Preventing Muscle Loss as We Age
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
https://i.imgur.com/ZcDedfo.jpg
I don't have an original source but it shows a MRI leg scan comparison between a 40yo triathlete, a sedentary 70yo and a 70yo triathlete.
The picture tells the story...
If I'm fortunate enough to live into old age, I don't plan to stop exercising. It's part of what gets me out of bed every morning.
Maybe people who exercise tend to get more sun damage...
Sagging is usually caused by collagen breakdown damaging ligaments, tendons, etc. Progesterone is associated with collagen maintenance. Wrinkles are usually due to loss of fat/water or maybe collagen.
Basic prevention routines can delay wrinkles for a long time.
Many who take higher amounts of vitamin A (20 IU : 10 IU : 2 mcg+ palmitate : D3 : MK-4) aren't wrinkled, though there's still sagging. Progesterone, whether taken directly or kept in range indirectly, has a similar effect.
In spite of being prematurely grey, I have a "button nose" and cute ears for a 53 year old.
There's lots of details that influence perception of age.
I'll certainly look better, but older.
Of course the jowls are going to happen anyways, but losing weight would accelerate the process.
The key for me is regular, heavy strength training. I exercise 3-6 days a week, all compound lifts, at high weight/moderate (3-7) reps.
More than just managing my physique, I find it immensely helpful for my mental health and general well-being.
I’m not the biggest or most shredded guy in the gym, but the focus on strength keeps me from obsessing with aesthetics, while everyone who knows me has still noticed the changes to my physique.
My point in all this is that exercise and sufficient calories is more important than following a specific diet, and that it’s been a solution in multiple dimensions of my life. I heartily recommend it to all my friends.
I do cardio and lift on the same day, I also can't run every day or I don't feel great.
On off days, I just walk and do minor accessory stuff. Can't imagine lifting like this every day.
One important aspect is that I de-load every couple of weeks when the volume starts to really wear on me. (I’m also vegetarian.) Most of my “program” is from Charles Poliquin’s writings.
(For context, my squat max is 335, and my deadlift max is 405. Not bad, but nothing near competitive.)
Completely agree, hence I said -ish. I'm not Paleo, but it's probably the closest to what I normally eat. Lots of veggies and protein with high quality carbs and limited 'junk' (I also almost completely stopped eating sweets). I view diet as something you can do your entire life, and I've settled on something that I can easily follow and enjoy.
What are your "trick foods" that contain a good amount of calories but are good to eat?
Cheese! Parmesan is 50% protein and 50% fat by weight. Almost all soups and stews can be improved in taste and calories by adding enough coconut oil
Second dinner. Eat your first dinner early, and then eat a lunch sized snack right before bed. When I was gaining, this usually consisted of a turkey or roast beef sandwich.
Know that I was almost never hungry. I ate on a schedule, and tracked everything I ate.
I struggle to eat enough calories as meals, so I make "fat shakes". Obviously you're gonna want to adapt this to your personal preferences, but: coconut milk and protein powder as your base, a little sweetener (stevia, sukrin), a litte salt, one avocado, a bit of peanut butter, and a banana if you're feeling wild.
I eat keto-ish... Olive oil, ghee, and coconut oils are all hugely calorie rich and can easily be snuck into food. Hellamns mayo is 700+ calories per 100g, so slathering it on some broccoli can quickly make up any caloric gap :)
Calorie restriction IS perhaps the healthiest route, if you are mainly interested in living longer. Feeling better is harder to quantify. The "TLDR" is: Exercise moderately, and find the minimal amount of calories you can consume without feeling like shit. That's the optimal balance.
The unfortunate reality is that often the "healthiest" path in life, doesn't FEEL the best. I felt my best lifting 3-4x a week, running, and eating 3600-3900 calories per day. I was constantly full, but felt like I had tons of physical and mental energy. Alas, plenty of research has been done on the effects of large calorie diets EVEN WHEN CONTROLLED FOR WEIGHT. Large calories = bad.
If you're interested, here's a good place to start:
1. Gummy bears. 500 calories a pack. (Usually before or after a workout)
2. Fritos, 1500 calories a bag.
3. Chicken breast and eggs - high protein and good fats from the eggs I can afford on a grad student stipend.
4. Natural peanut butter. This and other nut butters are key.
5. Whole milk.
Past a certain amount of carbs, I feel like they make me bloated, so it’s easier for me to use fats and some junk food to get the rest of calories in.
For years I tried to lift heavy. Big compound barbell lifts. In my early 20s it was OK, but by 30 I started hurting myself. I always warmed up fully, but kept tearing things. I tried eating more, eating better, more recovery, everything I could think of.
Finally I gave up on doing 1 rep max lifts, or even 3-5 reps 90% 1RM. Now I do very high repetition workouts. I'm talking warm up sets at 20-30 reps, "work" sets at 10-20, with a minimum of 5 sets, with limited rest between. I focus on every rep - focus on feeling the muscle contract, and focus on thinking about moving blood to the contracted muscle. I try to go to failure every set but the first.
