This topic comes up a lot in our App community, and it’s one that can be framed in a very specific manner. We need to consider the art form of how to get results in resistance training without getting hurt in the process. And we have to find ways to adjust the training process as we age. So, in a sense, maintaining strength and muscle mass through the lifespan requires a very dynamic and intelligent approach. Advanced thinking as I see it.
If we cut to the chase, it is extremely difficult for humans to actually build muscle in the later decades of life. You can certainly get stronger…it’s just harder to get swole. This is largely due to the multifactorial condition known as anabolic resistance. We’ve discussed that in detail before so I’ll keep going. Most of the studies which show muscle mass gains (not just strength) in older trainees (60’s, 70’s, and 80’s) are highlighting what are colloquially known as “newbie” gains. These are people who are relatively untrained and who do not have significant experience with resistance exercise. Consequently, those new to the stimulus of resistance training respond favorably, although marginally at best in regard to increases in muscle mass.
But a Lifetime Athlete, one with an extensive training history, has very little chance of adding significant amounts of muscle mass to his/her frame past the age of about 55. This is reality in almost all cases unless the trainees are pharmacologically enhanced, potentially taking a new class of Activin A and myostatin inhibitors along with supraphysiologic doses of anabolic steroids. Sure, if you train hard and consistently in natural or natty fashion, you can potentially add a pound or two of muscle per year. For a number of years but not forever. Particularly if you are under 55 and those results tend to be better the younger you are.
The real game for the Lifetime Athlete is keeping your existing muscle and making it as strong as possible. And ultimately, making the inevitable decline in muscle mass very incremental. This is where the advanced methodologies come into play. Preventing, or at least slowing, sarcopenia is the objective.
Time for some Reaper-talk. He gets us in different ways, but one of his most insidious tools is whittling away our muscles until we lose functionality. Statistically, this begins around age 30, but let’s hold on a minute. That’s a genpop descriptor and it’s probably true that the onset of muscle mass loss can occur significantly later, and to a lesser degree, in a Lifetime Athlete. We always need to parse the data and reflect objectively.
Many people look “about the same,” at least in their clothes, for most of their lives. But in the typical cases, they are gradually trading muscle mass for body fat. As body composition changes, they can become “skinny fat.” This is a condition known as sarcopenic obesity in which a person presents with relatively normal body weight, but the contents of said body are suboptimal regarding the ratio of lean body mass to fat.
I think it is also important to remain aware of the “bell-shaped curve of biology,” which applies to many things including the relationship between muscle mass and longevity. It would be easy to think that if some muscle is good, more is better. And the most muscle possible must certainly be the best situation. However, that is not a reality. Competitive bodybuilders don’t outlive the rest of the population. In fact, they tend to have shorter lifespans on average. Context again, because drug use, extreme training, and restrictive dieting factor into that equation.
There is probably a tipping point for each person, based on genetics and body type, where surplus muscle mass beyond some sort of individually-specific ideal range, does not convey additional benefits to lifespan. I mention this because it feels like we’re inundated with messages today that suggest more muscle is the answer to everything. The perspective should perhaps be more like “an ideal level of muscle mass is our target.” I readily recognize that most people in the genpop probably don’t have enough muscle to begin with. Again, that is ostensibly more true for the average citizen than for the Lifetime Athlete.
We can sum up the muscle discussion with 3 simple points.
- Build as much muscle as your frame, genetics, and sport choices require…as early in life as possible. It will always be to your advantage to have more muscle to work with as you head into your later decades. Within reason.
- Make that existing muscle as strong as possible. Employ training that preserves high strength, as well as adequate speed, power, agility, and endurance in your muscles. Do this with methodologies that do not put excessive wear and tear on your joints.
- Adjust your training through your lifespan so that you can stay consistent and minimize the losses of mass and strength which aging (The Reaper) will drive.
If all that sounds reasonable, we must now address the concept of advanced resistance training. This doesn’t necessarily infer that every Lifetime Athlete is or needs to be an elite physique competitor. Instead, at any level, we must use advanced methods to ensure we are achieving those 3 aforementioned goals. Whereas, you could take almost any 25 year-old and put them on just about any workout system and see results, the 55+ crowd requires more insightful management of the training stimulus.
