Apart from having to drop heavy weight that involved my hips, my workout is pretty much the same. At 64 years of age I had both hips replaced. Doctor’s orders was to not hold more than 100lbs while standing. That rule made drastic changes in bent over rows, deadlifts, squats, and leg presses. Before then the bent over rows and squats were two of my main strength gauges. My left shoulder is totally inoperable for all presses except dips, which is now a primary strength gauge.
I try to lift “heavy” on all lifts. But I am just not “strong”. At least not remotely as strong as I was.
Studywise re sarcopenia, looking at several reviews on PubMed they conclude that strength training is beneficial (no surprise). That being said, they have a hard time deciding what type of training is best, though “high intensity training” (defined as >90% of 1 RM) was better than “low intensity training” (>70% of 1RM) in one serious german study. It has to be demanding to be effective, which in my interpretation, may talk in favor for Darden’s definition of HIT. No mention of frequency in the abstract.
Re pharmaceuticals the only proven beneficial were D-vitamin (studied on women with really low levels) and testosterone (on men with low T). About 20% of men above the age of 70 has low T. Supplementation of extra whey protein differs between studies, but did not prove any advantage in a double blind study of elderly trainees.
A bit disappointing that myostatin inhibitors didn’t work out during research. Worth mentioning is the years to pass before a final product for the masses become available - after preclinical studies has proven successful.
I saw one small study proposing SARMs (Ostarine and another lengthy series of numbers) as a safer alternative to AS, but more research is needed.
For what it’s worth, I do recall reading some research that training a muscle more frequently was more effective for older trainees. I’m not sure if it’s true or not or the application for that matter, but I could see that maybe being the case. Use it or lose it?
That is interesting! I think my calves aren’t nearly as thick as they used to be. For awhile, I thought it might have to do with not running any more (bad knee). Now seems more likely a function of age. But I hadn’t really thought about how the structure of the muscle might have changed.
I mentioned on another thread that I had come across a number of studies on the effect of age on muscle performance, using mice as subjects. The paper that I will link to at the bottom of the post provides an nice overview (albeit long and dense) as to some of the things that have been observed.
Of particular interest to this group: The studies suggest that as muscles age, the therapeutic window for exercise gets narrower. A 3x per week training regime which produces clear benefits for young mice muscle produces no benefit, or even decreased performance, when applied to older muscle. But reducing the training to twice a week, and benefits are again seen in older mice:
"These reports provided evidence that a general SSC RTET employed 3 days per week over a 1-month period repeatedly resulted in skeletal muscle performance decrements with no improvements in skeletal muscle quality in old rodents (i.e., 30 months of age). More recently, Rader and colleagues have conducted follow-up work that extended from those initial findings and have reported that when SSC RTET was implemented in old rodents that included both the 3 days per week RTET group and compared this with a 2 days per week RTET group over a 1-month period, the old rodents that underwent 2 days per week RTET adapted and were indistinguishable from their younger counterparts and, notably, had their skeletal muscle quality restored to that of a youthful state.”
They subsequently state that:
“ In these fundamental in vivo studies, it has been established that skeletal muscle quality is modifiable with increasing age; yet, these data suggest that the RTET prescription or mechanical loading paradigm must be precisely prescribed in order to achieve these benefits (i.e., increased function, skeletal muscle mass, skeletal muscle quality, etc.) for all outcomes predicted, particularly in aged populations. Also, these studies emphasize that there is a very narrow “window” involving both the specificity and sensitivity of these physical/mechanical loading variables with respect to an RTET exposure–response relationship with aging, and that particularly frequency of exposure, rather than mode or repetition number, may be the more precise variable for consideration when designing and implementing age-specific RTET in aged populations [66,85] when skeletal muscle performance, skeletal muscle mass, and skeletal muscle quality are the focal outcomes for positively affecting, and restoring, health-span.”
I will also note that these researchers seem to favor a specific kind of contraction, a stretch-shortening contraction (SSC) done at a relatively high intensity. That is potentially relevant to HIT training advice, since the common practice is to induce a pause at the lower turn around, specifically to disable the stretch-reflex response. The thinking is that this lowers the amount of weight you can use, and therefore is safer. But perhaps with aging muscle, it becomes more important to induce a stretch reflex response at the start of the rep, because it improves muscle fiber recruitment, something that may become impaired as the nervous system ages. (The above is purely my speculation).
Perhaps this also is relevant to Dr. Darden’s 30-10-30 program. If the reps in the middle are done at the more rapid cadence, it would be hard to avoid creating a stretch reflex response. Intentional or not, perhaps that is why Dr. Darden finds it more effective?
Of course, it is quite a stretch to prescribe exercise programs for aging humans based on laboratory studies with mice.
==Scott==
Ive been reading similar articles saying maybe it is better for old timers to train more frequently and thats fine by me as I’d like to train as often as possible but…over the holidays I had to take 11 days off from my workouts to take down all my Christmas stuff . After a week of doing so I was near exhaustion from up and down etc etc . Yesterday ( still tired as heck) I came back to workout thinking I would have lost everything and low and behold I actually went up 4 or 5 reps on the 10 part of my 30 10 30 on each exercise! I’m guessing that indicates more time off , not less?
Yes, recovery would have to be addressed accordingly. It might come down to intensity level and volume level for that matter. So, does briefer, yet more frequent sessions lead to better results versus longer, less frequent sessions? In all reality, that is a question at any age for a given trainee to ask or experiment.
For myself, even at 48 years old, I don’t train to failure any longer. But I haven’t in a while. I see more value in adjusting volume and frequency levels. Intensity level might be an 8 out of 10 on average. Occasionally, I will push it to a 9 especially on the final set. But I always leave a bit in the tank. I also do several sets per body part. So I am not pure HIT.
The varying studies done on artery constriction with very intense, heavy training has also concerned me. I would be curious of Dr. Peterson’s thoughts around this. We used to have discussions about this on the old forum.
However, I would still consider my training fairly hard, brief, and infrequent. It would be closer to HIT than “High Volume” (which I think of with even less intensity and maybe 10 to 15+ sets per muscle.).
An afterthought. It is not just the muscles that shrivel with age., So does your skin and your todger and testosterone. No amount of training will cure any of that…