Over 60 Athlete

Helloo,
So, my old man just turned 64 a couple of months ago,
in his past, my dad was a champion in handball and has coached many teams into beating championships, some of which were recent, say 8 years ago.
he was one of the strongest guys around, namely pressing a 150 pound dumbbell over head with no momentum.

However, he has spent most of the past 8 years working hard as a teacher and neglecting himself, at times he went out at 4:30 am and came back at 12am., almost 20 hours spent working, this has gone on for years. he also has type 2 diabetes.

Recently , say 3 years ago, he started losing alot of his muscle and adding fat.
now he wants to get back in the game and go back to weight lifting.
my question is as follows.

what routine, exercises etc would you reccomend for him? I was thinking of introducing him to hte stronglifts 5x5 program, but am not sure whats good for him at his age. please please share whatever knowledge you have,

also, what do you guys recommend for nutrition and supplements?

I was thinking of getting him on hormone boosting products such as ZMA and some growth hormone increasers, please if anyone has experience on this, i would be very thankful.

thanks in advance.

I just posted this 30 sec ago in another thread so I’ll copy it here.

I’ve been taking my dad with me this summer. He is 65. There haven’t really been any major issues. I started him out with something like the Reg Park 5x5 program you can find on here. The first two sets are progressively heavier warm ups. Then only 3 short working sets. This really seemed to be enough warm up since he didn’t have the technical proficiency to lift enough to hurt himself. The main things I did different with him was use a trap bar for dead lifts. The neutral grip and more upright stance is easier.

I remember overhead presses being an issue cause the empty bar was too heavy so we switched to dumbbells. He’s got some balance issues so that didn’t work out so well either so switched again to Hammer strength shoulder press. After a couple months we switched to a 3x10 scheme and let him back on the machines focusing on increasing weight every week for a couple of more months. I’ve started a DC Program and he has stopped progressing on his current program so mon morn I’ll put him back in the free wight section on the same program I’m doing but with the 5x5 set rep scheme above and see what happens.

Hopefully some of that helps but my main advice is take it real easy the first couple of weeks and focus on learning as much as lifting. Expect that learning curve to be longer than you think, and be flexible. If an exercise or machine hurts or isn’t working try something else. pick a few of the ones that work best and gradually add in more. It’s more important to make it a lifelong pursuit than have the perfect program today.

pick a few of the ones that work best and gradually add in more. It’s more important to make it a lifelong pursuit than have the perfect program today.

I guess your right, well, god willing i will be starting him off soon, i just need to get him to the doctor to get tests to insure his healthy enough to undertake such program

thanks.

Pick a Beginner Program and treat him like a beginner because of the long layoff.