We’re talking in triads today. The holy trinity of resistance training for older athletes depends upon stimulus, recovery, and personalization. Each of these has several nuances to consider.
Training stimulus has to be adequate. In other words, it needs to meet, or slightly exceed, the threshold for adaptations. While there may be some mobility or psychological benefits to “fluff” training, in which we don’t do anything very challenging, such behavior won’t stimulate mass or strength gains. A beginner trainee (at any age) might actually need to do this type of training for a number of weeks in order to develop technique proficiency, but eventually the load needs to go up for best results.
Hypertrophy is muscle growth represented by an increase in cross-sectional diameter of muscle fibers. This is the focus of building muscle more so than strength (although there will always be some strength gains when muscle mass increases). Resistance training needs to include enough volume, or working sets, that approach failure in order to stimulate muscle growth. This volume can be correlated to time under tension, fiber microtrauma, and physiologic stress. Hypertrophy work does not have to reach total failure (which in fact can sometimes be counterproductive) but it needs to get close in some of those sets. We often look at repetitions in reserve (RIR) at 3-2-1 or rate of perceived exertion around 9 out of 10 when grading this effort.
Strength, by definition, is maximum force production capacity. In purest terms, it’s a 1-rep max and that’s best performed in compound movements like squats, deadlifts, and presses. But that’s also the territory for competitive powerlifters and it’s often risky business for Lifetime Athletes. Here’s where we can use advanced thinking. Heavy doubles and triples work for many folks. But strength is also developed, if effort is near maximum (more on that later) in higher rep ranges. If you can train hard in an exercise with several working sets in the 4-8 rep range, you’ll build all the strength you need. But if your body doesn’t tolerate the higher loads required for those ranges, you’ll still make some strength gains working with lighter resistance (but max effort) in higher rep ranges such as 10-30.
As you can see, there is certainly an overlap between hypertrophy and strength when it comes to resistance training. Hypertrophy training is essentially bodybuilding, and historically that has emphasized “pump work” in the 8-15 rep range, but current research supports efficacy with rep ranges both higher and lower than that as well. In the traditional sense, those really going after strength tend to concentrate on major compound lifts, very heavy loads (when possible), and long rest periods. This requires a high neural drive and a concomitant generous recovery requirement.
As the preceding examples suggest, there are more ways to design resistance training programs which combine hypertrophy and strength work than we can think of or perform in a lifetime. That’s the beauty in all of this working out for life business. You can experiment as long as you need (or endlessly) to find the mix of parameters that work best for you. And you can and should adjust this as you evolve.
Back to stimulus, your programming should fit YOU, and it needs to fall somewhere between the minimum effective dosage (MED) and maximum absorbable dosage (MAD). During times when you can train hard, or in a pre-season buildup, you might go with MAD most of the time. And during downtimes, post-seasons, or busy periods when travel, family, or work commitments are high, you might use MED and do just enough to keep your inner beast vital. Push it when you want to make progress. Back off when you need to rest. Just remember that exercise, training, and sport competition are stressors (good ones usually) but they have to be in balance with all the other things going on in your life. This is management of the total allostatic workload.
Moving on to recovery, it’s when the magic happens. When the body makes the adaptations from the training stimulus. We need to recover during our training microcycles between the major workouts, and we also require extended periods of relative rest a few times per year such as after a peak season or big event – whatever that means for you such as a tennis tournament, gravel bike race, or backpacking trip.
Recovery is all about the “R” words: restoration, rebuilding, replenishment, refreshment, rebound, readiness…and so on. Recovery involves the passage of time, but it’s much more than that as well. There are a number of intentional practices which facilitate ideal recovery.
The spacing of sessions, or stimulus exposures, is critical. In relative terms for each of us, it’s important to go big from time to time in order to drive the upregulation which we pursue. But it’s absolutely necessary to space out those “fitness maker” workouts with easier training sessions. This varies considerably from person to person because it depends on the type of training you do, your age, and your innate ability to recover. In simpler terms, you have to go big every now and again, but you need to do light-moderate training for 1-5 days afterward that allows your body to recover (significantly if not fully) before you go hard or long again. When you’re young (you decide the number), you can get away with back-to-back hard days (known as stacking), but this works less and less with each passing decade.
