I’d totally lift weights except for one rather weird concern: My neck is already abnormally thick. Family, neighbors and others have commented about it. I’m afraid that if I get into weightlifting my neck would somehow get even thicker and more muscular and then I’d really look odd.
I enjoy brushing my teeth. It’s like a little massage. We’re all wired differently.
On reviewing my list, I did not say strength training was unpleasant, but I did say it was hard and somewhat painful. Not that it matters, of course.
I’ve thought about the motivation issue before, and decided that the couch potato and the active athlete are both motivated by the same thing: pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. It’s just the perception of what that means that is different.
A person may prefer to lay around and eat junk food because being slothful is pleasurable, whereas exercise is uncomfortable.
But, another person may see laying around as leading to long term health issues, or feel uncomfortable with a lethargic body (I, for one, don’t like the feeling of fat increasing around my belly), and they may be able to trigger endorphins after a sprint or heavy set.
When I’m at the gym, I see some people who look downright bored. I expect that those people won’t last.
But I’ve also seen people who are clearly enjoying the experience (I recall one guy - with a huge upper body - who would “bark” between sets). There’s an energy to a good gym when it’s busy which others might seek out at a club.
Getting your heart pumping, you skin flush, and feeling your muscles ready to jump out of your skin is invigorating. Channeling life’s frustrations into the strain of moving dumbbells or barbells can be therapeutic.
When you add to it the collection of fit people in scant clothing (forgive me for acknowledging it, but there are some of the most attractive people at the gym, and it can be a positive feature of going to see them) and the the music playing in your ears, it can be a nice respite from the rest of the day.
Except those times I’ve injured myself, I’ve never left the gym after a workout in a bad mood. I believe the science behind the endorphin release is real.
It’s not just something to endure, and that’s true for legions of regular gym goers.
There is also CrossFit which proves the theory it is better to suffer in groups. Many CrossFitters have shoulder or knee pain much of the time and some of the exercises are ludicrously hard on the joints.
But wth some peer pressure and.group encouragement, it is pretty remarkable what some people can do. Every workout pushes you hard.
I think it does. People do lots of things that are hard but fun, or painful but fun. And as @Moriarty points out, lots of people enjoy working out, despite it being hard and painful. And others don’t enjoy it, but find it boring or actively unpleasant. That who needs to find some other way to motivate themselves.
That’s a fair point.
My above description slightly glosses over the difference between muscle growth and both functional and non-functional muscle hypertrophy. But, as an old prof used to say, “it’s good enough for government work”.
It also glosses over the fact that you have to work harder to stay in the same place as you age. But it is good news that you CAN stay in more or less the same place,. If you work hard enough.
Most people over 65 don’t push themselves at all, a mere 10 percent. The point is it is possible to stay in the same place, even exceed this, with modest effort. Most people don’t even know that’s true, and possible, and even wise.
Piling on here, but the point, the to me pretty shock point, really is that it really does NOT take that much effort, to even make similar relative levels of gains.
But that without that very modest effort the declines come pretty fast and furious.
FWIW - I personally had gotten into a bit of a rut, more often just doing the elliptical while streaming a show and being light on the strength training. Some, but much less than I had once done. I had just recently gotten back into running (motivated by a need to keep my part Border part Aussie more content with 3 too 6 mile runs a few times a week in addition to working on training, in response to his destructive chewing up furniture phase), and now this thread has motivated me to hit the strength side a bit more seriously again. So thank you @Dr_Paprika for the motivation providing this information provides! Not yet in the over 65 group, but closing fast …
I know I’ve posted here in the past, but a relatively new reason for me that I DO lift weights is for dealing with aches and pains. I find that a lot of pains are caused by weakness or imbalances that can be improved with strength building exercise. I know others have mentioned opposite results, but I always feel better mentally and physically with semi-regular strength exercise. Some people might not feel like exercising because they lack energy or motivation, but for me lifting (btw, for me this is mostly very light weights and nothing about “living in the gym” or needed complicated expensive equipment) brings the energy and motivation.
Things like knee pain are often caused by muscle imbalances. Exercise often helps. Exercise helps energize too, but doing it too much is fatiguing and partial recovery after weightlifting is important. Even serious natural lifters are generally better off doing it every other day after the first year or two.
Interesting. One of the other things I took up last year is running. I don’t have great knees. I had knee surgeries in my teens. But because I started with strength training, I have had zero issues with my knees while running. And I’m a heavy person (“running” may be a generous way to describe what I’m doing.)
I’m with @actualliberalnotoneofthose . I hurt less when I strength train.
I’m curious what your take is on weight lifting and fat loss. I have found the two are often at odds with one another. I did drop a size early in the process, but I found it very difficult to gain muscle or make much progress in my strength gains while trying to lose fat. I did have some gains - as evidenced by how I can haul in giant bags of groceries more easily. But nothing dramatic.
