Exercise intensity influences body composition in healthy older adults (2025) | Hacker News Reader

Exercise intensity influences body composition in healthy older adults (2025)

maturitas.org

207 pointsbookofjoe185 comments

I think it's important to note that this study, at least to my understanding, compared cardio training - not weightlifting or resistance training. Participants did 3 weekly sessions of either low intensity, moderate treadmill excercise or HIIT ( 4-min @ 85–95%, 3min 60-70% ).

I get the feeling some commenters here are misunderstanding this as a lot of the discussions seems to center about weightlifting.

Additionally from what I understood the biggest difference was that the HIIT group lost less muscle while fat loss was roughly the same.

This study is completely unsurprising to me having read a lot of fitness studies over the years. Work muscles harder, muscles get stronger. That is how hormesis goes. The fat loss is simple energy expenditure. You are still producing roughly the same work as someone doing more steady state work. Only effect that might come up is post exercise metabolism elevation but that effect is relatively small and probably present for both groups.

> The fat loss is simple energy expenditure.

But it's not, unless there is a calorie deficit.

If you do aerobic exercise, almost all the energy comes from burning fat. Because your body will have used very little glucose, you're unlikely to feel particularly hungry after that exercise.

If you do anaerobic exercise, almost all the energy comes from glycogen stores. Your body will crave carbohydrates immediately after exercise, and only resort to glucogenesis burning fat if you don't fuel enough afterwards.

There's a significantly higher risk of over-consumption after doing anerobic exercise and aerobic exercise because your body wants to replace the glycogen that got used up.

Can you clarify your last paragraph, looks like there’s a typo or grammatical error that states the same outcome for both arguments put forward in the preceding paragraphs.

some people may become experience increased appetite from workout while others may have hunger dampening effect.

but bigger reason imho is that people overestimate calorie burn from exercises and fool themselves into thinking now it's OK to consume more food.

I can't edit it now as it was posted more than 2 hours ago, but good spot.

"anerobic exercise and aerobic exercise" should have read "anerobic exercise compared to anaerobic exercise".

"If you do aerobic exercise, almost all the energy comes from burning fat. " This is directionally incorrect. Your body will burn both concurrently. For low intensity aerobic exercise, fat is used as the dominant energy source. However even at moderate intensity levels like jogging and "zone 2" aerobic you are 50/50. At higher intensity you have crossed the inflection point and are using more glycogen than not. All strictly aerobic exercise. And it all works on a balance anyway. You use glycogen, it gets replaced until everything is topped off. Doing that means it isn't getting converted to fat.

Both forms of exercise are shown to have an "anti-hunger" effect.

And unless you are walking, your body is also shunting blood away from your gut which also has a secondary hunger dampening effect as it doesn't resume blood flow too it immediately.

So for anything we would call aerobic exercise, that is zone 2 "cardio" or greater, I would have to disagree with your main claims about it.

> This is directionally incorrect. Your body will burn both concurrently.

For aerobic exercise, your body gets around 95% of the energy from burning fat. If you are doing exercise where you are 50/50, then it is by definition no longer aerobic exercise but anaerobic.

Anaerobic exercise starts at the point that your body is forced to use glucose from glycogen to provide energy because you have reached the limit of the energy your body can produce from burning fat, because your body can't provide oxygen at the rate required to do so.

There are two exercise intensity thresholds related to respiration: VT1 and VT2 (ventilatory threshold).

Everything from minimal activity far below VT1 to VT2 (a.k.a. "lactate threshold", LT, a.k.a. "anaerobic threshold", AT) is "aerobic".

Near the VT2 limit, very little fat is used compared to glucose. Fat burning proportions as high as 95% are only reached under very light activity. (And/or in glycogen depleted exercisers whose body has switched to fat out of necessity). That doesn't represent the entire aerobic range.

There is aerobic use of glucose (below the lactate threshold, "clean burning") and anaerobic (above AT, generating lactic acid).

A useful parameter is the absolute fat burn rate. Maximal fat burning does not occur at exercise intensities that derive a large proportion of energy from fat. Supposedly, this "FatMax" exercise intensity fairly closely coincides with the VT1 threshold. Here, around 60% of the energy comes from fat.

I'm "fat checking" all this as I type; I used to know more about this stuff, but forgot a lot.

This article has a graph from a lab test:

https://knowledgeiswatt.substack.com/p/20-120-vs-90-gh-of-ca...

I thought it would help illustrate what you're saying but, gosh, those Y axes aren't making things easy to interpret. For those willing to do the mental arithmetic, 1g of FAT is 9 kcal and 1g of CHO is 4 kcal. :)

P.S. It also only starts at 150W.

To be putting out 240W at VT1 seems insanely fit.

As an example of this ...

At LT1 (via lactate measurements) at peak 100k fitness with elite economy (n=1) ratios were roughly 23% fat, 77% carb. FATMAX was near 28% at slower speed. This is via training using the now-standard (at elite levels), high-carb approach for fueling ultra marathons.

So many factors--including gut training and fueling--play into this. Most aren't even aware of the details, and the "we don't need no carbs for performance" folks still generally bury their heads in the sand. For performance, we're seeing huge skews to carb-based energy for endurance that were considered "wild" just 5 years ago.

I would have thought the fat loss comes from hormonal changes, not merely the energy used during exercise.

HIIT is a borderline strength training.

Consider Tabata protocol.

It is supermaximal effort protocol, participants are required to exert maximum effort repeatedly.

