It’s nice to have an over 35 forum, I check it out from time to time. However, at age 65, I just don’t identify with lifters aged 35-55.
I think there is probably quite a few people of your age bracket who do lurk, but don’t comment for the same reason.
I don’t think there’d be enough interest for a designated forum, but maybe you should start a thread on here where all the over 60’s can comment or log their training communally.
[quote]jpleahy wrote:
at age 65, I just don’t identify with lifters aged 35-55. [/quote]
Why?
I peruse logs of people who are 25+ years younger than I and often glean interesting information.
Many of us have limitations we have to work around. Age in and of itself isn’t necessarily a limitation. My coach/training partner is 73.
[quote]kpsnap wrote:
[quote]jpleahy wrote:
at age 65, I just don’t identify with lifters aged 35-55. [/quote]
Why?
I peruse logs of people who are 25+ years younger than I and often glean interesting information.
Many of us have limitations we have to work around. Age in and of itself isn’t necessarily a limitation. My coach/training partner is 73.[/quote]
Hopefully, as some of you closer to 35 guys continue to train, you’ll see the benefit of a Over 60 forum. We can learn from younger guys for sure, but I have children 36 years old so I get the point.
I hope all you younger guys continue to train into your 60’s and beyond, but the time for this will come.
I do get it. Just trying to encourage logging regardless of age.
Why not ask the mods for an over 50 or over 60 forum? I don’t know why they wouldn’t oblige.
Wait - this forum stops at age 55? Damn, I’d better get off then.
I am 66 and follow the over 35 forum. I am in a strength building phase now after working on endurance this winter.
I do squats, dead lifts, presses etc. Even though I am 66 I can do 3 sets of 10 pull ups with perfect form.
I am working my way up to 3 sets of 12-15. I do the pull ups with 5 minutes rest between sets.
Since I am an avid cyclist (I have multiple bike disorder) I keep my weight at 2.1 pounds per inch of height.
I rely on pull ups to give me an accurate portrait of my strength to weight ratio.
I am 65 with serious health issues. My doctor however, has encouraged me to strength train as well as do aerobics to improve my overall health. I have a weight training background but have become a couch potato in recent years.
What I need is help designing a program for someone my age. I’m primarily interested in factual information on sets, reps and frequency, total sets. Obviously, I’m not interested in muscle size, just functional strength and general well-being. I go to a gym now so have access to all equipment needed.
Thanking you in advance for all responses.
[quote]rodzilla wrote:
I am 65 with serious health issues. My doctor however, has encouraged me to strength train as well as do aerobics to improve my overall health. I have a weight training background but have become a couch potato in recent years.
What I need is help designing a program for someone my age. I’m primarily interested in factual information on sets, reps and frequency, total sets. Obviously, I’m not interested in muscle size, just functional strength and general well-being. I go to a gym now so have access to all equipment needed.
Thanking you in advance for all responses.[/quote]
Studies have shown older (55 and up) respond best to more volume of weight lifting rather than lifting heavier weight. If your heart is up to that, it would be the best advice. Do four to six sets of bench press with a weight that wears you down by twelve to sixteen repetitions. Listen to your body, do more or less depending on how you feel.
Work up to weight slowly and allow ligaments time to catch up. Always warm up with lighter weight before getting into your sets.
Work lower body one day and upper body the next. Depending on your shape you can do this five days a week. Listen to your body and push a little at a time. Before you know it that horrible weak feeling will have left your memory.
Your important lifts are squats, dead lifts and bench press. They use multiple muscles. Don’t fart around doing twenty curls with dumb bells and 10 minutes walking around your local WalMart store and think that’s a good program. It might be if you’re dying.
Walking or light running can never be underestimated, just do more than walking up store isles. I say this because I hear so many older men mention this as some sort of gauge and it may be, if YOU’RE DYING. You’re body rids itself of toxins through sweat and it is a sign that you are taxing your heart somewhat. Do it but be smart about it.
Don’t forget to eat good whole foods, lots of turkey, chicken and fish. Forget spam and those biscuits and gravy. Remember your super foods like broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms, bananas, etc…
Also the ability to go down to the floor and get back up is a gauge of what sort of shape you are in. Practice that daily. That way when you finally are up in age and fall it won’t such a shock as to how weak those muscles are in lifting yourself to a standing position.
Take your daily low dose aspirin and remember there is no quick fix. Just don’t give up without giving it the old college try.
all good advice cdog, thanks for the excellent post
Rodzilla I also try to mix in fun exercises. For me that means cycling and swimming.
[quote]wideangle wrote:
Since I am an avid cyclist (I have multiple bike disorder) [/quote]
Ooh…ooh…What bike have you got?