Sounds goofy, but it's been a game changer for me. I don't hurt myself, and I look much bigger/better than ever before. I'm not sure if I'm really "stronger" since I don't lift heavy anymore - but I've added pounds of muscle so I wager I am.
Point is - a lot of folks get huge mileage out of lifting heavy. I wish I was one of them. For those of use who, for whatever reason, don't have the body type to handle it. High rep workouts are the next best thing!
I never understood why people focus on 1 RM lifts. They're obviously a huge strain on your body and there's literally no benefit for the vast majority of lifters. Good to hear you found a good template that works for you though, often people just give up on lifting.
The other thing that seems to help is warming up - working up instead of down. I start with lower weight and work up to my max over several sets, rather than what I used to do, start at my max and only drop when I couldn't lift it anymore.
It sounds a lot like you've reinvented bodybuilding with your protocol. You're probably not actually stronger in a strict 1RM sense than you were before, but you may well be healthier and you sound happy, so why worry?
If you occasionally threw in a peaking protocol and worked your way back up to the 90% range you'd probably be beastly; the trick is not to stay there.
If you want to train low rep after 30 you have to do just 1 big lift per training session, and no more than 3-4 sessions per week.
A related problem is that low rep lifting burns little calories (training volume is not much) but requires quite a surplus to recover. So, as your metabolism decreases with age, it tends to make you fat.
After 40 anything below 8 reps is too low and most exercises should be done between 8-12 reps for big lifts and 12-15 reps for small lifts.
Also, unless you need to demonstrate low rep strength, as long as you increase the weight in the bar, you will get stronger.
Training for muscle is a much more sustainable long term strategy.
Something like this helps: https://exrx.net/Calculators/OneRepMax
Do you do barbells lifts at high rep, or other things? Also, how many days a week do you do it and for how long?
For deadlifts I do 20-30 reps at 105-145
It did help me get closer to the proper position though.
I think many people are took quick to not push through something that is just a little uncomfortable. For example, a healthy person doing a short fast (24/48 hours) once in awhile teaches you what it feels like to really be hungry, know that feeling goes away, and know you can operate just fine.
Once you start eating your body wants more food. Eat nothing before training and you're still in warrior mode.
Running/swimming/cycling: anything at or around low aerobic threshold (Friel HR zones 1, 2, or 3)
Strength: Endurance-focused compound primary exercises (e.g. squats, deadlifts); any form of auxiliary exercises (planks, bicep curls, etc.)
Anything more than that and I need to wait at least 2-3 hours after waking up (e.g. cardio in Friel zones 4, 5a, 5b, 5c or max-strength-focused primary compound exercises.)
Not only is it not uncomfortable, I feel _way_ better before/during/after working out.
Firstly: the food in your mouth is not used for your workout. You work out with food already digested and put in your muscles. Our biology is not precious, jungle-warrior neanderthals did turn into skeletal waifs if accidentally they hunted before noon without a BCAA-rich recovery shake. Nothing about morning training is energy, it is all habit, comfort, and hormones.
The primary issue, for most people (including me earlier), is that they train "before breakfast" and not "fasted". Important distinction. Hunger (and the hormone that causes it), comes in manageable 20-30 minute waves. If you do nothing it will pass. Most people take a banana, or some milk in their coffee, or a "little snack" before trainin. That breaks the fast. That is "break-fast", and it starts your body expecting food. So if you don't break your fast, you aren't exciting those hormones and insulin, so your body is ready to roll focused on the task at hand.
Secondarily is hormones. When you are fasted your body makes lots of great focus hormones. It also gives you extra HGH. Training also delivers HGH. Training additionaly delivers bombs of happy-hormones, and go-rip-the-world-a-new-one hormones. If you're fasted, you are more sensitive to those hormones, meaning you feel better. If you're fasted your low insulin also lets your body get as much fat-energy as it needs, so your energy levels can be amazing.
Outside of that is simple comfort and habit. The time your body expects food, the "engrained eating time", is adaptable. Having a lower baseline insulin, and a lower-carb diet, that minimizes "hangry" feelings and snack cravings will also be a huge help. Combine the two and you've got a recipe for insanely fun work outs with no hunger issues and better energy than otherwise.
Black coffee, water, and nothing caloric before training. It's night and day :)
Ramadan is a widely held fasting period that impacts millions of lives, many of whom train power/strength/endurance while fasted under the conditions described above. This has been studied in depth, with oodles of peer-verified and unequivocal real-world data showing it's totally possible and not noticeably harmful (technically, the studies show it to me mildly beneficial...). In a training context the hormonal boosts are impressive and much more noticeable while fasted.