The duration of active phase of Tabata is 20 seconds, half of approximately 40 seconds after which maximum performance (power output) drops significantly, because body switches to a different energy system.

In my experience, Tabata squats are done in range of 16-21 per 20 seconds of active phase. So, basically, Tabata squats are equal to somewhat less than 8 sets of 16-20 repetitions done close to failure. The failure usually come after first active phase, so that's why there are "somewhat less than 8 sets." I personally define failure as breakage of exercise form or exercise pace, and this is what I and others experience in Tabata squats.

And you know what? If you go close to failure, muscle mass and strength grow in the range of 5 to 35 repetitions [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN_c4sQwfTI

Other HIIT protocols are similar. For example, 3 one-minute-active-phase-one-minute-rest supermaximal protocol also leans close to "3 sets of 35 repetitions done to failure" - squats' pace noticeably quickly deteriorate to 1 squat in two seconds.

So that’s for building muscle, but what about if you wanted to lose a few kilos and increase endurance for long distance running? What would be the way to go to optimise your time?

If you want to increase endurance for running I think the general suggestion is to hit the track and do running? Get your mile time down or similar.

In my personal experience I've found strength training better for losing weight than just cardio but any activity will help a bit. You'll really need to adjust your diet in some way for it though, or at least start counting and keep your calories steady as you do more activity. Trying to outburn what you eat takes like an hour of exercise a day otherwise, it's tough.

Strength training has more of a positive effect on body composition.

The problem with doing a lot of cardio is that you need muscle to burn calories (especially so without injury and as you get older), and too much medium intensity cardio will start to chew up lean mass.

No harm in doing a bit of both though, especially if your goal is fitness/maintenance rather than maximum strength or a particular look.

I think it's a bit of an exaggeration. There's an interference effect but there's people who compete in natural bodybuilding that run marathons as well.

Absolutely, if you do strength/resistance work that'll counteract the tendency of long cardio to burn muscle.

My point is just that if you /only/ do long cardio, it'll reduce the mass of muscle that you need both to burn calories and remain uninjured. Good to mix it up a bit.

Longer slower running burns more fat because your body isn’t forced to use as much glycogen as faster paced running.

I guess the answer for optimizing time is to get a home treadmill if removing the commute to a trail/track will make the timing work.

This is incorrect. Each minute of fast running bruns more fat than a minute of slower running. Longer slower running burns more fat only because you can do it for a longer period time, increasing total energy expenditure over the whole workout. If you want to maximize fat loss, you still need to maximize energy expenditure. If the available time is fixed and low, HIIT is the way to go. If the available time isn't fix or high relative to your capability to do HIIT, slowing the pace to fill the whole available time is the way to go.

Are you sure you’re talking about fat and not total calories? The whole premise about Zone 2 running vs Zones 3/4 is you really do burn more grams of fat at the lower Zone per minute.

https://cannonbol.com/blog/articles/Achten_%282004%29.pdf?ut...

You are right in the literal sense of "burning fat" = oxidation of triglycerides. I'm used to a more figuratively use of the term in weight loss discussions, referring to "losing body fat", which is the result of total calorie deficits, increased fat oxidation and reduced fat synthesis. Depleting the glycogen storage helps to reduce fat synthesis from ingested carbohydrates, so even if the fat molecules aren't burned directly due to the higher intensity, you'll lose more fat tissue with higher intensity.

But again, yes, in the literal physiological sense, you're right.

Overnight hiking. It's not boring, and you get 7 hours of hiking in with a backpack per day.

And if you're Andrew Skurka, in peak form, you'll get 15 hours in per day.

https://www.keithfoskett.com/the-andrew-skurka-interview/

Eat less to lose the weight. Tirzepatide or something similar makes that a lot easier.

Tabata (the sprint/recover running technique) was developed, I believe, to increase VO2-max. It should help with overall endurance, and you can go on a long run each week. That would probably be efficient.

The best way to increase endurance for long distance running is to run for long distances.

Zone 2 - you are burning fat and building up endurance while keeping recovery time at minimum.

I do not know. I am here to point out that HIIT is almost a resistance training. ;)

Here's meta review of resistance training for endurance running: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11258194/

Here's old one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18460997/

I think it is possible to utilize squats both as weight losing device and running economy improvement device.

I do not run, though, as I am too old. But I love barbell squats!

You will never lose weight through any kind of intense exercise alone. As the saying goes, "abs are made in the kitchen". Walking long distances can help burn a few extra, but any other workout is probably going to stimulate your appetite well beyond whatever calories are expended. This is especially true if you have a high food drive already (which you likely do if you tend to gain weight if you're not conscientious of your intake)

To be clear I'm not saying exercise is bad, but if weight loss is the goal figure out how CICO can work for you and adapt it into your workout regimen so you're not crushing 2 bags of Taco Bell after the gym. Also building muscle will naturally increase your resting caloric burn. All I'm saying is if you think you're gonna run 15km to offset that cinnamon bun, you're going to be much hungrier after the run than whatever satiation the treat provided.

*marathoners are the only exception to this rule since they'll burn more calories than you're ever likely going to be able to consume in a sitting.

Tabata is the craziest workout ever, with Tabata sprints I couldn't feel my legs 3 minutes in and after 4 minutes all I could do was to vomit while shaking on the ground. 7-minute workout with as many reps as possible (even if not in perfect form) helped more overall.

can you tldr me if weightlighting will put me roughly in the "hiit" group discussed in the paper, and give me its benefits?

