I’m 50 years old and have been lifting, running and biking for the last 30 years to keep in shape, I’m 6ft 2in, 205 lbs. I just completed my first marathon this fall and would like to try to do 1-2 per year (to complete, not compete). I would also like to keep or maybe gain a bit of weight, but at my age I want to be real careful that any weight I put on is muscle. My thought is to be able to run a marathon, but put on muscle, I would do something like this:
I’m 55. I trained for four years as a teenager and made some good gains on a split routine so when I started training again two years ago, I went back to the familiar split routine I knew from before. Needless to say, at 55 my gains weren’t nearly what they were when I was a teenager even though I felt like I was training just as hard.
After doing a lot of reading, I decided to drop the split routine and go with full body workouts. I saw a significant difference within a month. In three months of full body workouts three days a week, I added as much lean body mass as I had in a year of doing splits four days a week. Everyone is different, but I’m convinced that full body workouts are far superior to splits for most people.
Your nutrition is going to be critical. I keep a daily food log because I’ve found that it is really easy to under/over estimate exactly how many calories I’m getting every day unless I keep track. It also helps me stay clean when I know I’m writing it all down.
I’ve also seen better gains by being careful about pre and post workout nutrition and supplementing with BCAAs.
To be a top tennis player, you have to have a total game. You can’t be great if your only really good shot is your forehand. So it goes with pretty much everything in life and to be good at building muscle, you’ll need to be good at all of it as well. Training, nutrition, and recovery all have to be maximized.
I do a split routine because I have a limited time each day to be in the gym (mornings)due to work and family commitments. How much time do you spend on your full body workouts?
[quote]john2009 wrote:
I do a split routine because I have a limited time each day to be in the gym (mornings)due to work and family commitments. How much time do you spend on your full body workouts?[/quote]
You have 45-60 minutes alloted for your weight training. That is plenty of time to do a full body workout.
I think you are a bit ambitious with your training. Everyone is different, but with all that cardio and workouts, you would have to absolutely maximize rest and food to make positive gains. 3 even 2 full body workouts a week would be plenty. Also, to fit into your marathon ambitions, it would be much more practical. It also fits into your fitness lifestyle much more than your prescribed specialization workout.
I do my full body workouts in just under an hour including warmup.
Full body workouts aren’t the same as doing all your splits in one session. With full body, you do fewer sets per exercise. Check out www.hypertrophy-specific.com
With a split, you’re training your legs once a week. I’m training my legs three times a week.
Try it and see for yourself. There is no such thing as the one optimal workout, so you should be trying different things all the time anyway. Give HST an honest try for a month or two and see how it works for you.
I like that you are doing strength specific cardio (sled drags, etc) as that will be the least catabolic form of cardio you can do. However, leading up to the marathon, you are going to have to cut back on the lifting and start focusing on the running.
why not cut out the marathon and start competing in something that wouldn’t require such a conflict. like racquetball, powerlifting, outrigging, etc. Don’t think that a marathon is the only activity you can complete/compete in at your age. if you’ve done one marathon that is enough.
Congrats on the marathon. I finished my first half in Dec and plan to run the full in Chicago next year. I’ve got the similiar concerns about competing in an endurance sport while maintaining size.
You could focus your winter and spring training on speed work and use this time to gain muscle. Then, in the summer and fall, increase your long runs and try to maintain your muscle gains.
[quote]Plan B wrote:
Congrats on the marathon. I finished my first half in Dec and plan to run the full in Chicago next year. I’ve got the similiar concerns about competing in an endurance sport while maintaining size.
You could focus your winter and spring training on speed work and use this time to gain muscle. Then, in the summer and fall, increase your long runs and try to maintain your muscle gains.[/quote]
Thanks, I actually did Chicago this fall. Registration opens 1/1/07, last year it filled up by 5/15. No matter how fast or slow you run there is always a bunch of people around you running and tons of spectators plus it’s really flat. I was lucky that I really didn’t lose any weight training for the race.