Your body has a learned point where it expects food. That learned point can be moved through habit. Humans, and mammals in general, are meant to thrive in the wild. Our physicalities are not precious. We do not turn into Gremlins if we are not fed before 10:00AM.
Not a week ago I did a mountain trek that streched 6 hours past expected. At 9:30PM, at the tail end of an unplanned 30 hour fast, after a 10 hour 500 vertical meter hike (with a kid on my shoulders!), I was so over-energized I had to take a jog to wind-down. Hunger and energy are much more about habits than we've been raised to understand.
I used to run or cycle at least 5 days a week but since my daughter was born (and stopped being an infant) it is a struggle to keep a regular exercise regimen.
I try to run with her in a jogging stroller when I can but this is much more susceptible to foul weather than when I could just adjust my own clothing.
And yes, life can cause exercise to suffer. Kids, work, etc... will throw curve balls. Do what you can, and keep the fire going. Maintain until you get back to going hard.
It's crazy how much optimal nutrition affects your well-being as you age and the sooner you fix your diet, the better you'll feel.
Having to stop working out, either due to illness, injury or some obscure travelling makes me almost depressed, not only because of the drop experienced once coming back to gym. It is just a great feeling to be fit, even when I count in almost constant slight muscle ache from workouts. I stopped using massages to work on those muscle bumps/knots on the back - no point getting rid of them when I put them back in 2-3 days.
But I do have rest days, usually when my quads become semi-useless (having 1 hour brisk walk is still a rest day). I can't push on every single day so usually have 1 rest day per week, or injuries will come (usually in form of stretched ligament or tendon pain).
What I don't like in the article is universal recommendation of eating more proteins - there are some sources which are not OK to consume long-term, ie predatory fish like salmon or tuna. Quality of the meats in general is important (no growth hormones/antibiotics).
And generally, eat much more vegetables, again good quality. There are tons of benefits.
I spend a few minutes per day rolling my back out with a hard foam roller: https://www.decathlon.co.uk/hard-foam-roller-id_8484814.html
As good as a massage for getting knots out, and great for thoracic mobility.
> Quality of the meats in general is important (no growth hormones/antibiotics)
I'm all for restricting antibiotics in livestock on the grounds of bacterial resistance, but are you claiming that they somehow alter the quality of the meat itself and/or impact your own health?
Now somebody can claim consuming animal growth hormones or strong antibiotics regularly can do you no harm, but I wouldn't believe this person. I prefer to not be part of long running experiments involving few billions of involuntary participants.
Quality of the meat, at least taste-wise, is probably unaffected by these. Much higher effect has caging/free range/wild, shocks and stress animal has to go through life, particularly at its very violent end.
But how do you know if that is indeed the secret? (What if you looked even younger - less gray hair, say - if you didn't work out?)
Because that makes no sense given everything we know about exercise and a healthy diet?
Vitamin D3, vitamin K2 MK-4, iodine/iodide, chelated/TRAACS magnesium, topical pregnenolone + DHEA (5 mg : 5 mg), nicotinamide riboside + pterostilbene, selegiline, MSM + silicon (monomethylsilanetriol) + vitamin C, astaxanthin..
MSM lotion (face and body)..
I don't mind balding or greying so...
Most don't get enough vitamin D (and magnesium) even if eating well. 40-60 ng/mL 25(OH)D is a commonly preferred range.
Luckily, seeing a Black guy with a bald head by choice is not unusual.
As far as working out everyday, I can’t do it. It’s just not in me. I need down time. I work out hard for about 150 minutes 3 days a week. According to the machines I’m burning around 1600 calories per workout. High resistance on the elliptical, high incline on the treadmill.
I don't know what your goals are, but: getting slim is 95% diet... Sourcing calories from diet is almost always cheaper than on a treadmill. Seriously. Generally slow and steady is the way to get it done, too much too fast makes rebounds. Low-impact exercise with constant wear is also a lot for joints...
Lifting heavy weights is much better at burning fat than cardio. It builds fat-burning muscle, and increases your fat burning across every hour for a long period post-workout. It's hormonally optimal with avout 45 minutes of effort. 3 x 45min would save you over 5 HOURS of gym time every single week. You could learn Chinese in half a year with that kind of investment. Smart training means smart recovery, so the goal should be feeling worked, but never drained. Weight lifting can do that well.
Grinding ourselves down in the gym is a moral desire, but athletic development is about simple progressive stress and recovery.
Also, that’s a reduction from what I use to do. In another life I was a part time fitness instructor and between classes, training for runs, and my own weight workouts, I was exercising more than 10 hours a week.
You’re right. When people use to ask me how to lose weight, I would tell them it’s mostly diet. But I know myself. I’ve never been consistent about my diet but I like to exercise. I never cared about slim. Three days a week gives me the other four days to relax.