I’m really in to cycling right now. It’s addictive…not just the riding bit, but the overwhelming compulsion to buy loads of really expensive bits just to shave a few grams off the weight of your bike!!
[quote]FarmerBrett wrote:
[quote]wideangle wrote:
Since I am an avid cyclist (I have multiple bike disorder) [/quote]
Ooh…ooh…What bike have you got?
I’m really in to cycling right now. It’s addictive…not just the riding bit, but the overwhelming compulsion to buy loads of really expensive bits just to shave a few grams off the weight of your bike!! [/quote]
I have a Rocky Mt Solo 30 for the road, A Connondale MTB and an REI Safari hybrid fir touring.
I walked into the gym yesterday and saw a mid-50’s year old lady doing power cleans…gotta love that shit.
Hi Everyone,
I posted this on another site about 3 day a week workouts. Here is my 2 cents and it regards to age.
I?m over 60 and I?ve been using a full body workout 3 days a week for years. Years ago I tried split routines but my time was limited and couldn?t workout 5 or 6 days a week. Also I never recovered adequately nor made the progress everyone else seemed to make.
I made great progress with this system. I vary my exercises and amount of sets every 4 to 6 weeks. I?ll go heavy with low reps, and I?ll go light with high reps. I?ll interject super sets, drop sets, rest pause, super slow, I?ll hold the muscle at the peak contraction and lower very slowly and anything else I can to confuse my muscles from getting used to what I am throwing at them.
On another note, using this system for years has kept me injury free. My friends are always complaining about muscle tears, rotator cuff problems, and back soreness. Some have had knee replacements and torn meniscus.
I plan to keep doing this and staying as young and injury free for the rest of my life.
By the way, I train in my garage and sometimes go to a local gym to use equipment I don?t own.
14 Sep 2013
I am 66 and have been training (for a healthy lifestyle and not competition) for a number of years. Post almost daily in the Indigo Project Log and love the sport. Biotest supplements have proven excellent for the way I am wired and train. Not worried at all about age, and enjoy reading the posts of all.
Yes, I am aggressive and do create more recoverable injuries that most. Thus am not injury free, but that is expected. Whenever I am in the recovery mode from a surgical or non-surgical injury, my training methodologies change completely. Just a common sense approach to the sport. As the rehab progresses and the body can handle more stress, then the training sets, reps, and poundage increase accordingly.
And I do not perform a lot of the training movements the younger lifters perform regularly. No squats under ninety degrees, no behind the neck presses or pulldowns, no ring work, no jumping, etc. This old fart must keep as a focal point his range of motion and joint wear and tear leaves a lot to be desired.
Just my two cents. Now I need a double shot of single malt.
This is a very relevant thread for me. Like to see more.
Josann has those pics of Arnold now and then. What I’d like to see in the muscle mags is frank info by and about aging weightlifters, bodybuilders and other athletes. But those mags cater to the youth crowd and info about the long term effects of weight training and problems of aging don’t fit in.
Surgeries and sagging body parts and disability are not glam or profitable enough for the Weider/Kennedy/Blechman media empires.
Arnold isn’t talking about his joint problems as far as I know because he has an image to keep up and there’s money to be made, but it would be more interesting than the training pablum that is dished out under his name. Is Dave Draper is the only one to blog candidly about aging and training?
One of my fav bodybuilders was Franco Columbo. He produced and starred in a movie a few years back set in his native Corsica. Interesting movie for the scenery but for little else . And Franco moved like his joints were frozen up. No trace of the boxer he used to be. I’d like to hear the chiropractor talk unreservedly about his aging process.
Point being not that lifting is harmful, but that our idols of past years who dispensed so much advice (or for whom ghost writers dispensed advice) and set an example for supposed health have let us down on how they are really doing after 50.
Conservativedog,
I will agree with you. At my age when I go to the mall or a restaurant, or just about any place for that matter I look better than 90% of the people. And that is all ages. People just do not seem to care how they look any more. The population is badly out of shape.
It takes hard work and persistence to train, always had. I guess that is why not enough people do it. Working out makes you feel alive and the last time I checked, it is the closest thing to the fountain of youth.
Dave Draper seems to be the only guy honest, open, and realistic about aging and lifting. I can’t rrelate to the 40 year old who brags that “age is just a number.” Of course it is, but that’s not what we are talking about. $0 is not even the begining of what we are talking about here. Good training, quality of life, muscle, fitness, etc is possible but training is different after 50-60.
I just realized that at 591/2 now I can start deducting IRA money without penalty. Scary thought that is going to get me out the door today to train. Look forward to another 20 30 years of this, but gotta train smarter.