Expert advice for exercisers over 40 Muscle growth in middle age

The question was, what are the best tips for exercisers over 40? Here is what experts in the field of weight training and bodybuilding have answered.

If you want to keep making progress, then you should do your best to stay healthy and injury-free

The human body has a great capacity to adapt, but even this has its limits. And if you're in your forties, fifties or sixties and have been training for over 20 years, then your body is certainly showing signs of wear and tear. You've probably already built up a lot of scar tissue and your body has become less efficient at producing collagen, making potential healing processes more difficult and slower. Your body simply can't cope with the same amount of stress and strain that it had no problems with when you were younger.

Even though there are powerlifters who continue to perform usefully in their forties or even their fifties and sixties, they rarely really continue to develop. And to tell you the truth, apart from those who rely on performance-enhancing drugs, you will virtually never see powerlifters who are still performing at a high level in their 40s. On the other hand, you will see plenty of former elite athletes who have almost completely stopped training because they are too limited in what they can still do.

Staying injury-free requires the right mindset. And that's the most important thing that needs to change as you get older. Even if it's hard for you, you need to cut down on the competitiveness and stop trying to be the strongest in the gym.

You should even stop competing with your former self. I bench pressed 180 kilos in my thirties, snatched 150 kilos in my twenties and deadlifted 275 kilos.

Today, I can't even get close to those weights and if I tried, I'd ruin my shoulders. I simply can't use super heavy weights anymore. And yet my body still looks as good as or even better than it did back then. I'm leaner now and I'm building weight while staying lean. I do this by focusing on other variables to increase training stress.

You have four primary levers you can tweak if you want to stimulate muscle growth. These dials cannot all be set to "high" at the same time. However, if you manipulate them correctly, you can stimulate muscle growth in different ways. These set screws are:

• The load (the amount of weight)
• The intensity (how hard you push yourself with each set)
• Frequency (how often you train each muscle per week)
• The volume (how much work you do per training session)

I've made my best gains over the last few years by increasing intensity and frequency while keeping load and volume lower than in the past. Right now I train each muscle three times a week. I only perform one work set per exercise (after 1 to 3 warm-up sets), in which I go to muscle failure and mostly use intensity techniques such as rest pause, descending sets, isometric hold after reaching muscle failure, etc. I also use a lot more isolation and machine exercises.

I use lower-impact exercises because they allow me to increase the intensity as much as possible without unnecessary risk. As you get older, there are two things that can hurt you - very heavy weights and very high volume. Both can increase the risk of injury and potentially lead to recovery problems. And it's "no recovery, no growth."

This change in mindset can be difficult for those who have always loved moving heavy weights and who have always wanted to be the strongest in the weight room. Some don't make this transition, but as you get older you should focus your efforts on "looking better" rather than being the strongest and most muscular. And your diet should reflect this too. Eat to be healthy and lean - and avoid junk food and gigantic amounts of food. The latter will only stress your body, cause systemic inflammation and increase your blood lipid levels.

- Christian Thibaudeau

To maintain is to build

If you're over 40 and an experienced exerciser, you're probably very close to the limits of your genetic potential. Although you may be reluctant to admit it, it's unlikely that you'll make any further significant progress in your forties, fifties, sixties and beyond. That is, of course, quite a... decision. At least as long as you are not willing to change your perspective.

Look in the mirror and ask yourself if you would be happy if you looked the same in 10 or 20 years' time. I would bet that the answer will be yes.

If you are in your forties or above, then the majority of your peers will physically decline - some slower, some faster. If you maintain what you have, then you will be much better than most of your peers. And if you meet someone your age who can continue to improve, it probably means they were in bad shape until recently and have just decided to do something about it.

Don't get me wrong. You should never give up on trying to improve. However, you should also be realistic about your prospects. Keep trying to outdo yourself, but don't give up if it doesn't always work.

Being successful and happy as an older exerciser is a matter of perspective. There's a saying that goes something like "Getting old is the price you pay for having lived a long life." That beats the alternative, doesn't it?

- Charles Staley

Hire some boy scouts

Oh my God, you're over 40, it's time to hire some Boy Scouts to help you pull up your worn-out sweatpants when you're trying to do quarter-repetition squats with trembling knees so they don't fall down and expose your graying fine-rib underwear - and God knows what else.

At your age, you're probably already suffering from dementia and terrible arthritis, so no one can blame you if you lose your pants trying to do squats, you poor old sod.

At least that's the kind of advice I'd like to give people when they talk about training beyond 40. Realistically, apart from paying a little better attention to your mobility, hormonal status and nutritional status, there's nothing that a 40-something exerciser should be doing differently to any younger exerciser.

Of course, if you only started training in your thirties, then "training over 40" might mean something - but if you've already been training regularly for 10 or 15 years by the time you hit 40, then that age is nothing more than another meaningless milestone based on our civilization's obsession with round numbers.

Training advice for exercisers over 40 belongs on the seemingly endless list of "advice for everyone" like the need to sleep 8 hours every night, drink enough or whatever is advisable for good health.