If I show up at the gym and really feel lacking, I do a different muscle group. If I show up to the gym and I'm supposed to do bench, but I'm hurting - squat instead. Squats struggling? Do a pull up workout (I'm trying to get to 500 pull ups in a single workout). Whole upper body hurt? Push the sled around. Or do a full body weight workout which acts more as an active recovery.
There are a limitless amount of things that can be done.
To quote Mark Rippetoe (it's likely in the article somewhere on his site, but I primarily consume his advice via podcast), "you don't get strong in the gym (as you mainly tear muscle in the gym) - you get strong when you sleep and recover".
Have you tried just upping your sleep?
(quote) "A cross-section of 40 high-level recreational athletes (“masters athletes”) who were aged 40 to 81 years and trained 4 to 5 times per week underwent tests of health/activity, body composition, quadriceps peak torque (PT), and magnetic resonance imaging of bilateral quadriceps."
The 81 yr old that trains 4-5x (!) a week is a lot more special than the 40 yr old (that's my hypothesis at least). Thus any regression is spurious, since we are sampling from different quantiles! So you don't know anything about the correlation with age.
I'm not disputing that training 4-5x a week keeps muscles strong and the body lean, but it's hardly prescriptive. It's like winning the lottery will make you richer when you retire.
I've tried to reach the authors about this when the article came out, but alas. A letter to the editor in a to me unknown journal seemed not the best use of my time. I've even got code demonstrating the fallacy with quantile regression ;)
Since I don't know for sure which direction causality points, I'm going to take the path of maximal self-determinism and try to stay fit as long as possible.
In addition, studying masters athletes partially limits the applicability of these data to the general population of aging adults who do not aggressively exercise 4 to 5 times per week.
It's unfortunate that such a statement won't make it into popular treatments, but the paper doesn't get very far out over its skis.
I get up every weekday morning at 5 to 6am to do a spin or group fitness class and lift 1 to 2 times per week Arnold superset style. I'm loving this lifestyle. (I guess the gym being Equinox helps.)
That may not be true for a large proportion of people in their 80s.
On the other hand studies proved UV rays are carcinogenic [0]. Assuming knowing meat is carcinogenic turns you into a vegetarian let me know how you'd approach getting out of the house from now on.
[0] https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/radiation-exposu...
Whereas the other is doable (as evidenced by the existence of vegans) AND has a lot of other positive consequences (environmental, moral).
Most definitions of veganism include something like "reduce suffering as far as possible and practicable". It's not absolute.
Of course, another objection to your comparison is that it suggests if we cannot remove ALL bad things, we ought not to do anything.
But to the point, you could wear sunscreen. But you consider that to be too much of a hassle even when risking cancer.
And no, that's not what my comparison was suggesting. What I tried to say clearly (not just suggest) is that if you live and die by studies than don't cherry pick. Don't ask for studies only when it suits you and it supports your point of view.
In the end it's mostly personal preference. No study said "moderate meat consumption will cause cancer" yet people are willing to skew the conclusions to better justify a personal choice. Just give up meat if you feel like it and use the study as additional justification if needed. Don't go waving studies to justify your choice but put them aside when they don't.
Do you actually believe that eating "too many animals and not enough plants" is the cause of diabetes (I assume you're referring to Type II)?
(https://nutritionfacts.org/video/what-causes-diabetes/). Click on the "sources" section to get the sources cited.
when i left my last job, I started working from home without the sit/stand for about 2 weeks thinking "that didn't help that much," until I started noticing the tightness all over my body. I just bought a sit/stand (Varidesk fwiw) last night.
Yeah, we like to think that standing is something new, but cashiers have done it for years, and, having spent time as one in my youth, I can tell you that there is a lot of discomfort during the work week. I'd really recommend sitting and standing.
Indeed. You will probably get spider veins otherwise. Happened to me. I've been working standing up since 2011 and only noticed it a couple of years ago so it might take a while.
... I train jiu jitsu 3x / week + cardio 3x / week.
IMHO what it needs to show is the 40yr old sedentary picture too. Without that I don't think you can separate ageing from sedentary affects. I doubt the 40 yr old sedentary person is the same as the 40yr old athlete.
If you can remember, of course.
The sedentary person isn't just sedentary, they look to be morbidly obese. That image is zoomed out, but the actual size of the muscle isn't that different. It's just surrounded by a huge amount of fat.
this must be one of the most important medical documents out there. I can't believe that after reading thousands of words in magazines on aging I never saw this! One could ask how much more exhausting it is for someone to do a triathlon at 70ya. But I remember someone in my family really enjoying being very active right until they dropped dead.
That is such a positive message.
that said I want to run now
Now have you noticed carbon atoms are strikingly similar? Good, almost there.
Somewhere in-between these two views unique features emerge. Tell me where on the scale of atom to human the quads are? There is plenty in these pictures that is unique in the two persons depicted.
There is no need to lie to make a good argument for exercise. This image belong on your grandmothers Facebook page at best.