No, you also need cardio. Even if your heart rate goes up while lifting, it's sustained cardio that really improves your cardiovascular health, keeping your heart rate up in zone 2+ for 45+ minutes at a time a few times a week.

Also worth noting that not all muscle mass is the same. Too many people read these things and lacking context, they get swindled one way and then another.

So warning about super-high intensity workouts. For a good while I would sprint hard as possible up 8 flights of stairs everyday instead of taking the elevator. I would do this multiple times per day (3,4 sometimes 5) with no warm-up/cool-down . Each time I would try to push for a PR, figuring might as well go for it! One day, after about a year of doing this, I noticed my heart rate at the top felt a little off. I tested with my watch and it said I was in AFIB. I was able to get back to normal sinus rhythm via getting zapped at the ER, but ever since then if I push too hard (usually on longer runs, going all out) I end up back in AFIB. Though it will reset the next morning.

This could be pure coincidence, but I would recommend doing proper warm-up and cool-down before going all out with HIIT. FYI I'm in my 40's.

Regardless of the sport you practice, you probably need to be doing some form of periodization. You can’t go for PRs every session because at some point your body stops being able to recover => you get hurt.

You may want to talk to your doctor about potential exercise-induced cardiac remodeling. Not an expert on this at all. But it’s an injury mode that’s been recently characterized due to sudden deaths among young, seemingly-healthy sprinters.

Very interesting. I can also get Afib after many years of high intensity exercise

This happens to me occasionally, but it's typically stimulant and blood sugar related.

There are some indications that it might be related to ion availability in your body, so copper, zinc, and calcium specifically. You may also consider that HF RF found in phones, wifi, and Bluetooth can do not great things to the calcium channels in cell walls (it essentially locks the channels open in some cases).

There are a lot of factors to this, but these are things I've picked up in my reading for my own issues.

Citation for the phone, WiFi, Bluetooth claim? That’s an extraordinary claim and I’m very skeptical.

This [0] may be a good starting point. The crux is EMFs can interfere with 'voltage gated calcium channels' in cell walls.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393511...

> FYI I'm in my 40's.

Bad news: Age is a risk factor for AFIB. The older you get, the more likely it is to happen.

Also a significant increase in AFIB risk for runners. I am doing around 10-20MPW over the last 5 years. Not sure if this is enough training load, but I've had a habit of pushing too hard on my runs as well.

> PR

= Personal Record

> AFIB

= Atrial fibrillation = a type of irregular heart rhythm

> HIIT

= High-Intensity Interval Training

ER = Emergency Room :-)

> average age 72.0 years, body mass index 25.8

Careful before you assume you'll have the same outcomes. That's a group of people who are already fairly light compared to the American populace, and likely are suffering from sarcopenia of sorts and have low potential to gain much more muscle. (Protein absorption, hormone profile)

> Dietary intake was assessed using a 3-day food diary at baseline and analysed for total energy intake (kcal) and macronutrient intake (kcal) by a dietician dietary analysis software (Foodworks, Xyris®, AUS).

So this is both recall + ad libitum. The change could be due to hormone profile, the exercise itself, inadvertent changes in consumption, inadvertent changes in NEAT.

Erm that's higher than the healthy BMI range, so not "fairly light". >25 is considered overweight.

It's still lighter than the average American BMI, which is around 29. On average, Americans are classified as overweight.

Yes thats what i was referring to, you're both correct on your respective angles.

My BMI is 28.7 at 181cm and 94kg at 45.25 years old.

Am I overweight, not far off obesity?

You probably wouldn’t say so if you saw me.

BMI is mostly only a useful metric when it is.

I'm with ya at 29.4. I carry a lot more muscle than the average populace, so I'm both high BMI and appear to be "fit" to casual onlookers. But dexa says 26% which is about double what I would like.

How do you conclude you carry more muscle than the average?

The scorer (computer) on my dexa scan noted I carried "elite" (ie high percentile) muscle mass.

> NEAT

non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis?

I’m a bit of a fitness enthusiast, but not enthusiastic enough to have come across all the acronyms.

One thing that I think gets looked past in studies like this is the “noob gains” effect. These participants are healthy adults but not highly trained. It’s pretty well known, in cycling at least, that hard interval training is super effective for untrained people or people coming back from a break, but the gains plateau relatively quickly, and the stress of doing this kind of work is hard to sustain for long periods. Another notable thing is that they are doing 45 minute sessions regardless of intensity, in the real world it’s common for lower intensity sessions to be longer, and for those sessions to be a foundation on which higher intensity sessions are carefully added.

This study followed everyone for 6 months so they probably got past that factor.

I doubt it. In my experience (at least when it comes to lifting), newbie gains last at least a year. Good chance that if they've been untrained all their life (or the majority of it) that phase is gonna last a real long time.

I stand corrected then.

A year of continuous gains for a 72 year old? I highly doubt it. For a skinnyfat 20 year old, sure.

> I highly doubt it.

Not a very convincing discussion point without some support.

I've read a looot of physiology studies about running, and the same dynamics hold true there. This is a flaw (IMO) of of the whole "Norwegian 4x4 protocol" you hear parroted around by biohacker/longevity influencer online, of course with 0 nuance or context of the underlying study and its limitations

> It’s pretty well known, in cycling at least, that hard interval training is super effective for untrained people or people coming back from a break, but the gains plateau relatively quickly, and the stress of doing this kind of work is hard to sustain for long periods.

This is 100% experience with both cycling and running, and something I worked out on my own early on, prior to the advent of smartphones and even talking to anyone who knew anything.

