Lifting is harder than it used to be, but I find I am generally motivated despite almost three decades of lifting. I do some exercises that only a year I had never done; hitting high values in these. I have had a couple lifetime bests in the last year. But my goal is largely maintenance. And some of my best lifts were fifteen years ago or more for certain exercises. My goals are more focused on longevity and endurance than strength or size, even though I enjoy lifting heavy more than my joints sometimes do. My mindset and routines have changed considerably.
The key, in my opinion, is to make it habitual. You don’t rely on motivation; it’s just a part of what you do. Just like brushing your teeth or taking a shower, it’s part of your daily routine.
That means that you go even when you aren’t motivated to do so. Although what often happens is that you find your motivation while you are in the middle of the workout - sometimes I’ll drag myself to the gym and end up with a great workout that day.
But there are also going to be some days when you just can’t get into it - try as you might, your mind never gets focused, or you just feel weak and can’t break a sweat.
It’s ok. The important part is that you showed up. Just regroup for next time.
(Of course, a continual lack of motivation suggests some course correction. Maybe you need to consider a different workout. Also, it’s important to consider physical factors - a lack of good nutrition, or adequate sleep, can sap a person’s drive)
Bodybuilding isn’t focused on your performance in the gym, except as a means to an end. The goal is full, well developed muscles displayed with minimal fat.
So a successful gym session ends with a great pump, and perhaps some sense that the muscle is at its peak and trending better.
Now, sure, that correlates strongly with lifting more weights, or doing more reps, but it isn’t absolutely necessary to hit personal bests.
Today, I did squats - 7 sets total - as part of my leg workout. I worked my way up to sets of 185 pounds for 10 repetitions. That’s nothing to notice. Years ago, I would have done a lot more. I routinely see people perform better; it happens in gyms all the time.
But my legs felt great. My knees and lower back were as unbothered as when I was a teenager (not an everytime thing). I ended up with my heart pounding, dripping in sweat, and I waddled away from the squat rack with a great pump.
Did I hit any sort of personal best? Hell no. It was still a great workout. And I didn’t even really want to be there when I first walked into the gym.
Tomorrow is chest, shoulders and triceps. My chest sucks - my worst body part. But I’ve made great progress over the last year. I think I’ve finally figured out how to target my pecs (instead of my shoulders, which are well developed, but at the expense of pec growth).
That’s become an exciting development for me; I think there’s potential to get better at the incline bench press and dips, even if progress is incrementally slow. If I get a killer chest pump from those exercises, I’ll consider it another great workout
What I am wondering about is if there is a fall off of long term lifters as they age, more even than for those focused on other specific activities, because those long term rewards (new PBs, bigger mass) are less frequent.
Yes for all exercise maintaining the habit, enjoying the process, shifting to competition in age band norms (“master class” and such), recognizing the importance to healthspan, so on, are key, but achievements and progress are often very key to the strength focused crowd, even more than the endurance folk. I think.
I gotta imagine that dropping on a 1RM bugs a focused lifter more than a slightly slower race time does a focused runner or cyclist?
I’ll ask more broadly, not yourselves, what have you seen among other long time lifters in the gym? Is there a drop off among long time lifters at around 60? My WAG is that those who identify as cyclists or runners drop off less as they are more frequently about the experience of the activity than hitting new best times. But no idea if that WAG is right or completely whack.
When I started lifting weights it was a fairly niche activity; the athletes did it, but most university students did not. The gym was very small and poorly equipped. The fantasy put out by muscle magazines was barely a thing in real life - when Schwarzenegger moved to Cali “Muscle Beach” had been closed for fifteen years.
A lot of people who lifted when they were students or involved in athletics stopped after the demands of job and family. You need to make time to strength train, as one also does to jog or bike or whatever.
There were always some people who kept at it though. I blame Jersey Shore for popularizing weightlifting as something students just did, which filled up the gyms. CrossFit taught many how to Olympic lift. Health benefits, longevity research, and changing values and student ratios brought more women into gyms as well.
I think more people will stick with strength training longer, now that the health benefits are clearer. Plenty more older people in gyms too, who have read about sarcopenia and benefits to mood and energy. But jobs and family will always compete, and older people will often spend less time in the gym. Sixty? I’d say things used to diminish around thirty, though again this is changing.