That's why discriminating readers (like us) should rigorously overlook pretty pictures and instead look only at: 1) the amount of separation between groups (big effect?), 2) the stat. significance across the given population (consistent signal?), 3) the constraints the authors used to create that population (representative of the real world?), and 4) whether the discriminating signal they chose selectively detects the causal effect they propose.
No picture can do all of that.
I hate to be overly critical, but these types of articles published by the likes of nytimes just make digesting news more difficult. Puff pieces honestly subtract value from my life. I with more news vendors would think about the value they provide in the internet age and adjust.
> If you’re currently sedentary or have a serious chronic illness, check first with your doctor. But as soon as you get the go-ahead, start a strength-training program using free weights, resistance bands or machines, preferably after taking a few lessons from a physical therapist or certified trainer.
Why though? Can't say for all but a majority of articles on popular media would be mostly right...that's why they are popular. As things go more fringe, there is less verification.
That 'everyone' attitude is reflected on HN.
Here's examine.com on the recommended amounts: https://examine.com/nutrition/how-much-protein-do-you-need/. I'm of fairly healthy weight, active and have been losing some weight, so I should be getting 2.2-3.3 g/kg according to that. I have two protein shakes a day and build every meal around as much protein as possible while still having it resemble normal food, and I'm achieving an average of about 2.2g/kg, i.e. just at the lower end of where I should be. Particularly when trying to lose weight, getting the amount of protein required in the calories allowed is really tough. It's easier when maintaining weight or trying to gain weight since the protein requirements are similar but you have more calories to play with.
I'm 46, so soon I'll be in the 50+ group which the examine.com article says is when you start needing more protein in a single dose. For me that's about 36g per meal - about 6 eggs, for example.
Counting calories is a bit of a pain to get started with, but isn't too bad once you're going since most people tend to repeat meals frequently. But it's been really illuminating - I thought I ate well previously, but I was a long way from where I needed to be. It's pretty geeky but has been really interesting. I've realised that it's essentially impossible to eat the way I should do eating food I don't prepare myself - nothing has anywhere near enough protein. Data driven health FTW.
This is considered to be the minimal amount of protein a healthy adult must consume daily to prevent muscle wasting when total caloric intake is sufficient.
According to recent studies, however, the RDA for protein may not be sufficient for healthy young men, older men, or older women. These studies point to 1.2 g/kg as the minimum intake before the body starts downregulating important non-essential processes, from immune function to muscle protein synthesis. Even a reanalysis of the data used to establish the RDA suggests the minimum intake should be at least 1.0 g/kg.
They cite a study there where they shut subjects in a metabolic ward for 8 weeks and fed them a 40% caloric surplus. Those subjects eating near the RDA for protein lost muscle mass, i.e. it's not even sufficient to maintain lean weight when overeating.
source - https://bayesianbodybuilding.com/the-myth-of-1glb-optimal-pr...
Eating more than 2.6 g/kg (1.18 g/lb) is probably not going to lead to greater muscle gains, but it can minimize fat gains when “bulking” — i.e., when eating above maintenance in order to gain (muscle) weight.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence for the kidney thing as long as you don't dramatically increase protein suddenly: https://examine.com/nutrition/can-eating-too-much-protein-be...
Personally, a simple flat 100g seems both a reasonable & attainable goal for most regular people building muscle without requiring exceptional diets (here I fall back on naturalism- I cannot believe that exceptional diets are required to get fit). You can easily hit that number with 1/4-1/3lb of meat a day plus whole grains and vegetables.
Since higher protein intakes seem to have no negative effects in healthy people, one may want to err toward the higher amounts.
I haven't seen anything over 3.3g/kg recommended anywhere, and most people seem to recommend 1.4-2g/kg as a good baseline amount. The ISSN recommends this (see here: http://stevenlow.org/issn-position-statements-protein-and-ex...), however the ISSN does recommend higher amounts when losing weight:
Higher protein intakes (2.3–3.1 g/kg/d) may be needed to maximize the retention of lean body mass in resistance-trained subjects during hypocaloric periods.
Of course, none of this is required to get fit - you don't need to do the optimal thing to get a basic result. But you'll definitely gain lean mass faster if you do follow this. Those recommendations for weight gain (say 2g/kg with a caloric surplus) is easy to achieve with no supplementation and normal food, at least for an omnivore - vegans may have to work harder to get there.
Is there data for that?
IIRC, for healthy kidneys this amount should not be an issue, slightly more per lb shouldn't be either.
I'm not sure what weight training communities you refer to, but in bodybuilding and strength circles amounts that high and higher aren't often considered "way overkill".
Anywhere between 0.75-1.25g/lb is where I shoot for, depending on my goals. But I have gone higher than 2g/lb for extended periods of time in the past
High protein, low fat, low carb, low protein, high carb, high fat- collectively we've tried them all through one fad or another.