I enjoy sprinting, both running and cycling, but it’s mostly something I do to regain my endurance ability after a break. Two two weeks of high intensity interval training, and then I’m able to sustain moderate intensity jogging for 30+ plus again, or an hour cycling.

Some move all their lives and keep adapting their movements as their age. Others did not move much through the lives and when they hit 60s and they start loosing the mobility, doctors suggest for them to move more, if anything. If you never hiked and you start hiking in your 60s for health reasons. Pick up short flat trails.

'were small and not meaningful' why is this on the front page of HN?

The perennial question.

Well, at least it’s spurred intellectually curious discussion.

Is it? What I mostly see is people describing their anecdotal experience and opinions about exercise in general.

I assume that only a few of them are actually in the age group of 65-85, so relevance of personal experience is dubious.

To be fair there are some questioning the study methodology and conclusions.

I mean, here we are so..

QED

> Healthy older adults (n = 123, average age 72.0 years, body mass index 25.8 kg/m2) completed three 45-min supervised exercise sessions per week for 6 months. Participants were randomised to treadmill-based moderate-intensity training (n = 45), or high-intensity interval training (n = 41) or a low-intensity active control condition (n = 37), with individualised heart-rate prescription. Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry was used to quantify body composition at baseline, and at 3 and 6 months.

ok they didn't even include light/moderate weight lifting as another control, so this is a fairly poorly executed study

basically it comapres hiit with treadmill walking in which case yes, it's slightly more useful, but hiit also causes a lot of damage in a lot of ways

"hiit also causes a lot of damage in a lot of ways"

Oh! I didn't know about this. Are there any references you could quote?

Just ask the orthopedists down the street from any CrossFit box.

Or their journal articles.

Hiit training can use any type of exercise that allows quick change of pace.

The routine in Tabata’s original HIIT work was just cycling.

Crossfit afaik is a more complex affair than just cycling.

So is the risk of injury due to specific movement or the interval quality of the movement?

I don't think this is helpful. Crossfit appears to prioritize speed and # of reps above all else, and is notorious for people doing difficult exercises with terrible form to try to hit those targets. HIIT certainly emphasises intensity of effort and prefers relatively short rest periods between sets, but not at the expense of proper form. eg when I think of cross-fit weight training or callisthenics I think of lots of snatching and jerking, with HIIT I think of moving slowly with form and trying to hold tension at the apex of the movement.

If you want to do Super Slow, great, but that is the original HIT, High Intensity (Strength) Training from Arthur Jones of Nautilus fame. I just went to YouTube and searched for HIIT. I don't see any videos of "moving slowly with form" (which is exactly what Super Slow is built around - 10 seconds concentric, 10 seconds eccentric, one set to failure).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Slow

https://youtu.be/2PdJFbjWHEU

Don't conflate hiit with crossfit. Crossfit is just one (although well known) type of hiit. There are many other type of hiit activities without the training style of crossfit.

> "but hiit also causes a lot of damage in a lot of ways"

Please do explain this.

Technically weight lifting (muscle hypertrophy) also causes "damage" but in a controlled an beneficial way.

I would guess they mean hiit can traumatize e.g. joints or cardiovascular system, especially for the elderly.

Most people don't understand how important, even vital, proper rest is. Injuries are almost always the result of overuse and/or insufficient rest.

HIIT itself is not dangerous, or even bad for you, if you spend the time to learn about it and how to incorporate into your life safely. If you're out of shape, and don't train regularly, go out and try HIIT you're going to have a bad time.

Could you provide some resources for learning?

yeah this is what I meant - as we get older we're supposed to move slower, and spend more time working on mobility and strength (moderate strength building, walking, and other movements like taichi and equivalent)

I really think you're being pedantic to the point of detriment. Runner's knee is a very well known condition in, wait for it, runners!

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/patellofemora...

Seems to me hiit is a way to avoid these overuse injuries.

I think runner knee was a bad example.

Sprint running is more sensitive to form in order to avoid injuries, especially in older adults.

I think you're wrong. I've been running with good form, proper nutrition, and rest, for over 40 years, averaging 20-30 miles a week, and have absolutely zero knee issues.

I think you're running a risk here of turning more people off from running, and doing more harm than good, by warning people of a risk that while possible, is unlikely to affect them.

Generally these types of degenerative conditions have other underlying conditions driving them, and are not simply the result of running. We are born to move.

The hyper rationalist cult on HN has created a race to see who will be the first to claim "this is a fairly poorly executed study".

It really impresses the crowd here if you ignore all limitations introduced by reality, and fail to clearly even assert the requirements that would result in an "adequately executed study."

Bonus points if you finish your shallow skepticism by redirecting the conversation in the direction of your original preheld biases.

Double bonus points if you fail to link to a study that both supports that preheld bias and meets your own standards for how studies should be conducted.

light/moderate weight lifting is not "low-intensity active control condition" then?

Anaerobic exercise, which typically is done with weightlifting, converts muscles to a huge anabolic gland. Do squats/deadlifts with good technique and reap lifetime benefits. Add aerobic as habit, like use feet/bicycle and stairs at every occasion and you will be fine. First order effects are better shape and stamina, that lead to second order like better cognition, mood and even less cancer.

From the Conclusion:

“High-intensity training reduced fat and maintained lean mass in apparently healthy older adults, though changes were small and not clinically meaningful compared with exercise of lower intensity and considering measurement error.”

I didn’t read the whole paper (didn’t see any reason to after seeing this). But the title seems to be contradicted by this conclusion.