When we apply that thinking to resistance training, it depends on the type of training split you are using. For example, if you do upper body one day and lower body the next in alternating fashion, you’re giving those sections 48 hours between stimulus exposures. This could work well but it is only one option. A full body weight training session could be followed by 1-2 days of cardio and mobility training before hitting it again. Or you might be using bodypart, muscle group, or movement pattern splits which are popular with advanced (this time using the word to describe the very serious physique athlete) bodybuilders.
The next thing I like to build into a program is recovery training. Unless you destroy yourself (which you shouldn’t do), total rest or off days are not recommended. Light training helps to support all your conditioning goals in addition to muscle and strength, and it maintains the all-important consistency of habit in the Lifetime Athlete. Going easy can take on many different styles. It could be Zone 1-2 cardio of brief to moderate duration, mobility and skill work, or even submaximal (not quite “fluff) resistance work on the occasional day when you sense that’s what your body needs. Artful and instinctive. Good coaching can be extremely valuable here.
Then we’ve got all those supportive practices like tissue work, heat and cold usage, compression garments and technology, breathwork and meditation, etc. Improving circulation, metabolism, and the parasympathetic state.
And of course, let’s never forget hydration, nutrition, sleep, and stress management. Books have been written about each topic, but let’s go with one sentence here.
Personalization of resistance training for older athletes, using advanced methods, is where the rubber meets the road. This can be subdivided into 4 classifications related to your body type, your sports goals, your personality, and your orthopedic history. We’ll touch, but perhaps not elaborate too much, on each one.
There are several ways to describe one’s body type, and I like to use what I call an athletic mechanotype. This is the underlying premise of my book AnimalFIT and it is explained in great detail in that text. Put simply, every person will have a genetically determined presentation in regard to skeletal diameter, muscle mass and fiber type, and default movement preferences. There will be some exercises and sports at which you are naturally quite adept, and others at which you need to work a lot in order to achieve adequate proficiency. Learning to lean in on your strengths as well as shore up your weaknesses is pure gold. Helps you to become a complete athlete and most effectively preserve functionality over the lifespan. Keeping it brief here, some people will always be better squatters than deadlifters. Others will say certain movements feel “in the groove” while the next person states the same exercises feel awkward and not right (often because their joints don’t move that way and grinding them into submission is not wise).
Your sports goals should factor into how you design your resistance training program. As you can imagine, this can go in many different directions. When analyzing this situation, I usually start with the Athletic Capacity Rating System, and determine the level (baseline, moderate, maximum) of conditioning required in each of the 5 Capacities of Athleticism (strength, speed, power, agility, and endurance). From there we look at some of the critical biomechanics elements like hip extension in the sprint start, change of direction in the court sport athlete, stroke power in the swimmer, or eccentric control in the mountain runner. We add in the protective or offsetting components like exercises that reverse the chronic effects of the cycling position, or movements for shoulder protection in the overhead athlete. And often many, many more customizations. Then we use exercise selection, ordering, and performance methods to ensure we are addressing these sports-specific concerns.
Personality is an interesting one. We tend to do what we like. And most of us know what we like. Sometimes we’ll do something we dislike if we sincerely believe it’s good for us. But the more we make our program enjoyable, a good fit for our preferences, and equally effective…the more we’ll do it. Consistency is dependent upon intrinsic motivation, and this is always enhanced when there is more flow than fight in program design. Make sure you like doing most of what you have in your program. And that you believe strongly in the value of any exercise or routine that isn’t very enjoyable. Results are reinforcing. The more you do the stuff, especially the right stuff, the more positive outcomes you get, and the more likely you are to keep going. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve worked with over the years who have been miserable with their fitness, athletic, or weight loss program…until we tweaked it to make it fit their natural inner wiring. Adjust your environment, time of day, solo versus crowd scene, music (or not), etc. just as much as you pick movements that really feel like your jam.
