and it is ALL because of getting my diet together.
3. Rest. Sleep. Holy crap does this matter, ESPECIALLY as you begin throwing around bigger weights, and again once you start approaching your natural potential. I know, binge-watching CSI:Tulsa or whatever horse-shit is on TV now is good fun, but seriously, there is so much research on sleep-debt now and the life-shortening effect of it. Just get 8 hours of sleep (or more if you need it), and be done with it. An extra hour of sleep and hitting the gym well-rested usually results in 30-35 lbs. extra on a deadlift max for me, I’m not exaggerating. A lot of movements depend heavily on your CNS not being shot, and sleep is really the only way to restore it.
4. Mobility/Stretching. Do it. I know it’s boring, but even 10 minutes per day can make a huge difference. I started in my late 20s doing a lot more, especially stuff for hips/quads/hams because so many movements are lower-body intensive. Stretching can also help people that sit at chairs all day get rid of the forward-shoulder slouch that most people have. Regardless, it helps stave off injuries and can help you recover better. Those of you that are younger and reading this and brushing it off, I was in your shoes once too, believe me, when you get past your mid 20s you start to stiffen up if you don’t take care of things.
5. Set a Goal: If you are training like a 100m sprinter, when your goal is to be a defensive lineman…well you’re not going to get where you want. Make sure your routine, diet, everything, matches it up with what that end goal is. Seems straightforward, but I feel like 80% of people screw this part up.
6. Attitude/Consistency: This is probably the biggest point, and it covers everything else I’ve written here. With all of this, you have to be consistent. A month on, a month off, a month on a month off etc. isn’t going to get you anywhere. Neither is pushing it at the gym one day and then slacking off for 6. Or staying on a nutritional plan, and then falling off of it for 10 days, and then going back on for a month, and then off for 2 weeks, etc. I owe almost all of my success to my consistency. Attitude is the other part of that; if you treat this like something you HAVE to do, then it’s a chore, if you treat it like something you GET to do, then it’s an opportunity. Make it work; I have so many more family obligations, work obligations, etc. than I did half a lifetime ago (man did the last 10 years especially fly by fast). I switched back to full-body workouts to cut down my sessions in the gym from 4 to 2 per week (I also sprint twice per week), so that I can spend more time with family, and get extra days of recovery in. It’s worked great. My point is, find a way to fit fitness AROUND your life, not your life AROUND fitness, and then stick to it.

Anyway, this is getting long, so I’ll wrap it up, and just say it’s amazing how much the world has changed the past 17 years. The internet wasn’t the source of fitness knowledge like it is now, and what little there was basically ended up being broscience. There are so many resources available now, that someone 17 reading this can right from the beginning start training the right way, and I think that’s awesome. I didn’t know how long I could keep going when I first started, but now my goal is to be as healthy/strong/fast as humanly possible for as long as I live, and that’s my overarching goal with all my training/diet/rest/etc.