How old are you? One thing I found about weightlifting as I got in my 40’s is that injuries were more common and they took a long time to heal. It was more common to pull or tweak something and I would often need to plateau or reduce the weight. I’m not sure I would recommend weightlifting when you’re old because of those risks. I would think older people are probably better off with some kind of exercise which is based on total body fitness.
I am in my 40s and have managed to avoid any major injuries, a couple pulled muscles. I don’t test my one rep max very often and usually work with 60-90% of my recent maximums (which dropped 20% with the pandemic pause). Some suggest old folks like me should avoid going heavy for under 3 (even 5) reps, since most injuries occur trying 1 rep maximums.
Weights include machines, bands, dumbbells, kettlebells, etc. Improving might mean doing one more rep or adding one pound. If you added 5 lbs. a week, that’s 260 lbs. a year, starting at zero or with an empty bar should be encouraged. No one cares how much you can lift, but starting from scratch can get you pretty strong pretty quickly, if you push yourself a little consistently. But not immediately - which is what some expect.
A “rec center” is not “going to the gym”, and gym rats don’t see the folks who go to the rec center. I suspect that lots of older people do strength exercises of some sort or another, but not in the same places that Dr. Paprika hangs out.
I go to a few different gyms each with surprisingly different equipment. But I’d absolutely consider a recreation centre to be a gym. Even a pull-up bar with a large elastic band.
I’m sure many seniors do something but you are right I don’t see it much, even at the most mainstream chain gym. Maybe if I showed up at 6am they meet before breakfast?
I don’t want to end up like this guy:
I mean, our rec center has a very extensive weight room. A nicer/more varied weight room than Planet Fitness down the street. When the governor allowed gyms to re-open, but not rec centers, they removed the ping-pong table and it got classified as a gym.
But like, this thread is about weight lifting, and presumably weight lifting equipment. It’s not about how gymmy one’s gym is. And I’m telling you old people do indeed lift weights and use weight lifting equipment. Maybe not at A GYM, but they do use it at the location in my city where all of the weight lifting equipment is situated.
I have no interest in being strong, but I would like to be healthy…
…
I need to have a purpose to any exercise I do. Pick up weights, put them down, not a big change.
Even a treadmill/Nordic/stationary bike/swimming laps: get done, you’re right where you started.
See, I need something more functional.
So the exercise that I can get the most motivated by is commuting on my bike. I finish my workout, and I’m on the other side of town (right where I need to be; what are the odds?).
Understand where I’m coming from? And why quarantine hit me hard: no more commuting [sad, pudgy emoji] . So instead, I pick a small town and bike there… NOT just to turn around and come back. But I find a town with a cool coffee joint or bar: presto, a goal, and a functional bike ride!
Because I don’t want to, and I don’t have to.
Actually, the elderly very much can benefit from weight training. Maintaining bodily strength can be the difference between living in your own home independently and being stuck in a nursing home. Maintaining muscle strength helps with balance and stability, and can slow bone loss.
That said, weight lifting for the elderly is often very different than that done by 20 year olds wanting to bulk up. Weight lifting in the elderly typically uses smaller weights to reduce the chance of injury, and often is labeled “physical therapy” - but it’s still weight lifting.
Here’s a slightly less dense article on it.
Of course, a whole-body workout is even better, but many people who simply can’t do things like run/jog due to medical conditions can still do some weight lifting or “resistance training”.
Don’t use a 400 kg weight and you’re golden.
I must be getting old - I decided not to watch that particular injury occur.
Hey, whatever works for you.
There are a LOT of options to get exercise, and not just One True Path. I’m advocate of people doing what works for them.
If you’re being somewhat serious with this, I have good muscle tone, despite being 41 and despite avoiding all the “power” free weight exercises: squat, benchpress bar, deadlift, and of course anything close to clean+jerk.
I believe people when they say that these exercises are the very best for building overall muscle tone, but I find them too dangerous to try alone. I haven’t found them to be essential.
I didn’t mean to imply that older people don’t lift weights. I thought I said explicitly that they often DO lift weights, often calling it “physical therapy” rather than “lifting”, but doing the same stuff. I just thought that older people might be lifting weight in different sorts of places than the places where the OP doesn’t see them.
The first place I ever worked with weight machines was in a physical therapy setting, fwiw, and I started seeing a personal trainer when the physical therapist said, “I’ve shown you what you need to do, go do it on your own”. I get bored out of my skull “exercising” and find it extremely hard to motivate myself to do it. I’m basically hiring a personal trainer to tell me to do the stuff my physical therapist laid out for me, plus a little core work.
If anyone wants to get started in weightlifting but doesn’t know how, I would recommend looking into BodyPump classes. They’re available both in gyms and online. Although it’s not technically weightlifting, it uses weightlifting moves and will be a good way to create a solid weightlifting foundation. The instructors will help you perform weightlifting moves with proper form to build up a good base of strength from which you can transition into traditional weightlifting if you like. BP is about building muscle endurance by using moderate weights for long periods of time. Weightlifting is more about building strength by using heavy weights for short periods of time. But since there is a lot of overlap in the moves used by BP and weightlifting, transitioning from BP to weightlifting will be safer and simpler than starting weightlifting from scratch.