If you start to believe that at 40 you have crossed your horizon and your body has suddenly become a fragile wreck, then this will also become a reality. Instead, you should fight against ageing and not worry too much about possible changes to your training.

- TC Luoma

Listen to your body

As a 41-year-old exerciser who continues to make gains and set new personal bests, my advice is to keep training squats, deadlifts, bench presses and shoulder presses and just don't overdo it with the volume and frequency.

Some days you will train heavy and other days it may be better to use lighter weights and just train for the feel. Maintaining your strength is easy, but you won't build strength if your body is tight - so don't ignore your body's feedback.

You will find that you can't do certain exercises regularly. I've had to take time off from all my favorite exercises in the past due to nagging issues.

When my body makes me feel like an exercise doesn't feel right, I work around the problem by using other exercises that feel better. My alternatives include lat pulldowns with a neutral grip or an underhand grip, dumbbell presses with a neutral grip from different angles, push-ups with added weight, Bulgarian split squats, Nordic leg curls, glute ham raises, eccentric goblet squats, deadlifts with legs extended, leg presses with feet wide apart and even hip thrusts on the multi press.

Pick one pair of heavy weights per month to focus on and keep the weights the same for all other exercises. I no longer try to set personal bests on most isolation exercises like side raises, tricep presses, curls, butterflies or leg curls. I still perform all of these exercises, but I use different set and repetition schemes and tempos so that I'm not tempted to set new records at all. I save my mental energy for the big exercises and aim to feel the burn and the pump on the smaller exercises.

Use intensity techniques like rest pause or emphasized eccentric training more often. If you like certain machines and they feel right, use them. Variety is a good thing. Hammer Strength and other machines are great. Use whatever you can that helps you reach your goals.

- Bret Contreras

Put together your toolbox

An exerciser in his twenties often feels like someone who is ten feet tall and invulnerable. Then at age 40+, he realizes he's only 175 cm tall and not even fireproof. Training and nutritional mistakes from the past are now beginning to take their toll.

This is primarily a matter of attitude. An example: "For legs, you only need to train squats." I said this to myself 20 years ago.

Today, I realize that there are many ways to train these muscles and that there are many movement patterns including dozens of squat variations that work great and allow me to train around my worn out knees and numerous other old injuries. Fortunately, I've filled my toolbox with squat alternatives and variations.

Don't be the guy who often uses the word "only" when it comes to training topics. Such a person's toolbox will be sparsely filled and his tools will be rusty. The same applies to nutrition. There is a common misconception among young exercisers: they believe that they can eat the same way all the time and still achieve optimal results. In reality, these people are more likely to get away with such a strategy for a while than benefit from it. However, as the body ages and changes, so should the diet. At the age of 45 you are no longer eating for a 25 year old body. There's a word for people who do this: flabby.

Maybe it's stress, maybe it's all those extra responsibilities getting in the way of your workouts, or maybe it's just your body getting older and slowly accumulating minor issues. Don't look at your 25 year old self when planning your diet. Your life has changed. And that usually means you need to tighten your belt nutritionally.

The same goes for supplements. Maybe you didn't need this benefit before, but now it's different. And after you pass 40, a funny thing happens: you start thinking about the length and quality of your life and it's no longer all about how muscular or how strong you are.

Maybe your supplementation used to be just a pre-workout product for more power on leg day. But now you're thinking more about not contracting a preventable disease at 55. If I had to choose supplements for long-term use, it would be things like fish oil capsules and superfoods. These would be the staples of my toolbox.

Fill your toolbox with different training and nutrition strategies. If your favorite tool stops working or gets lost, you'll have many more options. Are you under 40? Then forget the dogmas and start filling your toolbox. Our blog is your toolbox.

- Chris Shugart

Recalibrate your goals

Let's say you started training in 1986 and from day one you were looking forward to bench pressing 150 kilos and looking like Arnold in his prime. Now 30 years have passed and you're still training 5 days a week, but your best bench press is 120 kilos and your flabby body weighs just 80 kilos. It's time to realize that you're chasing a dream that will never come true.

It's one thing to set lofty goals, but it's quite another to set completely unrealistic goals that you'll never achieve. You're better off objectively recognizing where you are and thinking about what you can realistically achieve with smart, hard work and a smart, coordinated plan.

Does this mean you should give up on having significant goals? No. Does it mean you should ignore any goals and go into maintenance mode until the end? Of course not. It's just that as you get older, certain things are no longer achievable.

A mass-building phase is a particular problem, as older exercisers put on fat more easily when there is a calorie surplus. And decades of training will have taken their toll on at least one major joint, affecting your performance and making heavy training generally problematic.

This is not to say that every exerciser over 40 is a fragile cripple. Countless powerlifters, bodybuilders and CrossFit athletes in the Masters class are proof to the contrary.

It simply means that as a graying exerciser who has been training for many years, you simply won't make the giant leaps in mass and strength gains that you once did. Ignoring this fact will lead to poorer progress or injury.

You can't always achieve everything you want, but if you try to choose your goals realistically, you will achieve what you need.

- Chris Colucci

Don't miss the second part of this article with more interesting advice.

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/expert-advice-for-the-over-40-lifter