Insulin -- the fat storing hormone. The opposite hormones -- cortisol and adrenaline mobilize fat tissue for burning. Chronic cortisol leads to fat gain because cortisol receptors become desensitized. Spiking cortisol in short bursts is better than long bouts of elevated cortisol.

> “High-intensity training reduced fat and maintained lean mass […] though changes were small and not clinically meaningful compared with exercise of lower intensity…”

High intensity does border on leading to injury — just making the wrong move — and you’re back to zero intensity?

Really depends on how you define high-intensity.

To build muscle, you need to push yourself to a limit. You can reduce the weight and increase the repetitions. This approach is just as effective and lowers the risk of injury.

This is what I do. When I was beginning with weight training, I followed other's recommendations back then and pushed hard. Had quite often minor issues or injuries in the joints which set me back for weeks or even months, my tendons seem to be my weak spot and it does get worse with age, both limits and recovery.

Lowered the load, increased repetitions and basically nothing for a decade. I can still go almost to the failure, I don't even want to reach it since I don't care about that extra bit. Squats or deadlifts are hard even when not at limits, one feels used body parts for a day or two.

I still add cardio on top of that, its just basic logic of moving around a lot is very good for the body, even if effects are not immediately obvious.

So, how many reps did you start with and how many do you do nowadays?

Starting is a bit hazy, it was 15 years ago. I gradually got to cca 100kg deadlifts (maybe 5-6 reps each set) and maybe 70kg squats of similar reps/sets.

These days its more about 15 reps, still 3 sets (plus one just 20kg barbel warmup). When I feel like I could do more, i add 3 or 5 reps, and/or do things slower, especially the lowering part. Weight wise its cca 60kg deadlifts, 50kg squats. I feel like I could do more, but with worse form and thats not a good idea.

There are similar numbers for bench presses, dumbbell curls and few other exercises I sometimes add to mix.

I was never bodybuilder and never looked accordingly but I didn't care, any strong-enough body is attractive to females, good confidence is present and connection to one's body is very good. It was always just training for actual stuff - long hikes, climbing, ski touring etc. Now with kids and after quite brutal paragliding accident that left me wheelchair-bound for few weeks, walked after 6 months and have some permanent changes in calcaneus, I am happy with anything and above is good enough for me, just need to sustain it.

> Squats or deadlifts are hard even when not at limits, one feels used body parts for a day or two.

That’s just regular ‘ol DOMS and not a problem.

Tendons tend to respond well to both heavy load or high reps, albeit adaptation in either case is very slow.

Well, your body knows nothing about number of reps or the weights. You can also do your reps slower.

Maybe with older adults the baseline goal should be to merely maintain or slow the loss of the muscle, mobility, and cardiovascular capacity they already have? It's not realistic for a 50 year old to think they could build muscle year-after-year for the next 30 years.

For the next 30 years, probably not, but mostly because you can get really strong really quickly, as most adults are really weak.

It's not that unusual for people to pick up e.g. powerlifting past 50 and still get to levels well beyond what most younger adults can lift.

I'm 51, and recently back into powerlifting after many years out of it, and I certainly expect to build back muscle and improving week over week for many years before I can't stem the decline any more, as long as avoid injury or health issues that takes me out of the gym - avoiding time off exercise is the biggest challenge with getting older.

The time off from exercise is not a bad thing; even when forced due to holidays and being sick, life et al. As we age, we need more of that rest time. For those of us on the back 9, its critical to avoid those injuries because they set us back.

The only problem with time off is it breaks habits. a couple days off and suddenly you haven't done anything for months.

Rest time of a couple of days is good. I'm not talking about that.

But more than a week and you'll typically need to deload to avoid DOMS. More than a few weeks and it will start taking significant time to work back up, and a lot of injuries happens because people try to rush that recovery and add even more time to that.

If you regularly lose weeks at higher age, it quickly becomes tricky to avoid tipping over into lasting decline.

Depends on the goal. If staying at a certain number is the goal yes, climbing two weeks back up will possibly take more and more time. If staying energetic and healthy is the goal the number becomes only one of the moving benchmarks.

With that said I think doing some kind of workout even on vacation is important.

However, if you are a male and age 50 you can definitely expect to still build muscle up to 60 if you are diligent with your strength training. You can maintain mass 60-70. You do need a little more protein. I collected as much proven data and studies on this as I could: https://stealthgoat.com/building-muscle.html

This was gold, thank you for linking it. I need to find somebody to monitor my form but I am not that far from doing what this post suggests!

Over 60 you cannot build muscles anymore?

I think over 60 you can, it’s just slow, hard, and requires high diligence.

If I can make a recommendation, compound movements are amazing, but be careful with deadlift. There are many more practical exercises that don’t have so much injury risk. Volume and consistency win over heroic or ego lifts :)

Please do! I figured out consistency, but I think I can gain way more from my training that what I am currently getting.

I do have a hard requirement of minimizing time while maximizing gain, so I do 1 hour weight lifting 3 times per week and two days of heavy cardio (I call it hiit, pushing my heart to 175-180 at times, but I suspect it's just very vigorous) 2 times per week. Minimum effort for maximum gains.