Orthopedic history is probably the most important consideration for a Lifetime Athlete when it comes to long term success with resistance training. You have to work with, or around (not against), your body’s accumulated injuries and chronic issues. Let’s clarify a little bit. Sure, there are lots of things which we like to call movement dysfunctions that we can change. We can apply corrective exercises to deficits in mobility, stability, motor control, etc. and improve how you move and feel – and which exercises you can do easily. But – and this is very important – there will always be some things in most of our bodies that you can’t change or fix. The solution is not to immediately give up any thought of training a movement pattern, joint, or muscle…but to strategize how you can successfully (and painlessly) work around that problem. The orthopedic workaround has been a mainstay in my practice for decades. Both with thousands of clients and with myself. If we apply creativity, imagination, and biomechanics knowledge to a training problem, we can usually come up with a workable solution. And, if something just won’t work for you despite all your efforts and what you’ve heard, give it up and look for the appropriate alternative. This could be anything from using a goblet squat instead of a back squat, to choosing isometric lunges instead of squats…and so forth.
The Training Tribe programming does all of these things for you, so you don’t really have to think too much about it. However, I want you to think about your training to the degree that you care. The Annual Training Program employs resistance training in varied, scalable manners and it blends that component with other (also modifiable) training methods. But allow me to present a couple of scenarios that you might keep in the back of your mind, just in case.
Let’s say that you wanna get some hypertrophy, you’d like to make sure you’re addressing strength, and you want to be very efficient in this approach. Here’s one way in a thousand to do just that.
- Go through a brief general warmup process of 5-10 minutes which includes a mix of dynamic stretches and multiplanar movements.
- Select the one major compound movement that you really like and which seems to work the best for your body. This should be a squat, split squat, lunge, or deadlift variation. Dozens of options but one which allows you to put a heavy(ish) load into your axial skeleton and work up and down against gravity. Do 2-4 warmup sets with progressive weight working on refining your technique and activating your CNS. Then hit 3-6 working sets with your target load and rep range, going at an RIR of 3 or 2 (that number of reps left in the tank when you conclude your set). Rest all you need and then some and remind yourself you are going for max effort and quality as opposed to conditioning.
- Move into the remainder of your workout, performing 2-8 exercises at 2-3 sets, bodybuilder pump style, which hits most of your movement patterns and muscle groups.
- Finish up with a couple of stretches and mobility exercises that you consider to be your valuable favorites.
- Do this 2-3 times per week on non-consecutive days. Add weight where indicated as you get stronger. The whole thing takes about 45 minutes. Do this for a month or so then deload and change it up slightly.
How about this option? You’ve been regularly doing some traditional resistance training and it’s been working very well for you. You are seeing strength gains and even some favorable body composition changes. But you notice you are starting to feel a little stiff and locked up. Your joints and tendons aren’t injured, but they seem to be a little sore and are requiring more and more warmup. This is not uncommon, especially if you are doing a lot of bilateral, symmetrical, sagittal plane work. The squared-up stuff like parallel squats, presses, rows, and the like. Those are great ways to train but you can benefit from occasionally changing things up. So this might be a workout where you simply throw it into your routine every couple of weeks to rebalance things a bit.
- Don’t make any changes to the general exercise categories or order of your workout.
- However, take all the movements and make them unilateral, performing a few less total sets with slightly higher reps.
- Here are some examples of exercise variations.
- Parallel squats become rear foot elevated split squats.
- Pullups or lat pulldowns move to unilateral pulldowns from a half-kneeling position.
- Bench presses become standing cable 1-arm presses from a wide athletic stance.
- Explore a number of other options using elastic bands and tubing, cable machines, and kettlebells.
- Emphasize full range of motion, add rotation into each movement, and be very purposeful or even exaggerated with your breathing.
- Many times this type of session will help to restore your movement variability in just one session. You’ll finish up feeling great and can often return to your regular routine the very next time.
Summing all of this up, using resistance training through the lifespan, especially in the later decades, is of paramount importance. As a Lifetime Athlete, you don’t need to be an elite bodybuilder or powerlifter. But you’ll benefit immensely from using advanced methods, and thinking, to keep your training going. You’ll remain Hard to Kill, and Reaper-resistant. This is what we do every day, year-round, in The Lifetime Athlete App.