Part One: Your 20s — More Isn't Always More | The Louisa Drake Method

Part One: Your 20s — More Isn't Always More | The Louisa Drake Method

We all make mistakes with our fitness — but the ones we make tend to shift dramatically depending on our age, life stage, and the culture we're moving in.

I'm Louisa Drake, personal trainer, Pilates specialist, women's health and corrective movement coach, and founder of The Louisa Drake Method® — a methodology that weaves together strength and conditioning, all apparatus and mat Pilates, yoga, and specialist women's health programming including pregnancy and postnatal work. My client base spans every demographic, from twentysomethings chasing their first fitness identity to men and women in their eighties learning to move with ease after decades of doing things the hard way.

Pilates sits at the heart of LDM® not as a standalone discipline but as a specialist strand running through everything — informing how I cue movement, how I approach corrective work, and how I design programmes that build genuine strength without breaking the body down. It's this multi-disciplinary lens that lets me see, very clearly, the patterns that repeat across every decade of a client's fitness life. 

I wrote recently for the iPaper about the fitness patterns I see across every decade of a client's life — this series is the conversation I didn't have space to finish there.

In Your 20s: Chasing Intensity Over Consistency

The most common mistake I see in my twenties clients is treating fitness as a performance rather than a practice.

This generation is genuinely more health-conscious than any before them — they're moving more, drinking less, and treating wellness as part of their identity rather than a punishment. That's a real shift. When I was growing up in the 1990s, health information came from books and the occasional documentary. Today's twenty-year-olds have grown up with unlimited access to wellness content — many have never smoked, barely drink, and think of nutrition and movement as standard lifestyle pillars rather than afterthoughts. It's genuinely impressive.

But that awareness comes with its own trap: the algorithm.

TikTok and Instagram serve up a relentless feed of intense workouts, trending methods, and transformations — and so many young clients arrive having done two back-to-back high-intensity classes in a single morning, convinced that more is always more. What I call a 'double.'

The reality? That second spin class or HIIT session would serve their body far better as a Pilates flow, a long walk, or a mobility session. The nervous system doesn't care how motivated you are. It responds to load. Pair that with the under-fuelling that often accompanies a generation still absorbing residual diet culture messaging, and you have a body that's working hard but not adapting well. 

The warm-up gets skipped because they're short on time. The cool-down gets skipped because the endorphins have already kicked in.

The bookends of a session are where the real results are made.

For young men: gym bros, CrossFit, and the rise of HYROX

If the dominant fitness culture for young women in their twenties is shaped by aesthetics and trending content, for young men it's increasingly shaped by competition and community.

The gym bro archetype — heavy lifting, protein shakes, mirror muscles — is well established. Around 65% of male gym-goers incorporate strength training, with roughly 60% preferring to work out independently. But that picture is shifting.

CrossFit opened the door to competitive, community-based training for a generation of men who'd grown up playing team sport and missed the coaching environment. Participation is almost evenly split between men and women — which surprises most people. The largest demographic is 25-34, making up 40% of all athletes. The community element is widely cited as central to retention — it's the reason people stay, often long after the initial fitness goal has been met. On injuries, the data is nuanced — competitive athletes are around five times more likely to be injured than beginners, most frequently during squats and deadlifts, often because they push beyond technical capacity in pursuit of performance.

HYROX is the newer wave, and its growth has been extraordinary. Founded in Germany in 2017, the sport has seen 1,000% growth in global participation over five years — from fewer than 700 participants at its first race to around 425,000 athletes across five continents in 2024. Its format — eight one-kilometre runs alternated with functional workout stations — bridges the gym floor and endurance training in a way that appeals to ex-team sport players, gym regulars, and CrossFitters alike. Around 38% of competitors are now female, and over 65% of participants at recent events were over 30.

The mistake I see in young men — whether in the gym, CrossFit, or HYROX training — is the same one I see in young women doing doubles: chasing volume and intensity without the recovery infrastructure to support it. Training for a race or a personal best with no mobility work, no real warm-up, and little attention to sleep or nutrition is a strategy the body tolerates in your twenties. Right up until it doesn't.

I know this from personal experience.

A physiotherapist treating me for a serious overuse injury — one that had worked its way through my foot and ankle after months of cumulative impact with no real recovery built in — summarised my routine with a line I've never forgotten: 'It's like you're training for a marathon you're never going to run.'

At the time I was working within a high-intensity methodology that required demonstrating every movement alongside clients — jumping on hard studio floors, session after session, with no recovery built into the model. It wasn't my dance career that caused the injury. It was the relentless repetition: the same impact, day after day, on a body that was never given space to adapt. First came the foot and ankle, then I lost my menstrual cycle entirely. I was overtraining, under-recovering, and my nutritional needs simply weren't being met.

That experience sent me deeper into understanding proper health and performance protocols. I completed Charles Poliquin's Biosignature Modulation course, came to understand the critical role of targeted supplementation — including fish oils and magnesium — alongside myofascial release and corrective exercise in rebuilding a body that had been pushed past its limits. It became the foundation of how I work with clients today.

That line has stayed with me ever since. And I've watched it ring true for client after client in the two decades since.

What to prioritise in your 20s

Strength foundations. Build genuine muscle through progressive, intelligent loading rather than endless cardio. The bone density and muscle mass you build now — peaking around 25-30 — are your long-term investment. You cannot go back and build them later.

Movement literacy. Understand how your body actually moves — where it compensates, what your postural patterns are, what fatigue feels like versus what depletion feels like. This is the decade to get curious before problems accumulate.

The bookends. A warm-up and cool-down are not optional extras. They are where adaptation happens and where injury is prevented. Non-negotiable.

Recovery as practice. Sleep, breathwork, restoration. Not as an afterthought — as a discipline. Begin as you mean to go on.

Cortisol awareness. High intensity training five or six days a week adds to an already stress-loaded life. Notice how you feel after training, not just during it. Your nervous system is keeping score even when you aren't.

Sources & Further Reading

 

Part Two: Your 30s — Training to Shrink Rather Than Training to Thrive is now live. Read it here.

The Journal.