I cannot stand "slow, long cardio". I do enjoy tracking and pushing my bpm

That is pretty much the best way to improve cardio as well. There is some benefit to long slow cardio in that it induces the same mitochondrial growth and fitness improvement, but it requires more time. The injury risk is a little lower for low intensity work. Interval training is a proven quantity for cardio fitness as well, though. I don't think you can min-max cardio fitness much more than that. Mainly, just ensure you aren't doing anaerobic work (e.g. sprinting) if your goal is cardio improvement. But that is easy enough, if you really want to baseline it, you just run a mile all out and there are a bunch of calculators that are very good which give you good paces for VO2 Max / intervals. The goal is you want to sort of keep your HR elevated once warmed and stay in that high VO2 max zone sort of ending right at max HR on your final interval or two pushing yourself up to the limit. It ends up looking like the strength training wisdom at the end of the day. Do cardio. Make sure it is challenging and you aren't phoning it in if your min-maxing. Be consistent.

For strength training, I think it comes down to what I captured in my blog post. For a given muscle, if you are challenging it and truly reaching 1 or 2 reps in reserve there isn't much else to do per set. Hit your desired training volumes and you are the happy place for time+gains. If the intensity is there and you are targeting your entire body at the right volume level every week it will come down to nutrition and other factors vs. what you are doing in the gym.

No joke. I go to the gym a couple times a week so that I'll maintain mobility and won't injure myself as I age - unfortunately 80% of my injuries come from the gym.

If most of your injuries come from the gym, I recommend you get a trainer.

hahah, so true. Also, there are multiple ways to do high intensity exercising that are very unlikely to injure you, like stationary bikes. High intensity only means going to a very high heart rate, you can do this in any way you like it.

80% of my injuries occurred while sleeping, which seems very weird.

I knew someone who dislocated her shoulder often while sleeping. If I remember right, she's dislocated it 17 times or some ridiculous number.

Isn't it easier for it to happen again once it's happened at least once?

this happens to me quite frequently. i grew up playing years of baseball and my throwing shoulder is a bit loose as it is. combined with the way i fall asleep (on my stomach with my forearm under my pillow) i tend to dislocate or severely strain it pretty regularly

For me it's often a foot sprain, but exercising has made it less frequent.

Are you hypermobile?

My son is and once subluxed his shoulder while running

The neck is quite vulnerable during sleep and could lead to neck muscle injuries that leave one with a stiff neck for days.

Lift less weight then, there is no reason to get injured in the gym if you have a normal body, proper form and lift reasonable weight. From an health point of view it's better to squat/deadlift a mere 60kg safely than trying to go for 200kg+ and snap a disk for absolutely no reason. 100% of my injuries are gym related, because I threw my back exactly once, and since then I lift reasonable weights and focus on proper execution/form

Some people believe "high intensity" means lifting as much as possible as fast as possible, I'd say more reps and deliberately slow movements are as intense for the purpose of staying in shape/healthy.

Most body weight exercises are virtually impossible to fuck up to the point of injury, done properly they'll keep you fitter than 99% of the population

This is highly unusual. You shouldn’t be injuring yourself that frequently at the gym, especially if your goal Is just to maintain mobility and basic muscle mass as you age.

This is such a strange thing to hear, as someone who also has gone to the gym a couple times per week for my life with a lot of different gym buddies.

I would suggest considering a reset of your gym routine and gym knowledge, possibly with the help of a physical therapist to see what you’re doing wrong.

If you’re going to one of those gyms that encourage dumb things like doing heavy lifts in a timed competition format or other bad ideas that were trendy in the 2010s, I really recommend getting out of those environments.

Only the 80% number was given. If he has been going to the gym for 30 years and had 5 injures at the gym, one outside that would be incredibly low for a total, and that level of carelessness at the gym is lower than I'd expect. If his routine was over 1 month then there are big problems.

Getting injured at the gym shouldn’t be such a problem that someone has to mention it.

You don’t need to be pedantic about the 80% number.

My experience is that every movement pattern causes "injuries" like a sore tendon, wrenched back, inflamed shoulder that surface with every 20 pounds of added weight until I figure out what about my form is incorrect. Usually not something a trainer would see like "don't flare your elbows", internal stuff like "use your glute medius to help push" or "elbows in line with the torso on squats" that might be in 1 of 20 YouTube videos.

I use the weight training to surface the injuries to make me aware of what I'm doing wrong in daily movements. I might finally be past this and able to just go in and push weights but it's taken years. I feel like it's down to the body I'm living in and what I consider a pain threshold, not any risk taking or lack of information.

There are plenty of high intensity activities with low risk of injury. Rowing and swimming come to mind.

I think the bigger problem is that, as far as I can tell, very few people have the appropriate personality type for high intensity exercise. Most people seem to experience it just as pointless discomfort.

This is specifically cardio. High intensity interval training can be safe, for example, air bike, battle ropes, etc. High intensity running does have higher injury risk.

Everyone just needs to play soccer and avoid the 50/50s if you're an adult that wants to be pain free the next day.

I love me some adult coed soccer. And it can be very high intensity intermittently if you feel like it.

The study is about 70 year olds. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for the average 70 year old to be engaging in contact sports…

they play walking soccer

I avoided - or that was my intention until the game started - the 50/50s but my calf and hamstring still felt the pain the next day Totally worth it though

Hurting the ego will likely make you not play the next game

The ego is the enemy.

(I recommend the book w that title by Ryan Holiday)

Calisthenics is a really easy way to push intensity at basically 0 risk of injury. They're all compound and depending on the variation could require high reps, but between push ups, pull-ups, squats, their numerous variations, and accessory work, I would challenge anyone to actually injure themselves while also being able to push to true technical failure.

It is very possible to injure yourself with calisthenics. Shoulder impingement or tendinitis from pullups with too much intensity/bad form for example. Weight is weight.