Speaking as an old lady, i have absolutely zero interest in that. And honestly, while I’d be happy to have less visceral fat, i rather like having some subcutaneous fat for warmth and physical padding.
This is what it’s about. That and being able to do stuff. I’m in Germany now, with lots of other old people. And it’s nice to be able to help others with their luggage and stuff.
Yes. A different cohort than what I was wondering about, they are people more like @puzzlegal, who have started strength training in this age group with the healthspan and function perspective as the goal right off, rather than people like you, who have modified their goals at some point to “more focused on longevity and endurance than strength or size.”
The question comes from a recognition that some of the population statistics on sarcopenia and VO2max come from age related physiology, but much also comes from age related drop offs in exercise activity. Even as people retire and have the time to exercise if they decided to.
My suspicion is that starting strength training after some loss of strength is a kick because you can still experience the newbie gains as the reward, while newbie gains in endurance are less. But keeping it up requires that change in goals focus.
To be clear, nobody is talking about having no body fat. It’s just not possible. Even having really low body fat is not sustainable (or especially healthy).
But there is a level (about 10% for men, 15% for women) where the person’s skeletal muscle is nicely visible, and which offers a pleasing aesthetic. (You still get body warmth and protection)
My point was that this is a goal that isn’t directly dependent on one’s performance in any individual training session. So there’s little reason to worry about whether you are breaking records in the gym, if your goal is more about overall body composition and appearance.
FWIW the media pushed “shredded” aesthetic which requires very low subcutaneous fat stores, is actively harmful to public health. Not that you’re in pursuit of it or promoting it, the 10% male level is safe enough as long as people are not doing unhealthy activities to get there, but lower, which quite a few competitive body builders and models go for, at least for showtime, has real harms. And that caveat of how achieved is key. While obesity may be a more common issue, unhealthy pursuit of that shred, orthorexia, is a real thing too. Subcutaneous adipose tissue in moderation has actual positive function, include metabolically.
My guess would be that aging would impede the ability to do weightlifting more than other other sports that are more aerobic in nature. Activities like cycling and running don’t create damage in the body in the same way that weightlifting does. People can do aerobic activities well into old age. Their times and distance will be reduced, but they can generally keep doing the activity. Weightlifting is different in that the purpose is to damage the muscle. By creating micro tears in the muscle fibers, the fibers will build themselves stronger during the repair process. But with the body’s healing ability being reduced as it ages, the ability to repair those tears is also reduced. Injuries will be a greater concern to the aging weightlifter than it is for the cyclist or runner. Certainly any activity can create injuries, but not all activities will be as likely to create injuries. The aging weightlifter may need to switch to workouts which are more about maintaining muscle mass rather than building muscle. If they try to keep building muscle, they may create significant injuries that derail their ability to do weight based workouts.
I read posts daily from trainers, gym equipment reps, and science-based developers. They are all trying to figure out why retention rates in gyms are so low, even though they have improved. One of the first things they usually say is that the problem is not the equipment. That is ridiculous! Of course, one of the biggest problems is the equipment. Most people simply don’t like imposed resistance systems. Adaptive resistance systems are not widely available. Over the course of my lifetime I have signed up for at least 6 gym memberships and put together at least 6 home gyms just to watch them gather dust and take up space for a couple of years before I decided to dump them only to try again a decade or so later. I think two weeks is about the longest run I ever had. When I discovered adaptive resistance I fell in love with it. It takes more effort not to work out than it does to work out because I enjoy the workout and I enjoy the results. I have my life back. I am 78 years old and I can build a deck for my son, a year ago I could barely change a seal in a leaky faucet. We had a party at my house a few weeks ago. Kids from the basket ball, volley ball and track teams were there, and they wanted to try out my machine. They all do weight training in high school 100% of them loved it. People who love to lift weights are probably not the right people to ask why people don’t work out.
I absolutely agree. That’s what I meant when I said that very low body fat is not sustainable or healthy.
When bodybuilders compete onstage, they are at their unhealthiest. They don’t stay in that condition very long, either. Personally, it’s not something I’ve ever achieved, or even really wanted to. I don’t think “contest shape” is a bodybuilder’s best look.
