I just saw the article you’ve been discussing today. Not sure what to think about it so I likely just won’t! I don’t think I’m anywhere near spending too much time strength training. There was another WP article on strength training and aging–“As a doctor I tell people to do these 4 things to reduce age-related muscle loss”–that I found interesting. I wasn’t surprised that it’s harder to add muscle as you get older but I didn’t know the body doesn’t deal with protein as effectively so older people need more of it. All told, I wish I had started earlier!
Very few are. It was a problem for the studies - relatively so few in the that much time per week groups that error bars are large!
The take away in my mind is that the sweet spot starts with a very modest time investment. Getting possibly the maximal mortality benefits achievable through resistance training is very doable for most.
Just a random tip I learned a few weeks ago that I found really useful… face-pulls are really useful for rear delts, but they’re not easy to execute due to the awkward positioning. However, these are much easier and more efficient if you throw a mat on the floor and lie down to do them face-up.
Now if I could only figure out how to develop chest more. I’ve got pretty sturdy arms and legs but the chest is lagging, it’s not an ideal look.
Pushups, flys, cable crossovers, and of course, bench and incline press.
Flys didn’t do much for me. Everything else seems to build my arms way faster than chest.
I’ve started cable crossovers a couple of weeks ago. We’ll see how that goes. The angle is kind of awkward.
Pec deck, squeezing the handles together at the end and holding them might work for you, as well as pullovers (although, those also work triceps).
Buddy pushed me through 225 on incline bench today. Probably not the greatest form, not as deep as I would like, but I was able to unrack it and move the weight. Most I’ve ever done. Current BW is 169. I’ll be 66 in less than 2 months.
Nice!
Returning to the one to two hour per week “sweet spot” study. First to really emphasize the lede again: this and other studies suggest that just half an hour twice a week gets pretty much all the mortality benefit there is going to be. It is huge that fairly little does so much.
But @Dr_Paprika makes a good point that is worth acknowledging more. That’s for how the average person is hitting resistance training sessions, probably a fair amount of time waiting for stations to be available, other rest periods … someone doing antagonist supersets (rest period for one muscle group is a set of the antagonist muscle groups) may be getting the same stimulus in half the time). One person spending an hour six days a week in split sets all max strength or all max hypertrophy focused may be very different than some who is spending the same time each week with a broader focus that includes time with explosive power, plyometrics, and balance focused as well. We don’t know. But I suspect the stress on the system and the recovery demands are different.
Another thought though is that for the group getting past two hours per week in resistance training sessions - the issue may just as much be what they are not doing? The opportunity cost? I’d guess that a higher fraction of people who do resistance training one to two hours a week are also doing an hour and a half or more of straight cardio, than those who are doing resistance more than two hours per week. And it is very clear that doing both has synergistic impact on both life and health span.
If you’ll permit me to blur the lines a bit between strength training and cardio, I’m excited for some upcoming changes in my life that will likely yield better health outcomes.
We’ve purchased a townhouse condo (closing tomorrow!) and we’ll be living on all three floors (it has a beautiful finished basement for our den, and I’ll be working down there) - so by necessity I’m going to be climbing a lot of stairs. I think it will be great for my knees, as I find the more I use them, the happier they are.
Not only that, but we live so close to the clubhouse and the community pool that I can see it from my back porch.
I figure a new environment is the perfect time to pick up some good habits. By financial necessity I’m going to have to cut out food delivery, too.
We’re planning to make the ground floor a true sitting room with no screens which will likely encourage activities as well. We’ve just been thinking about how we can engineer a healthier lifestyle. One thing I really want to do is get my kid outside more. He’s like me; he will stay in all day if you don’t actually drag him outside. There is plenty of room for walking.
I believe bigly in the Pareto Principle. I think you can usually get 80% of the results with 20% effort optimally applied. I am not a perfectionist.
Exercise. More brain connections and the persistence of memory.
Want a younger brain? Exercise in your 40s may help.
Even if you’ve never worked out, starting in middle age — even with brisk walks — can have a bigger impact on your brain than you think. Gift link.
My apologies if it’s been mentioned, but i suspect that another reason that mortality might increase among those who do more than 2 hours of strength exercise per week is the correlation between the people who do that and the people who take assorted supplements of questionable safety, including those directly taking extra testosterone and related substances.
Even if the studies ask about that, i suspect supplements are underreported.
My WAG is that for the goal of healthspan and longevity it rules. Those are about broad competence in many domains, not excellence, not being as strong or as fast as possible.
Definitely a possible contributor.
I’m still guessing more that aerobic fitness is the biggest contributor to lowered mortality and the lower end of resistance training is people who do aerobic regularly adding in a little strength which hits the ideal combo, while big hours of resistance generally travels with little aerobic.
I had a session with a trainer yesterday because I wanted to learn how to do some exercises that target the glutes and hamstrings, including deadlifts. Followed that a few hours later with a vinyasa yoga class that happened to focus on the legs and hips. Probably not my best move. I now have an incredibly sore butt–no hike, however difficult, has ever come close. So I guess I now know how to engage my glutes.
The trainer was really helpful. I may do sessions with him now and again to learn new stuff, if only to prevent getting bored with the same routine.
The positive of limited soreness! Not required but still a positive feedback!
I am personally a big fan of that. I argue that keeping new variety is better for healthspan as it keeps us ready to do a variety of real world movements in various planes, including novel ones as they come up … but the better reason for me is that novelty keeps it fun and interesting!
I have, perhaps, gone a bit beyond “limited” in my soreness. Yoga doesn’t sound like it would send one over the edge but it definitely can!
I have a routine I normally follow (pushes/pulls/legs… lather, rinse, repeat). Lately, I’ve been meeting a friend at the gym and doing whatever they want to do. Even if it messes up my nice, neat routine. It’s nice to mix it up.
Do you do any periodization?
It almost definitely was the combination but a good thing about soreness from a novel stimulus is that the same stimulus in the relatively near future is no longer novel! And is much less likely to make you as so even as it is just as effective.