Currently IMO we're in a blowback period where we are seeing high carb is not panning out and many people are still afraid of fat, so protein is the next savior in line.
For what exactly? It pans out just fine for various things, or are you specifically talking about weight loss?
That being said, since fecal losses of protein and short-chain peptides tend to smell incredibly bad one can use a 'sniff-test' after bowel movements to assess if protein is being lost in the feces and thus not taken up by either the intestines or the muscle.
For a while I really tried to eat as much protein as I could, to see whether I could make the higher end of the recommendations. After a certain point, I could immediately tell I was failing the sniff test, and so could my family :-). At the amount I'm eating, I'm not.
Oh, so its one of those "we aren't willing to drive knowledge and health forward like other scientific resources online unless we shill you a product" sites. Sprinkle in a good dose of holistic wackadoodle and bam trendy product pitch.
Also this fun little excerpt..
>Although clear links have not been proved yet, it is possible that consumption of the wrong foods based on ancestry could be associated with many autoimmune disorders, including Crohn’s disease, colitis, and type 1 diabetes.
From : https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/find-your-next-read/extra...
I'm up to squatting 130kg now and feeling great!
HOWEVER.
Because it's just an app with videos, it's really up to you to learn proper form and execute it each time. Additionally, the app doesn't know your limitations, so take your pain seriously.
I hurt my knees squatting a couple years ago, and recently hurt my lower back deadlifting. It sucks, and I'm crossing my fingers that there's no permanent damage.
If I were to go back in time, I'd force myself to book yearly or twice-yearly sessions with a physical trainer who can check you on your form, particularly when I first got started.
Even the SL5x5 site recommends moving on from the program. Their recommendation is Madcow 5x5 but there's other options out there.
My own journey has taken me through Starting Strength to Texas method and then to various 5/3/1's (and occasional returns to Texas) through the years.
Every work set she’s watching me and making frequent adjustments. It would be impossible for me to do this without her. Maybe I could record video and analyze it, but I would have to essentially learn all of her expertise and even then it would be delayed so I couldn’t make fixes until after I have already completed a dangerous set.
At the very least I would recommend a good two months or so during your linear progression. After that you can do volume sets, pause sets etc alone, with coaching maybe twice a month for heavy days and to check in on your form.
(Shameless plug for Bay Strength in Berkeley CA!)
In what way coach is helping? Providing that your technique is correct, application leads you - so what's the coach's role?
I'd pay for yearly clinics for compound lifts, especially if I could learn better form and better stretching techniques.
However, I do enjoy group classes. I tried cross-fit but I found that the competitiveness and exercising against a running clock is not for me (also considering that I'm usually the oldest - 48 though I don't look like it)
Then I heard about kettlebell training and that seems to be exactly what I need! I have a kettlebell group class nearby and purchased one kettlebell to use at home.
So as an alternative to those who may want an alternative that gives a lot of ROI consider kettlebell training.
Thanks.
Obviously, proper weight training in a gym will bring better results but I don't think that this is necessary if all you care is staying healthy and in shape. I just mix it with other sports like running.
I started at 49, 55 now, no serious weight lifting experience prior, just basic exercises.
Worked up from the empty bar. My max on squat has been about 260, and deadlift about 310. Various injuries from prior to lifting keep that about as high as I go.
I supplement with swimming on non-lift days during the week, yoga and walking on most weekends.
Been a boon to overall fitness, have done long distance backpacking and canoeing (90 miles just this summer) with my oldest son's scout troop. Just last week did a one day 50 mile ride with my youngest son.
The app makes it a game that helps with the commitment, I get up at 4:30 to carve out the time each day.
Probably because you weren't focused. For me 1-5's are great - long enough to really build character, but short enough you can have the laser focus that the lifts require. If I'm doing 10 reps 3-8 I'm half there.
The only lift that requires backup (assuming you don't have the appropriate equipment) is the bench press - all others you drop the weight and walk away.
I told a trainer at my local gym I wanted to do the 5x5 program and he knew exactly what I wanted, but added a 6th exercise. He's been training my form, teaching me what to do to avoid exercise-induced nausea and so on.
How old are you?
How long did it take you to get to 130kg and from which level did you start?
Was that progress linear?
What about your weight and fat - have they changed?
Have you often got injuries?
Thanks in advance! I really admire your achievements!
I'm 35, I've been lifting for about 2.5 years. Most of my progress was linearish for the first 1.5 years or so, and has tapered off. 5/3/1 is a periodized program so the gains come more slowly (as they must once you exhaust linear gains), but they're still coming.
I started at 310lb and ~45% bodyfat and at my lightest got down to 230lb/~18% bodyfat. I'm currently about 260 and around 24% bodyfat (via DEXA; calipers underestimated my BF% by around 10%!). I'm 6'10", for reference.