Since getting sick over the last six weeks, I only exercised sporadically. And when I did strength training, I dramatically reduced the amount of time I was putting in. I’m getting back in the swing of things this week, and I really don’t see much difference between strength training for 40 minutes or 20 minutes - which is at least consistent with the research on diminishing returns for strength gains. I had a really hard time getting myself to the mat, so I decided a 20 minute routine I complete is better than a 40 minute routine I never start. But the strange thing is, in December I dropped 5-7 pounds. I’m not positive it’s fat loss, but I do feel a bit slimmer. But whether I can attribute that to taking the emphasis off of strength training or just eating less by nature of being sick, I can’t say.
It seems to me, based on what I’ve read, the primary function of strength training when you’re trying to lose fat is to prevent muscle loss, but it’s not realistic to expect to get that much stronger while you’re trying to lose fat.* Does that track with your knowledge of things?
*I hadn’t been really trying to lose fat. I think I took the attitude of, if it happens, it happens. But while I was trying to eat for strength training, it did not happen.
What were you trying to eat for strength training? I lift weights and pull on bands and support my body in non-standard ways to try to keep up my strength, but I don’t think of diet as being part of that.
Mostly trying to cram in as much protein as I could. I was eating mostly vegetarian trying to shift toward vegan which made it particularly difficult. Now I eat 50/50. A lot of my meals are vegan or seafood. The seafood gives me a bump. But practically speaking, as I understand it, if you want to gain muscle, you have to eat more calories than you burn - I found that very difficult without gaining weight.
Eventually I came to the conclusion that whatever health benefits I would gain from eating strictly vegan or vegetarian, I’d gain far more benefits from losing fat. So I try not to stress about protein as much.
(Again, I’m not counting calories or actively trying to lose fat, so much as trying to make a habit of behaviors that will eventually get me there.)
I think “gaining muscle” and “gaining strength” are different goals, even if related. Working the muscles you already have can improve your strength, without gaining muscle mass.
Anyhow, I love protein foods, and have a high protein, high meat diet, so I suppose I’ve never been in a position to worry about whether I was eating enough protein to support my muscles.
Most people don’t have to worry about it.
But the protein intake recommended for muscle gain is very high if you are trying to burn more than you eat. Damn near impossible for me because I’m on the smaller side (fat notwithstanding) so my baseline caloric needs are pretty low. Even getting 120g of protein a day (the lower end of the recommended range for my needs) when you really shouldn’t be eating more than 2000 calories a day is very difficult on a vegan diet. I was lucky to get 90g.
huh. Looking up the nutritional value of lentils, one of my favorite vegan dishes (probably because it’s fairly rich in protein. Did I mention I like protein?) it looks like 120 grams of protein comes with 1500 calories. That would be a pretty large serving, and not leave much room for other food.
I’m not a nutritionist, but fwiw, I’m seeing much lower recommended amounts of protein on-line. Google tells me “school aged kids need 19-34 grams, teenage boys need up to 52 grams a day. Teenage girls need 46 gams a day. Adult men need 56 grams a day.” Those numbers all look weirdly precise to me, and I didn’t dig down to see where they are from. But they seem a lot more achievable in a vegan diet.
Precise numbers like that crack me up! Sometimes to decimal places. It’s people not communicating or not realizing that the numbers are calculated with assumptions which if not totally pulled out of thin air are with wide plus minus estimates.
Weightlifting is not at odds with fat loss. Strength training is not at odds with fat loss. Significant fat loss is however very difficult to accomplish if someone is trying to gain significant amounts muscle mass as the prime goal, which is why professional bodybuilders go through phases of building mass with excess calories then cutting fat for the competition. Strength is bit more complicated as only one portion of that is due to increased muscle mass and some, especially in early phases, is due to neuromuscular adaptions (controlling how the different motor units coordinate).
That said, yes, without strength training a calorie deficit will result in muscle mass as well as fat mass loss.
But more to the specific question, for someone who is not in the bodybuilding circuit and not running at a major calorie deficit, strength training does result in improved body composition, including less %body fat, less total body fat mass, and perhaps most importantly, less of the most unhealthy visceral body fat.
Another article that may be of interest -
https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/141/9/1626/4630649
The control groups were 15% of daily energy from protein (55 carb 30 fat); the high protein high dairy group 30% protein (40 carb 30 fat). All ran at energy deficits from average of -435 in the high protein high dairy (HPHD) group, to -498 in the adequate protein low dairy (APLD) group. Protein grams/kg ran from 1.32 to 0.72 in the HPHD and APLD groups respectively.
So eat some Greek yogurt maybe?