Bodybuilders occasionally die from the sport. When they do, it’s invariably attributed to extreme dieting for a show. Trying to lose all body fat is a fools errand
I don’t think this is correct. As has been presented previously in this thread, people can and do build muscle throughout their lives. Here’s yet another example
Continuing weight training doesn’t result in reduced recovery; quite the opposite. It keeps your body’s ability to repair itself (something we all must do constantly) robust and properly functioning.
Never!
Any cites for this?
Certainly you can build muscle when you’re older, but you can’t do it like you can when you’re young. I would compare my muscles to rubber. When rubber is new, you can stretch it a lot and it springs back just fine. But old rubber will crack if you stretch it too hard or too fast. That’s how I felt when I was weightlifting past age 55. Weights I could typically do would start to cause injuries in my joints and muscles that would last for a very long time. If I took a week off for vacation or whatever, my strength would drop of a lot and it would be much harder to get back to my normal weights. When I was young I could take weeks off and get back to the same weight no problem. Trying to do weightlifting when I’m old was giving me a lot of long lasting issues and injuries. I suppose if I wanted to get super careful about weightlifting I could have continued, but it wasn’t worth it. I still do weights, but they are much lighter and more about trying to prevent age related muscle loss rather than building big muscles or greatly increase my strength.
Yes and no but more no. The yes is that strength and power decline quickly if not trained, faster than the slow twitch muscles do. But that translates to more reason to do it as well. Yes respecting the need to recover from the damage and the importance of progressing gradually enough that tendons and ligaments strengthen too. As long as progress isn’t rushed and recovery is respected I don’t see strength training as any more likely to cause injury than running … and cycling has other injury risks! If I get hurt exercising it is much more likely while cycling than during anything else I do.
Nah. The big drop off is nearly always in the first few weeks of start and there is both less drop off and greater persistence with strength training than gym based aerobic exercise.
When that is possible that makes it easy. Lots enjoy traditional weights and machines though. You have created what is enjoyable for you. Good to have choices.
This is the bit I was getting at. Not being able to lift what you once could annoys an older dedicated lifter more than being a bit slower in a distance event annoys an older endurance focused exerciser.
For both of course respect recovery and pay attention to what our bodies say more than the numbers.
I know I’m being repetitive, but focus on the muscle. Does it feel rock hard? Does it cast shadows in the mirror? Does the sweat make it glisten?
The weights are but a means to an end. Did the body come alive? Do you feel pumpef? Then you remain indefatigable!
First off, you are lifting focused on the aesthetics. Which is fine. And for you the positive feedback is twofold: progress in what reflects back at you in the mirror, a gradual process; and the feel you have in the session, a direct enjoyment, or at least satisfaction, during the process itself.
My sense is that a larger share of people lifting have a history of gaining satisfaction from seeing their numbers progress. They can do more reps at the same weight, or lift more for the same number of reps. “Progressive” is a key aspect of the activity.
And progress for some is noting the ability to do real work in the real world, like helping others with their luggage on a trip!
But second for you, is that I think I recall that you are still relatively young? Late 40s or such? If so it may yet happen that you see a mild decrease in your closeness to your ideal form as you get older even though you feel just as good about the process. I am confident that your expressed attitude will sustain your habit, but I suspect some bodybuilders get discouraged by that?
I go to a gym that skews older than most (lots of amenities other than weights). I see some guys older than me (54) hitting the machines infrequently, but as far as daily gym rats, I think I’m the oldest. I have to do it to keep my metabolism high. I like food a lot, so if I don’t stay active I tend to plump up very easily. I also run about 15 miles a week.
But I do enjoy having a good shape, I try to look more like Bruce Lee than Arnold Schwarzenneger. Just don’t have the time or energy to be that big.
Who says I don’t lift weights?
Heh. I can’t find it but once upon a time I did a thread asking what body type we all dreamed of having. I was always more gymnast or wrestler aspirational, but really as long as my pants stay at the current belt hole I’m thrilled!
One thing I wonder about the older weightlifters is what kind of supplements or hormone treatments they are on. If someone is 60+ and is taking lots of creatine, protein, and collagen and getting testosterone and HGH injections from the men’s clinic, they would have a much easier time building and retaining muscle mass. But someone would have to be pretty serious about weightlifting to do all that. If someone is just doing weightlifting to stay in shape, they may switch to doing something else to stay in shape that doesn’t have all that additional expense and overhead.