I disagree. Those sort of programs require an already existing foundation of lifting.
In the getting started video, the Program Director demonstrated abysmal form in lifting the bar from the floor, bending at the waist with straight legs and lifting only with the lower back. He half-reps the bench press and it appears the trainee is expected to somehow sit on the bench and lie down while manhandling a loaded bar. He bends too far forward on the squat. He advocates too high a starting point and a too fast, “one progression fits all” program.
A fast paced, high rep program is the wrong choice for a newbie who doesn’t even know proper form.
A total newbie needs good instruction in form and establish a solid base before attempting such a program.
Because I have no interest. It would require either buying weights or getting a gym membership and I have no interest in either.
But seriously, where is that newbie supposed to get that instruction? Pay $$ for X sessions per week with a trainer with dubious credentials and knowledge? BP isn’t going to get someone any prizes at a body building competition, but it’s great for someone looking to build a little strength. And the technique is exactly the kind of stuff you see typical people doing at the gym in the weight room. I certainly won’t disagree that it’s not perfect technique, but it’s going to be absolutely fine for most people who have regular goals.
BP is done by total newbies all the time. It’s one of the most popular gym classes around the world. Certainly a newbie can get injured in BP, and in any class for that matter, but injuries aren’t really that common. As long as the newbie starts with weights appropriate for their level, the chance of getting injured is pretty low.
Just to make it clear, I don’t disagree with you that BP technique is not perfect weightlifting technique, but most newbies don’t have cheap and easy access to perfect weightlifting instruction anyway. Their options typically are wander around the weight room trying to figure things out or hire a costly trainer who may or may not know good weightlifting technique. In that kind of reality, BP is a great option.
I wish I had an answer. The main problem is the fact that most gyms aren’t selling fitness, they’re selling memberships. Look at what Kimera757 went through. That’s the kind of shit that shouldn’t be happening.
Firstly you’d be surprised how over-qualified many of the trainers at the gym are. Every gym I’ve been to the trainers have several qualifications in fitness training, coaching and physiotherapy; they are not some high school kid just handed a t-shirt with “trainer” on it.
But of course it will vary from country to country and state to state.
And yeah, anyone using the gym should be aware of proper form first. I know you see many people doing it the wrong way, and that’s the kinda the point: the “natural” way to do many exercises is often dangerous and inefficient.
Normally, learning proper form just takes one or two gym sessions, so don’t let them pressure you into buying hundreds of lessons.
Finally: in answer to the rhetorical question, a newbie that didn’t want to spend anything could invest some time in watching online videos of correct technique.
Since they don’t typically use heavy weights in BP, the effect of poor form is probably less significant, as injuries are unlikely. Correct form would still be more effective though.
The problem being that Youtube fitness is a morass of scam artists and know-nothings. Ditto Instagram.
The other problem is that newbs don’t have the fitness to handle the training load of that class from the start. The BP intro video, the starting was 4 cycles for the first class and progress to the full length in only 6 weeks. That’s just too quick a progression for a raw, brand new person.
I’m not a fitness expert, but I have done BP for a long time and seen lots of newbies become regulars. It seems to all work out. It would be a problem if a newbie used too much weight, but that is quickly self-correcting. With tracks lasting 4-5 minutes, it doesn’t take too long to realize there is too much weight and the person has to stop. For example, very advanced people might use a 30-40 pound bar in the bicep track, which is a pretty trivial weight for an advanced weightlifter. But with the bicep track lasting 4-5 minutes, you can’t use heavy weight. A newbie might just have 15-20 pounds in the bicep track and find that challenging. With the relatively low weights, it’s really more an issue of muscle exhaustion rather than getting injured from too much weight. If the newbie has someone to provide weightlifting guidance, great!, do that instead. But otherwise, a BP class is great option for the newbie looking for getting into strength workouts.
I used to. Hit the gym 3X a week, 90 minutes at a time, all through grad school. It transformed my body; At my best I could bench 235 pounds. Having a dedicated lifting partner and schedule helped, as did having a gym that was just a 1/4-mile walk from my workplace; today is a gym day, now is the time when we go to the gym, and it’s just over there. You just did it. Being grad students, we also had a lot of freedom to shuffle our hours around; as long as we were making progress on our research, our advisors didn’t care that we went to the gym at 4 in the afternoon. It meant that I could be home before 6PM, even after getting a good workout.
After I left grad school and got a real job my social, physiological and geographical circumstances changed. I didn’t have a lifting partner, the gym was a drive across town, and my joints (particularly my elbows) were starting to not like it. Plus my workday ended at 5:00, which - together with the commute to/from the gym - meant that I wouldn’t get home until 7:00.
I gave it lifting entirely a couple of years after leaving grad school. These days I just try to get some cardio on a regular basis.