From my son's experience in calisthenics and looking around at the group he sometimes trains with, there are definitely a lot of overload/overuse injuries, at a range from just needing rest to bicep tears.

This is not good advice and please remove the “basically 0 risk of injury” wording. Mobility is a limiting factor and poor body positioning WILL result in injury. Barbells are safe, progressively overloadable, and learning to move them is a straight line is what most people need to do before a lot of calisthenics training. Most people can’t even do 1 pull up.

Lots of overuse injuries in calisthenics:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.2147/OAJSM.S394044

Poor form is possible with calisthenics and that leads to injuries or other problems.

In my experience, there's a middle ground. Don't go for 1 to 3 rep maxes. Go for 4-6 rep maxes for a set and then follow it by set to failure in the 8-12 rep range. That gives a good mix of both intensity and volume while still reducing risks of injury as the weights are heavy but not crazy heavy to compromise form.

You just need to build back up to high intensity training over time by consistently exercising and pushing yourself. Injury comes from pushing yourself too hard too soon. Unless you are approaching 50 (and even then) you can recover most of your fitness from your early 20s.

High intensity does border on leading to injury

Where are you getting this? The study was about various intensities of cardio - I didn't see it noted, but I'm guessing the high- and medium-intensity groups were on a treadmill, elliptical, or similar. Pretty small chance of injury for the durations they mention, especially as the subjects were monitored while exercising.

And I'm not really surprised by the study - building lean muscle mass takes resistance training, which wasn't part of the study. The study results appear to be inline with what was common knowledge/experience.

And if you're injuring yourself regularly during weight training or other gym activities, I'd suggest you might hire a good coach/trainer for guidance and programming, because that shouldn't happen either.

> And if you're injuring yourself regularly during weight training or other gym activities, I'd suggest you might hire a good coach/trainer for guidance and programming, because that shouldn't happen either.

After a certain age, it's difficult to train somewhat intensely without risking injury. You can always find some exercises that work and maintain a physical activity, but this may not be enough to maintain your muscle mass or your stamina.

Sure, thus the "find a trainer" suggestion. :shrug: You aren't wrong, but for somebody who has been active and healthy, intense exercise deep into their 60s should be possible.

> Sure, thus the "find a trainer" suggestion

Not sure a trainer is a silver bullet. After 50, it gets increasingly harder to improve as we become more and more injury-prone and start developing chronic issues. Staying active and fit should be reachable for most, but high-intensity or competitive sports become a privilege for those with good genetics. Most of us switch to low-impact sports such as cycling, swimming, hiking, bodyweight training and so on...

There is no correlation between exercise intensity and likelihood of injury, this is nonsense. You could e.g. just as well make one wrong move when going for a one rep max.

Going for one rep max is intense. If it weren't, you could get a better max.

That's not what exercise intensity means, clearly you're not even remotely familiar with the domain.

In the context of weight lifting, or neuromuscular demand, a one rep max is very high intensity exercise. In the context of metabolic demand, it is not.

Your tone is very aggressive. Not necessary.

I think this results vary depending on whether or not a person exercises regularly. After just six months of training, older adults who do not exercise regularly may see significant changes, but those who exercise regularly are likely to see only minor changes.

this gets reheated over and over…

look at the study period.

hiit is not sustainable beyond a brief period. by definition you can only do a limited amount of high intensity before you get cooked.

what you really want is periodization and looking over long periods and aggregate volumes

This was all treadmill. I would expect that medium intensity treadmill, combined with weight training, would have same positive results as the “HIT” treadmill group but without feeling like you’re dying or triggering AFib.

“though changes were small and not clinically meaningful compared with exercise of lower intensity and considering measurement error”

So the the research is inconclusive?

Just read the study... It was not inconclusive, they found that HIIT was the most effective level of exercise intensity to improve body composition in the ages of people that were studied. It just wasn't a meaningful improvement over medium intensity.

That is a conclusion.

They measured body composition. Is that your goal? Remember this is for 70 year olds (and a small sample size), even if you got to the ideal 70 year old body, you won't look that good naked - which is all body composition is directly good for. My guess is you care more about health (you should break this down into more details of what health means) and long life.

Body composition is a factor in health and long life. However there are many confounding factors if that is your goal and so you cannot draw any conclusions unless the sample size is very large, and the study runs over a very long time. Thus we get a lot of small studies that study something easy and hope that this is a good proxy for what we really care about. Sometimes science eventually figures the proxy is good, sometimes not, but often we still don't know. (meta studies have been really helpful here)

Large sample sizes are very expensive to study, a grad student without large grants can study 50-100[1] people alone, which makes the study cheap enough that they can do it. This was a 6 month study, again making it something a grad student could do leaving plenty of time to then write the paper and get it published. (Each subject was studied for 6 months, I'm not clear if they were all studied at once, or if different subjects had different start/end dates). All respect for the grad students who do this - despite all the problems I've pointed out[2], they still did a lot of work.

[1] I've never been a grad student, much less one in a field where you would study this. The 50-100 number feels right in my uneducated opinion, but if someone with more knowledge says something I accept their correction in advance.

[2] I wonder what other problems someone in this field could point out.

Everyone talking about strength training: that’s nice, but it’s not what this study was about. That doesn’t make it a bad study, it just means you’re looking for a different study.

The study is conducted on 123 people.

I’m genuinely confused. Was there any doubt before this study that sport makes people healthier?

That wasn't what this study was investigating.

Well I guess reading the article could ease your confusion. Unsurprisingly it is a bit less generalized than your take.