I've had a few bouts of tendonitis in my wrists, mostly due to incorrect benching technique. I had some really bad knee pain around the 100kg squat mark, so I went to go see a sports medicine doctor who referred me to a sports physical therapist, who taught me how to squat using my hips rather than my quads. I'm now moving quiet a lot more weight with no knee pain, which is a remarkable achievement given that I had chronic knee issues for most of my adult life - bad enough to necessitate surgery.
I love what lifting has done for me, and think everyone should do it.
I'm also VERY risk averse in terms of deadlifting and also I'm naturally quite strong so I'm probably covering up some bad technique. I think this thread has made me think I'll get a coach to make sure everything is working correctly.
I practice martial arts, and would like to improve my overall fitness. Strength is obviously part of that training, but so are flexibility, speed, and reaction times.
I have yet to find a training plan that accounts for all these factors. Even worse, some of them tend to negatively correlate with each other: when done wrong, for instance, strength can negatively impact flexibility.
I thought this would be an easy problem to solve. But so far I've had no luck. I guess there is more to biology than just solving an optimization problem.
Unilateral leg exercises and dumbbells are a much better starting point. They can work their way up to squats and bench presses if they decide to compete or want to impress people who ask "How much can you squat and bench?"
Squatting or benching high percentages of your 1RM without knowing what you're doing is a quick ticket to injury, sure. Nobody sane recommends that.
In theory, sure. In reality, not even close. I guarantee there isn't a single person in this thread who could tell me what someone's squat form should look like based on their femur:torso ratio and hip/ankle flexibility. Should they squat high bar or low bar? Wide or narrow stance? Parallel or below parallel? Flat shoes or heel lifts? If you can't easily answer all of those questions, you have no business squatting anything more than the bar.
Squats, bench presses and deadlifts are extremely complex, high-risk lifts that serve no purpose for the average, non-competitive weightlifter. There are plenty of lower-risk alternatives that can achieve the same results.
It's a subpar beginner program because it recommends complex, high-risk lifts when there are much safer alternatives that can achieve the same results.
Even professional lifters injure themselves while squatting with low weight. If you're not competing, there's no reason to choose barbell back squats over any of the alternatives.
But don't take my word for it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/2t47s0/my_doctor_t...
We have terrible stereotypes around testosterone because of steroid abuse in athletes, but reality paints itself very differently.
https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/this-103yearold-bodybu...
My grandmother underwent medical treatment using Deca Durabolin, a well-known anabolic steroid, and she could walk again after a long time spent in beds and, at best, chairs.
http://social-quotient.info/sq.4mg.com/brainpower.gif
Much less clear on how accomplish that.
Edit: To elaborate, I know exactly what I need to do to stay physically fit into old age and how to monitor my physical fitness - I know immediately when I get winded more from my regular run, my lift numbers drop, or I can't reach my toes.
The scary part is if I stop working out for more than 2 weeks, I see dramatic and rapid declines.
So how do I monitor my mental health? Is it possible to keep improving it? Do I do dual-n-back (studies inconclusive), do I learn a languge/to play piano, do I memorize 5 words a day?
I'd start by looking at the standard components of cognition. Start with the sub-metrics in the Wechsler IQ test. See what specific mental skills you might want to maintain or improve.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Adult_Intelligence_Sc...
Then design your own tests to assess each skill and your own mental exercises to see if you can strengthen your mental muscles. Positive feedback is your best guide, IMHO.
1) find foreign things to do to stimulate your brain in non known ways
2) possibly pleasurable/happy things (shared games/challenges with people you like or care about)
3) do them slowly~ enough to be aware of when you're reaching your limits and then keep at that level to not overload your system.
After I partially lost control of my left hand fingers, I could clearly sense when a movement was triggering jitter or finger locks. If I tried playing around that movement again, I could feel my brain clogging just a little, it's was almost a mind tickle. I have zero proof that it made things better, beside a belief in that challenging your brain/muscle system is how we learned skills when we were born. I think newborn have the structure to get a lot of reward out of sensing their body or the world. So I just try to re-apply that strategy.
Baby boomers are deadset on this idea that cardio is the only kind of exercise that one should be doing.
Free weights were considered "dangerous" for a long time. Frankly, most people who lifted back then were suspected of being homosexual.
If you take boomers as being born between 1946 and 1964, then the leading edge of the boomers were turning 30 about the time both Fixx's book and "Pumping Iron" hit the popular conscious. There is a lot more money in selling shoes to people than gym memberships, so saturation advertising is part of the 'why' as well.
Possibly, but we are, after-all, of a different era, when running (Jim Fixx) and aerobics were 'sold' as the right stuff.
(I'm a trailing edge boomer, and I lift.)
If you're thinking in terms of "holy grail," you may be subjecting yourself to an "all or nothing" fallacy.
Generally, we're discovering how to lead our bodies through the healthy operating conditions which kept our ancestors alive as we navigate a modern world of high-tech capabilities, treatments and availability crossed with widespread lack of discipline and healthy habits.
