In real world contexts, I don’t think so. Mainly because people who lift when they are older, either continuing to, or starting to, aren’t as frequently doing it stupidly. There is something to be said for maturity.
In support of that:
Very few significant differences in any of the injury outcomes were observed as a function of age, sex, competitive standard, or bodyweight class.
That said, definitely true that a person new to lifting at any age is wise to learn and be careful to follow good form, and to progress gradually enough to minimize risk of injury.
And the aging serious lifter has to accept that they may not be able to lift what they could at 35. In the context of my 40 year old weightlifter son, yeah I am hoping he successfully adjusts his goals. And I personally am of the belief that healthspan benefits most from having strength being one dimension of a complete plan. A little goes a long way.
Which brings me to this part of what you wrote:
I understand your distinction. Still, the newish to lifting individual can still benefit from progression. Even maintaining current strength and power isn’t going to happen if the tasks are too easy, without imposed stress. What level that stress happens at is a very individual thing.
And that is true for the cardio side as well. Only light jogging is better than no training, but a mix that includes some occasional faster paces is better yet. And there are diminishing returns.
This is not necessarily true even though in most cases it would be. With adaptive resistance, you can actually increase the load from what you would be using with imposed resistance. You can greatly increase the time under tension ratio at a higher rate of tension.
When lifting heavy weights, the best warmup is to lift lighter ones and increase them in subsequent sets. As a result, one gets feel for the heaviness one might use based on how the lighter sets feel.
I reached my maximum physical strength at age thirty eight. However, many of my best efforts occurred well beyond that. For a dedicated lifter, I would expect little difference between age 35 and 40. I would expect perhaps a 10% decline at age 50; likely less than you think. Injury is largely avoidable through choice of exercise, use of spotters and common sense.
The following really isn’t strictly about strength training but something I thought of after @Moriarty honored me in the Dopers I’d like to meet thread with a humorous compare our biceps bit. And again today in my bike ride home.
I’d definitely not be a winner in that competition. That was my first thought. Measured as a body builder I’d be a joke. I’d be a loser in any strength competition. Riding my bike home from work today I was passed up by two guys in matching jerseys and wouldn’t be able to keep up their pace if I tried to. I’m a slow runner. My marathon time was in the lower half for my age group when I ran two years ago and I failed to beat my younger self’s time. A gymnast would mock my inability to do a muscle up. Can’t swim for shit even when I was doing tris.
For any particular fitness activity I am a glorious failure who completely embraces and enjoys failing!
So just a toast to failing well, having fun, and being okay enough in enough things to live well longer! Cheers.
I’m glad you took it for the goofiness I intended. I don’t really go around flexing in public.
I’m very much not strong.
(Aside: I actually have a theory as to why. When I was born, my mom said the doctor asked her if she had circus contortionists in the family. I had what she described as “loose joints”. I didn’t walk until I was about 22 months old. Even today I remain very flexible. So I think I have weak connective tissue, and that accounts for the limited strength. However, I think it forces my body to compensate with more muscle size. I’m more muscular than my strength would suggest)
You are light years ahead of my cardiovascular abilities. It’s all relative.
Cheers to you! Because, yes, at the end of the day it’s about having fun.
I sometimes see people in the gym who look bored. It’s a shame! The ultimate goal is to connect physical exertion with happiness!
Maybe it’s the happiness it’s over!
Maybe it’s the happiness of knowing that you’ve done a good deed for yourself!
Or maybe you’ve found a reason to be happy with the process, in some perceptible way.
If you can connect working out with fun, in any way, you’ve got a kinship with me.
Weightlifting has made me big but a very, very slow jogger. In my youth I was a good soccer player and could run for hours but these days have passed. Finishing a marathon at any speed is an enormous accomplishment at any age. Doubt I will ever do that; these days I stick to sprinting and much of this is on treadmills.