No, but past recommendations for older adults (note that the average age in the study was 72 years old) were towards "gentle" or moderate exercise. We're seeing a shift now towards recommending real weight lifting and higher intensity as we age. ("Real" -> closer to powerlifting in terms of goals and methods)

why is it powerlifting?

general prescription these days for Hypertrophy is 10 sets per muscle group per week 0-3 RIR.

Because hypertrophy is generally pointless compared to strength. The hyperthrophy that naturally accompanies strength work is sufficient but the strength that accompanies hypertrophy work is far less beneficial.

one of the best proxy we've for Hypertrophy is getting progressively stronger in medium rep range. (8-12)

The title says they are focused on improving body composition which is boosting lean mass, lowering of fat mass which kinda seems achieved best by focusing on Hypertrophy and fat loss?

Hypertrophy and strength aren't as strongly linked as we thought. Generally for wellness, injury prevention, you want strength and flexibility.

What? They are incredibly linked.

They are linked, but what I meant was its not a 1:1 relationship. You can get stronger without as much hypertrophy, or you can get bigger without as much strength gain.

The only reason I mention it is because I often see people, especially men, assume getting bigger is the main focus of getting stronger and healthier. But a more holistic approach including stretching, functional strength excercises, cardio and balance training is perhaps more important

Your strength comes both from your nervous system and physiology. Training your nervous system without also building a proper physical foundation to handle tension is a fast track to injury.

Mostly because functional strength is useful and keeps you alive. major goals as you age are avoiding falls and being able to continue doing things for yourself. Strength fits that bill pretty well (and it also improves fat free mass).

And on a slightly more technical note, recovering from higher volume becomes harder as you age, so focusing on a smaller number (5ish) of reps at higher weight gives you adaptation without quite as much stress.

But I should be clear, when I said real lifting, I don't mean to exclude any form of well calibrated progressive overload, whether that's strength focused or hypertrophy focused. I do mean to exclude the "go to the gym and lift a 10 lb weight the same number of reps each time" BS

read the study more carefully if you think it encourages powerlifting for the elders.

Read my comment more carefully if you think I'm describing the study instead of providing more general context for why people might find this particular study interesting.

this study is not related to powerlifting or heavy activity in that sense, so it's not pertinent as a context, if anything it is pertinent to understand misinterpretations of the study.

It says nothing about weightlifting. The high intensity training is on a treadmill. Also, "changes were small and not clinically meaningful compared with exercise of lower intensity and considering measurement error." The study is really not noteworthy and certainly not a basis for changing any population wide recommendations.

I'm giving context for why a study of higher intensity cardio -in older people- might be interesting to people, and why it's not just "exercise good"

There was plenty of obvious, common sense assumptions that didn't hold at all when methodically tested, like sugar rush in children. And this specific type of studies tries to find a sweet spot between benefits and effort taken. Some results were unexpected, If I recall correctly on found that having to take three flights of stairs daily outperformed many exercise regimes designed for elderly.

I have met people who figured, because they don't excercise they don't wear their body out, so their joints etc. will last longer. Same for injury, no sport no injury, that must be good!

In a way this is right with high intense/extreme sport. (I did Thai Boxing in my youth, but stopped at some point)

But it is very wrong otherwise, joints for example will suffer if not moved. Blood will only flow into all the areas of the joints if they are moved. And if you don't move, your muscles will be gone and without muscles to hold your joints, loss of stability, great risk of injury, etc.

And don't forget benefits of weight training in improving bone density and preventing osteoporosis as we age.

And strengthening the nerves and all the other body parts that degrade with being idle.

Charlie Munger thought of exercise as adding mileage to the car.

Most people who talk about adding milage to a car have never tried to keep an old car running. Those who do have long learned that milage is a tiny issue, age is a much larger factor. They have also learned that low milage is a bad sign - what is wrong that you only drove it that much: often the answer is city driving which puts a lot more wear on the car than highway driving.

Donald Trump is one who also believes this. Apparently he believes you only have so many heartbeats, and so you should avoid increasing your pulse.

People who exercise regularly have a lower resting heart rate. You can likely remove 10,000 heartbeats per day just by doing 20 minutes of exerciser per day.

I don't believe the limited heartbeats theory, but it does support the idea of exercise.

I got codex to count my total heartbeats from my Garmin data. For four random days the counts were 72.252, 73.823, 68.922, 70.991.

According to google: "typical range for total heartbeats is 86,400 to 115,200 beats per day"

I run every day which would add a lot of beats, but my resting HR is 36 (pushed down by exercise i presume) with a daily average of 50 BPM. So in total a trained person may spend less of their heart beats.

Sports and exercise are definitely beneficial, but any sort of activity presents a risk of injury.

If people work out, or play sports, without knowing proper form, without using protection or precautions, they'll get injured and then worse off than before. Realistically, manual laborers should be in real good shape, but often their jobs are so low-wage, and they're so interchangeable, that safety precautions are ignored and must be regulated/enforced.

I took up roller skating and was rewarded with a broken leg. I took up gym exercise and was repaid with a hernia. Both required surgery. No regrets! Only wished I could've better understood how to exercise safely!

I once encountered a FB group that was for people to discuss "sports injuries sustained while we were in bed" and I could totally relate, having done weird stuff to my shoulder overnight, rather than pitching a baseball game...

... though changes were small and not clinically meaningful compared with exercise of lower intensity and considering measurement error.

Why even share this research ?

Exactly. I pointed this out in another comment before seeing yours. They admit they found nothing.

In other news, water is wet

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