Do you think it's possible to get in shape at the age of 21?

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I'll copy and paste my message from another thread, and to answer your question, yes for sure it is. Look at this woman, she started exercising at age 56 and she is now 74, in great shape, and still winning natural body building contests.

Ernestine Shepherd



And here is a nice website where the guy gives a lot of advices, also about nutrition, and he is not trying to sell you a bunch of stuff. http://www.scoobysworkshop.com/index.htm

I would have a think about your diet, that might be making you feel weak and slow to heal.

I didn't even realise I had a body until I was in my late 20's. I was a mess. I'm pretty fit and strong now.

I definitely want to get stronger but I find it hard to find exactly what I should do. I know that if I exercise to much my body hurts and I know I'm someone that tries to much to fast. I have read a lot about workouts and stuff on the internet but there's so much different stuff. I also don't know if I should also stretch. There's just to much information and I don't know with what I should start. I'm also recovering from a couple of injuries so I'm not sure either when I can start exercising again.

What would be the best approach or where can I get the best help, I'm not sure I can handle it alone. Wasn't there some kind of physiotherapy that would also help to strengthen my body without having specific problems?

Depends on what you mean by 'get into shape.' If you mean, 'to be healthy,' then yes: absolutely. If you mean, 'to be a muscle-bound goon,' then no: probably not. Given what you've said about your body type, I'd start with walking and stretching every day, then jogging every day, then running every day, and *then* adding in some weights. Get your body used to moving first.

The 'physio' is Pilates I think, that would definitely a good thing to do, its kind of a from of therapeutic/rehabilitive strength and flexibility exercise. For someone like yourself that would be ideal before getting into other forms of exercise with the history of problems you have, they can help find out muscle imbalances and general mechanical problems in your body that are causing your pain. They use some odd looking machinery too such as the 'reformer' which looks a bit like a torture rack!.
My little Bro teaches it. He came and sussed out my back and shoulder problems and taught me exercises to deal with those. Also had a friend into serious adventure racing and he went to Pilates to develop core strength for his back and it was very successful. But it's probably not something you can really just get a DVD on and go for it, initially at least the expert eye of someone watching and analyzing what you do is what you probably need.

If you don't tolerate exercise well, the best thing you can do is get in the water. I've been really sick for a long time and had a lot of muscle atrophy, and the only thing I can do really is water exercises. You don't have to swim, though. I don't. You can walk in the water, or you can do resistance exercises (using just your hands and arms or floats).

If you don't want to do that, the next thing I would recommend is a combination of yoga and pilates. Yoga is more stretching and building balance, but you're still burning calories and building lean muscle. But pilates is definitely difficult, especially if you don't have a lot of muscle tone. Both are good for your core muscles especially. I did a lot of yoga and pilates when I was healthier and could tolerate it.