"enough sleep, cardio and some resistance exercise"
>> I’ll approach a patient who has come to be treated for chronic pain, fatigue, elevated blood pressure, shortness of breath, or a blood sugar that’s out of control. I find myself confronted by a very overweight, deconditioned 52 year-old, going on 70, with battered joints, atrophic muscles, no physiologic reserve, an inability to get off the gurney without groaning and wheezing, and a grim future. When I work them up, I find no medical emergency, just what I have come to call “diatensionolesity”—type II diabetes, hypertension, a screwed-up blood-lipid profile, and obesity.
And I think to myself: If I could get you under the bar, I could change your life.
[1] https://startingstrength.com/article/barbell_training_is_big...
For approximately half of the population, supplementing testosterone into old age is a great way to maintain (and build) SMM along with that physical activity which TFA admonishes the lack of.
One of the many lawyers working on these cases: https://outline.com/YEpTGg
The MDL source: http://www.ilnd.uscourts.gov/mdl-details.aspx?UGlDS1bLxpRHyf...
You do have to wonder about guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is 71 (ridiculous) and is in better shape than most. I can't imagine how much work he has to put into to keeping that up. Supplements can only do so much.
The new security lead can help you out when you visit HQ.
Day 1: Strength training. kudos /r/bodyweightfitness (1hr) Day 2: Yoga. 25 -35 minutes Day 3: Running ~20 minutes. Some days I do higher intensity other days lower intensity with increased time.
It takes very little time. Yoga provides mobility and joint integrity which I feel is important as you age. This programming gives me a lot of rest time to recover, which is slower as you age.
But part of the problem there is that I have built my exercise around a "go to the gym" habit. I need to do things that don't involve going to the gym, a habit I can work on at home. Habits are the hard part!
Used to do weight training, the chance of injury becomes higher as you age. Also, as you add muscle mass and more training, you will need much more time to recover. Also always watch for overtraining symptoms.
Our body is the most precious thing we will ever encounter, or possess in life.
http://annals.org/aim/article/2653704/patterns-sedentary-beh...
Anabolic steroids, when provided in correct dosages and under the care of a physician, are quite safe and solve this exact problem.
Except most/all of these people that claim they are natural actually take steroids. Steroids are such a force multiplier - they will completely overpower mediocre diet and training. A natural lifter could do everything perfectly and still fall far behind the results of these so called experts.
Do you have any source for "you will be fine"?
Cycling is very nerd-friendly. There are numbers and gadgets and even what amounts to an MMO in Zwift.
All that said--most serious endurance athletes are realizing that they need to hit the proverbial weight room, at least at certain times during the year.
Muscle is built only by getting near the limit of musclular strength. Cycling only challenges your cardiovascular system. I always squatted and deadlifted to get better at sprints. Other racers who were climbing specialists had skinnier legs than the average man, yet they could climb hills incredibly fast.
I'll guess I'll save up for one of their rollers?
Bike trainers have traditionally been of two types: rollers and resistance trainers. Rollers aren't super popular; they're pretty much used just to improve efficiency and smoothness on the bike, and are a poor choice for resistance training.
The other type of trainer uses some mechanism to impose artificial load on the drive train, for better resistance training. Most serious riders have one of these.
Traditionally, resistance trainers clamped to your rear axle and had a flywheel or some other mechanism that would screw down to your rear tire and provide resistance. In the last several years, though, some folks have created "wheel off" trainers where you remove the rear wheel entirely and attach the bike to the trainer.
These have their own rear cassette, and are appealing to folks for lots of reasons -- probably the biggest is that you don't need to keep a "trainer wheel" around. (The traditional type will wear out your tire pretty fast, so you don't want to be using your nice road tire on the trainer if you can help it.)
Anyway, smart trainers are all resistance trainers. Companies like Wahoo Fitness have smart trainers of both wheel-on and wheel-off varieties (the latter is ~ 180% the cost).
A smart trainer will track power for you, and will interface with your other sensors (cadence, heart rate) to get the full set of telemetry. By pairing it with a service like Zwift, you can do "virtual" rides based on real places, including the hills -- and, in some contexts, even other real riders who are in Zwift at the same time.
All this costs a lot, but cyclists are crazy. (Source: I are one, and I use a Wahoo KICKR Snap.)
If exercise continues into old age without proper nutrition and the additions mentioned above, it can worsen decline. And just adding supplements, improving nutrition, and ensuring regular movement (ie, not really exercising) still slows decline.
Solving aging, mental or physical health problems isn't as simple as taking a dozen supplements. Obviously proper nutrition is important, but regular exercise is the closest thing we have to a panacea right now.
> A decline in physical activity, common among older people, is only one reason sarcopenia happens. Other contributing factors include hormonal changes, chronic illness, body-wide inflammation and poor nutrition.
It's wasn't a major cause of muscle loss.