I did a few years of CrossFit. It is possible that there was another participant who was as inflexible as I am, but I can’t remember many. I could do the gymnastic moves that were strength based, easily as graceful as Frankenstein. I sometimes do yoga, and can do many of the basic poses. Sitting cross-legged, however, is largely beyond my ability. I’m just glad I can still get my socks and shoes on and cut my toenails after leg day.
My lower body is getting much stronger from hiking and strength training but my upper body is still pretty weak. I generally do 2-3 sets of 8-10 reps of upper body exercises, and feel like I’m working to failure, but I’m rarely the slightest bit sore afterwards. In contrast, I use much heavier weights on lower body machines (same sets and reps) and feel a bit sore the next day.
I feel like I’m not really working my upper body even though I’m apparently working it as hard as I can! Should I be doing more sets? Lighter weights and more reps?
I have been struggling with my legs for months now. I just recently started something a little different. I am doing 2 miles over the course of about 1 hour. I was just walking as far as I could until I ran out of breath, and that was it for the day. Now I start off with 1/4 mile, take a 1-minute break, then another 1/4 mile and a 1-minute break. If that starts getting too hard to finish, I cut back about 100 yards and repeat until I get in about 5,000 steps. I am too sore afterward to repeat each day so I skip a day and do it again. My Dr. seems to think what I am fighting is having large muscular legs that are 10 years completely out of shape. He says the nuscles are putting out CO2 faster than I can expel it. I am hoping when the soreness stops the breathing will get easier. I am seeing steady improvement but very slow and incremental. I was reading that at my age it might take up to 3 months to get the legs back in condition.
Not sure if I know the proper names of everything. I’ve been averaging twice a week, full body workout each time. For upper body I’ve been doing seated rows, chest presses, deltoid and chest flies, bicep curls, and tricep pushdowns. My doctor told me to skip shoulder presses because of arthritis is my neck. I’ve been avoiding lat pulldowns for the same reason although he didn’t mention those specifically and I could try adding them.
My guess is that the hiking is adding the volume you need to achieve strength gains lower body but that you aren’t getting quite the volume for upper body.
(Not concerned that you aren’t feeling achey BTW.)
I’d try an extra set specifically of the rows and press each time, and mixing it up, specifically doing more sets that have heavier weights that you can only complete five reps in perfect form with.
These results suggest that it is the total work done during training that impacts the final muscle remodeling, apparently independent of an initial ‘triggering event’. Thus, increases in muscle volume, quadriceps strength and IGF-1Ea mRNA were all found to occur independent of any muscle soreness or elevated CK – key symptoms of muscle damage.
Too sore and you can’t recover fast enough to keep up the volume, or worse, risk injury.
Now to be honest some of us kind of like that slight ache … psychologically it is a feeling of having done something. And there is no harm in that mild ache that feels good and is better before your next session.
But the better mantra, despite the lack of rhyme, is “no challenge no gain” … and challenge isn’t always comfortable.
Total work done. Sometimes put out as total load: sets x reps x weight. I think it can be thought of even more simply as even just sets per muscle group, as long as every set is worked to near failure.
In the context - hiking is providing lots of work to your legs, functionally interpreted by the muscles as many more reps and sets. Not dissimilar to bicycling doing that. Your arms don’t have that. And if you lift to the point that you are so sore you have to skip a session then your weekly volume goes down, and you make less progress.
Today was the 2nd day at my summer gym. Last year, I made the disastrous mistake of treating the summer as a vacation, and not following my usual everyday gym routine. Since it took the entire rest of the year to rectify that mistake, I am determined not to repeat it.
The gym here is small, but fairly well equipped. So far, I haven’t found anything that I can’t do with the equipment here, although it’s not as time-efficient (e.g. - my main gym has a complete set of curl and straight bars from 20 lbs. to 100 lbs. Here, they just have two bars, and you have to build-it-yourself, with plates. No big deal.)
I’v already met some nice folks. With luck I can find someone who I trust to spot me.