After 40 club

[Barkadion]

Kevin Levrone is 52. I know, I know.. drugs and all that jazz .. but still..

Nice. But I'd love to see a side-by-side before and after pic of his heart.

Haha, right. But it is so easy to get heartbroken

[Barkadion]

Not sure I'm making sense. I think this is the right tool to get there. We just need to scale its application.

You are making perfect sense. I agree completely. Scaling the application is an art. Art of living if you will. Training is a living in a way. Applying it to yourself properly can be challenging. I am learning a lot along the road. And I like that.

[Corax]

I recently read that Wendler's new book will have quite some content geared towards older lifters and staying healthy in the long run. The man himself is getting older too, and I think he's mostly doing 2 days per week training. Interestingly, he's experimenting with strength circuits too and had some templates on his forum (was a member for a short while).

[Barkadion]

I recently read that Wendler's new book will have quite some content geared towards older lifters and staying healthy in the long run. The man himself is getting older too, and I think he's mostly doing 2 days per week training. Interestingly, he's experimenting with strength circuits too and had some templates on his forum (was a member for a short while).

This is from Jim's form and from the man himself. It does sound to me like TB approach by all means.

https://jimwendler.com/blogs/jimwendler ... der-lifter

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Q/A - Advice for an Older Lifter

Feb 15, 2016

Question:

I know there are a lot of variables to this question but do you find that older lifters (over 55) respond better to full body training 2 days a week or focusing on one main lift a day 4 days a week?

Answer:

It doesn't matter at all - for any lifter. People get so caught up in this stuff, and I totally understand why, but it doesn't matter at all. Just like where you put the bar when you squat, what kind of grip you take on chins/pull-ups, casein vs. whey...I should write an article on this. Just a lot of bickering and ridiculousness. Anyway, with an older lifter there are a couple things that need to be addressed/looked at. First is recovery - that is BY FAR the most important issue. I've written numerous things about recovery, its importance and what to do - in fact we have a whole guidelines for what to do for the 5/3/1 program. But regardless of what program you use, you must follow the basic guidelines of recovery. (and no, none of them cost any money or require you to tell a therapist your bad dreams while submerged in cold water). Stress is stress and you have to be able to recover from it regardless of if you do full body, etc. Within the scope of recovery is sleep, diet, mobility/flexibility and aerobic work. The second thing is injuries - usually prior injuries that restrict the lifter. You have to be able to program around and through them. Third is hypertrophy or HYPERtrophy (depending on the accent emphasis) - we lose muscle mass at an alarming rate when we get older. This doesn't mean that you have to be a bodybuilder or anything remotely close. This gets covered even when doing a "low rep" program or whatever it's called but this ties into the final point.... Fourth is understanding the role of assistance work. For an older lifter, assistance is very important as it can allow him/her to work more without a ton of stress to the body. This can be accomplished a variety of ways but needs to be addressed. Assistance work for an older lifter doesn't have to be "normal" exercises, rather movements: agility ladder, jumping rope, cone drills - stuff that gets your body to do shit you normally wouldn't do. The more you train like an "athlete" (balance, not just lifting) the better, stronger and healthier you will be. Your body is like your brain; you need to challenge it in different ways or you will become physically stupid. Training should be functional (squat, deadlift, press) and also include unfunctional movements - these are things you normally don't do in training or even life that can help you stay healthier (agility, mobility). The latter is done to make the former easier. You don't need to spend more than 10 minutes/day on the unfunctional stuff to reap the benefits. So do whatever program you want - I HIGHLY encourage people to change things up while keeping the same principles. Have some fun. If the effort and principles remain the same, you will thrive.

[Saracen]

Assistance work for an older lifter doesn't have to be "normal" exercises, rather movements: agility ladder, jumping rope, cone drills - stuff that gets your body to do shit you normally wouldn't do. The more you train like an "athlete" (balance, not just lifting) the better, stronger and healthier you will be.

Assistance work doesn't have to be normal exercises.

This is what KB's been preaching all along with the view that conditioning can be the accessory work that fills in the gaps of your max-strength barbell program. HICs, SE, kb swings, GCs all act as accessory work.

[Barkadion]

We've been discussing lifting after 40 and up. OK. Makes sense. But what about conditioning?

It seems to be still beneficial according to the study. But yes, of course it is better to start in eariler age.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 050514.php

"Despite biological changes with age, the heart still seems - even at the age of 40 - amenable to modification by endurance training. Starting at the age of 40 does not seem to impair the cardiac benefits"

[WallBilly]

We've been discussing lifting after 40 and up. OK. Makes sense. But what about conditioning?
. . . .

Strength training without conditioning = better than sitting on your ass.

Conditioning without strength training = better than sitting on your ass.

But the combo is needed for real health and vitality. What good does it do you to be strong as an ox and chiseled, if you can't play a sport for more than 10 minutes with your kids or grandkids without getting winded? Past the cardio system, the muscles need more than just weights for real life functioning.

Last summer I let my conditioning slip for about 4 months but continued to lift and get strong. Went for a bike ride with some buddies in August on a bit of a hilly 26 mile course that I had done many times in the past with no problem. I almost died. Had to walk the bike up 3 hills. The legs would not do it, even though they'd been squatting and deadlifting heavy for 2 years.

That's why the TB philosophy shines. Health = strength + conditioning.

[Aelian]

But the combo is needed for real health and vitality. What good does it do you to be strong as an ox and chiseled, if you can't play a sport for more than 10 minutes with your kids or grandkids without getting winded? Past the cardio system, the muscles need more than just weights for real life functioning.

See that's funny, I think of it as exactly opposite, that you can't get chiseled without conditioning. Most people I see that only lift just look stocky and sorta fat to me.

[TBPenguin]

We've been discussing lifting after 40 and up. OK. Makes sense. But what about conditioning?

It seems to be still beneficial according to the study. But yes, of course it is better to start in eariler age.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 050514.php

"Despite biological changes with age, the heart still seems - even at the age of 40 - amenable to modification by endurance training. Starting at the age of 40 does not seem to impair the cardiac benefits"

Now if only the gonads would do the same. KB's reminder of what excess conditioning will do to hormones was a good one. Does anybody have a good way of detecting practical limits, or should we just go with known minimums? For me it seems easier to tell when lifting is excessive.

[DocOctagon]

We've been discussing lifting after 40 and up. OK. Makes sense. But what about conditioning?

It seems to be still beneficial according to the study. But yes, of course it is better to start in eariler age.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 050514.php

"Despite biological changes with age, the heart still seems - even at the age of 40 - amenable to modification by endurance training. Starting at the age of 40 does not seem to impair the cardiac benefits"

Now if only the gonads would do the same. KB's reminder of what excess conditioning will do to hormones was a good one. Does anybody have a good way of detecting practical limits, or should we just go with known minimums? For me it seems easier to tell when lifting is excessive.

I don't think you have to worry about this unless it's excessive. People tend to overestimate what "excessive" is as it relates to cardio. If you run a few marathons every year, you're probably at risk. Running LSS 30-45 minutes 3-5 x week isn't going to do it and in fact will probably help by reducing fat, lowering RHR (more relaxed = less cortisol), and enhancing brain dopamine.

Short HIC sessions should only help. Brief high intensity efforts increase both testosterone and growth hormone. Studies abound.

Doing 2-5 two hour LSS runs per week on the other hand, probably shouldn't be your bread and butter unless you're preparing for special operations or endurance racing.