Paul
Re your recent article regarding age related dietry/training adjustments.
I note that the specific advice seemed to stop about 40.
What about us older codgers in our 60s and beyond still chasing the increasing /maintaining muscle, lowering body fat and keeping healthy. What further adustments would you recommend taking into account the extra years of wear and tear and talking about living with what nature dealt me here, no gear, no trt etc
Interested to hear your views.
Gazz
Same
Do any schools teach geriatrics anymore? I look forward to Pauls response to you question. I would think you just need to 2x everything a 40 year old needs. You look at carbs you lose your abs.
Oh, I’m 66
Dude at 60 there’s just not going to be a great hormonal environment in place for big muscle building. I honestly think at 60 you focus on a foundational level of strength, and allow the muscle to come to you if that’s going to happen. I’m 44 and made a promise to myself when I hit 40 I’d get shredded and start living on lower calories. I did that. When I hit 50 I will start to try and whittle myself down into the 210 range if that’s possible (I’m still 240-242 at 1900 calories most days).
You’re in your 60’s. Start focusing on the anti aging stuff. Gaining muscle requires mTOR activation which also means it’s going to age you like crazy. That doesn’t seem to be a wise choice in your 60’s.
Paul
Thanks for the response.
I agree that hormonally life gets more difficult as you age. However I still believe that I can acumulative small changes be it very modest muscle gain, leaness, or even just well being by continuing to train.
My main priority is joint health, managing existing issues, preventing new issues, and thus allowing training consistancy
Age is a game changer without doubt. Joints wear and deteriorate with arthritis and the likes and favourite exercises must be dropped in favour of workarounds and sometimes it’s necessary to workaround the workaround.
Nontheless I still love to train as hard as I can.
Not sure what you mean by the whole mtor thing. It’s not a term I’m familiar with but you seem to be saying don’t push so hard after a certain age. Is this correct? What are the aging consequences (systemic, joint, muscle breakdown?)
Thanks for you time
Gazz
i’m 51. should i also avoid mTOR activation? and how do i avoid that and continue to train? please post some links to references.
/thank you and best regards
bonoboschimp
You can’t avoid it all together lest you want to just outright die. mTOR gets turned on during significant caloric surplus from training. So if you train and eat protein, your mTOR signalling gets turned on. It’s responsible for cellular growth. That means it’s also connected to things like cancer and aging.
You want to turn it on selectively, i.e. during training and then have times where caloric intake is very low, or do some fasts.
This is why I tell guys at 50+ to stop worrying about accumulating muscle mass. Dude, you’re past that. Whatever you can build, is just going to accelerate the aging process and being in a caloric surplus at 50 years old plus? Come on, man. You’re supposed to be past that shit.
Metabolic resistance is a real thing after 40. There’s a myriad of reasons why it becomes harder to not only hold on to muscle over 40 but building new tissue after 40 is incredibly difficult. Especially if you’ve been training for any real length of time.
Worry about getting in awesome shape and putting health and wellness first.
That can go for anyone at any age!
((( Surprise ))) Most 60 year old here on this forum do not rely on natty hormones to keep or grow there build.
I look forward to reading your opinion in 15 years. I’ll bet you a beer it is not the same. There is no better place than 44 to 55 if you know what you are doing.
Once you hit the big 60 you will do whatever it takes to keep your size if you are happy with it, and it gets you laid, or to grow if you are behind.
What do you recommend training look like for someone in their 60s? Basically, I need to be able to out squat my sons into my 60s and I dont want to have to take out their knees lol
i’m 51, neurotype 3 prolly and not a single fast twitch muscle fiber in my entire body and i worry about that. but now i am confused. maybe i’m overdoing it? maybe not?
atm i train every second day, one of the following sessions
back squat total 20-25 reps at 70-75% of 1 RM (typically 5x5 at 10RM)
back squat total 20-25 reps at 70-75%
front squat total 20-25 reps at 70-75%
back squat total 20-25 reps at 70-75%
back squat try to increase 20RM (around 65-70%)
dead lift 12 singles at 80-90%
if i have any spare energy i do some pushing and pulling and maybe sled or farmers
i’m not going to increase the workload because i sometimes feel tired between sessions, but i see some progress in strength and i thought that is good enough. how can i gauge that i don’t overdo it? should i play it safe and reduce volume/intensity?
/thank you and best regards
bonoboschimp
I am 44…
How does mTOR activation affect younger lifters? I’m in my 30’s. I lift because I enjoy getting stronger and have fun doing it. But, it’s not something I want to do at the expense of long-term health.
This is how you guys don’t end up knowing what training program to follow.
Because you become obsessed with all of these nuances like this.
You’re in your 30’s. Don’t worry about this right now. See how easy that was?
i agree. still, mTOR activation might just be something that creeps up on us.
I am not a MD, but I am a healthcare professional that currently works in a hospital, ( 36 yrs now), and I read a lot of scholarly articles. The articles at time can be difficult to comprehend and often contradict with other articles. I can confidently say that healthy eating and resistance training prevents cancer and other age related disease. I believe unhealthy lifestyle contributes to cancer and disease more than anything else. Especially chronic high blood sugar levels. I haven’t’ taken care of a lean muscular patient yet. In my opinion, I would not worry about mTOR activation, the studies are done on rats and have little similarities to a proper training program and diet.
I have to agree with you there man. As far as health goes stay active, don’t eat a ton of crap and you’ll be healthier than the vast majority of the population. I’ve been a health professional for going on 12 years now and I’ve had 3 patients outside of sport medicine that were fit. All three were from accidents. 50-60% of my patients obesity or diabetes related issues are the culprits. The rest is age related l. Joint replacements DJD etc. ppl don’t need to over think this stuff. Just stay active l, train smart, eat good 9/10 Meals and don’t love on sugar and garbage in packages.
Which is why at 60, I would hope those people would hop onto TRT. I know I would at that age.
What TRT would you recommend