I dunno. Historically, if I don’t have a purpose for it I will become neglectful and start slacking.
I don’t care to assign value to the purpose either. It could be over all health, number goals, vanity (don’t mean that in a bad way), what ever, just jave some purpose and take action in that direction.
I am 36 and I might be in the minority here, but my joint pain has always been a result of tight tissue, muscular imbalance, shitty biomechanics or from staying in “bad” positions (I.e. sitting too much).
I’ve taken extended time off from serious lifting before and it is like my joints all of a sudden start feeling shitty. I whole heartedly believe it is because I stop stretching and doing mobility type work every day— and the very thought, “Damn I’m getting old crosses my mind.”
Whenever I return to lifting and resume doing all of the extra stuff, my body feels great. I feel like our bodies are meant to work. If you work in a shitty biomechanical way though, your body will put up with it for a period of time, but eventually things will wear out quicker, you tear something, have pain, etcetera. Competition is one thing, but if you’re beating your joints up and jacking up your body in training you are doing it wrong.
I think most folks will hit a point where the training itself beats them up if they are focused on continually pushing specific movements up, for example, a powerlifting total. I’d say that this is the case even when a lifter is performing the exercises correctly. At some point the specificity and repeated lifting of heavy weights is going to beat one up.
Totally agree with you on this. You have to have some purpose and direction in training, even if it is just to make progress from wherever you happen to find yourself at the moment. Training to stay the same would just lead to moving backwards, at least for me.
Once you reach a certain age, training to stay the same is the name of the game.
There are plenty of people, even those who are not of a ‘well-seasoned’ age (sorry @eyedentist), who have a daily fitness routine that rarely changes and only serves to supplement an otherwise active and healthy lifestyle. They have no desire to lift more weight or get stronger or faster, only to maintain a certain level of healthiness.
I don’t share that mindset, but I also feel like those people probably have less issues than those of us who keep beating ourselves up to get bigger and stronger, haha. It sounds kind of freeing, in a way.
Oh well. 30 years young and 10x10 press day is tomorrow 
Over 30 is a little ridiculous. I know we all age differently but coming from a family with good aging genes I didn’t really hit my peak in size/strength until I was 45 yrs old. Of course it took me a very long time to learn what worked for me. But certainly shortly thereafter it would have been prudent of me to ease up a bit. In fact, at age 67, it’s just now finally starting to sink in since I’ve been stuck working out at home and have been limited to a maximum of 60 lb dumbbells. Up until the gym closed I was still doing 5 x 5 on the bench and 6-8 reps on most other exercises, and dealing with tendonitis and now possibly a torn labrum (awaiting MRI) Lately I’ve been doing up to 15, even 20 reps on triceps band pushdowns, and no lower than 10 reps. I think this is where I’ll stay from here on out. Of course once I’m fully healthy and the gym opens back up I’m probably dumb enough to at least still try and bench heavy :^ /
Fair enough. I’m candidly probably already there with my quads – just trying to keep the same size with what I can do for them these days. I just don’t want to admit it, so I tell myself I’m going to find a way to get back some of the size I lost. That’s a kind of progress right? 
I would argue that for most people, this is a healthier option. If your long term goal is longevity or quality of life or setting a good example (all things I think most of the regular posters here would consider important), at a certain point you’re going to be strong enough, muscular enough, lean enough and fit enough. At that point you have to look elsewhere for your longevity gains.
A lifting related example: you want to improve your squat. If your legs are strong enough to shift 1000lbs, but your core is only strong enough to support 100lbs, why would you keep hammering your legs? They aren’t the problem.
Yup, they’re likely physically healthier, and by “issues”, I meant they’re probably mentally healthier than a lot of us too cough imagedisorderseverywhere cough
Luckily, my body dysmorphia isn’t too connected to my strength levels. At some point, I’m hoping to be able to switch to a pure bodybuilding approach and eliminating the lifts that are attacking my joints.
I’m like 70% over my squat goal of four plates, but I’m still squatting. I’m a long ways from my deadlift goal but I’m pretty sure I’m playing Russian roulette now that I know that my hip joint is built to destroy itself. The tentative plan is to push til I’m 40 and see what I achieve. Doc said stay at or above parallel with my hip flexion so I think I’m okay with deads for now.
The good news is that there is always a way to train. The bad news is that I hate the higher rep/lower weight stuff like 4x15. I’ll probably end up doing ore exhaust stuff instead.
@Christian_Thibaudeau has a great article: Realistic Gains after 40. It has given me a really positive outlook on focusing on certain lifts over limited periods while maintaining others, and limiting volume.
If you follow Elitefts on Facebook, they have been posting a LOT of lifters that need to get real recently. These were the first 2 I saw.
Those guys just don’t freakin listen.
But man, I don’t know if it gets any more real than a 950lb bench in a full meet.
Dave Ricks deserves a mention, squatting over 700 raw at 60 years old. Here he is with 639x5.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B6exId-AhAS/
I think if you stay healthy you can still keep making progress to around 50 years old, there are a handful of guys who are at their strongest over 50. The thing is injuries and drugs, if you are all beat up in your 30’s then there is no way you will last another 20 years and for guys who use PEDs, that will take a toll on you if you are blasting a few times a year for decades. I don’t know what the hell Ricks is doing to manage this, but he’s certainly not your average lifter.
This was going to my question. I’m 35 and feel like in racing the clock. But if I got 10-15 years I’ll learn some more patience.
Mate I’m 30 and I feel that way sometimes.
Can always look to Mark Felix, who didn’t get started in strongman until he was 37. There’s something to be said about longevity in starting late, as it means you don’t have years of accumulated fatigue and injuries to contend with.
I question who was this article was targeted towards.
