Prevent shrinking with age

[MetalBoar53]

Yup, and exercise cardio and strength training are great ways to slow down loss of height, and muscle loss (sarcopenia) , but in most cases you can’t stop it.

This is kind of complicated. If you've been doing a quality resistance training program your whole life and have hit something close to your genetic potential in say your mid to late 40's, yeah, you're going to start losing muscle as you age even if you continue to do resistance training with similar dedication, and the best you can probably do is slow the loss down a lot. On the other hand, if you aren't close to your genetic potential in your 70's or 80's and you start pursuing a high quality resistance training program, you will almost certainly put on muscle, and therefor reverse, not just stop, sarcopenia. You'll continue to put on muscle until you get close to your genetic potential for your age or you have some sort of health crisis that prevents you from being able to lift weights. If you're in your 80's, there's a good chance that level of crisis will be fatal, either immediately or in the near term.

This isn't to say that the untrained 80 y.o. who's gaining muscle is going to have better results than the continuously training 80 y.o. who's losing it. The 80 y.o. who's been training their whole life is carrying a lot more muscle going into their 80's and the untrained individual is unlikely to catch up (assuming similar genetics). Most people never get close to their genetic potential at any age and I just think it's important that the general public understands that exercise later in life can really improve the way they feel and their functional ability, not just sort of maybe slow the rate of decline.

 

[HighKick]

This is kind of complicated. If you've been doing a quality resistance training program your whole life and have hit something close to your genetic potential in say your mid to late 40's, yeah, you're going to start losing muscle as you age even if you continue to do resistance training with similar dedication, and the best you can probably do is slow the loss down a lot. On the other hand, if you aren't close to your genetic potential in your 70's or 80's and you start pursuing a high quality resistance training program, you will almost certainly put on muscle, and therefor reverse, not just stop, sarcopenia. You'll continue to put on muscle until you get close to your genetic potential for your age or you have some sort of health crisis that prevents you from being able to lift weights. If you're in your 80's, there's a good chance that level of crisis will be fatal, either immediately or in the near term.

This isn't to say that the untrained 80 y.o. who's gaining muscle is going to have better results than the continuously training 80 y.o. who's losing it. The 80 y.o. who's been training their whole life is carrying a lot more muscle going into their 80's and the untrained individual is unlikely to catch up (assuming similar genetics). Most people never get close to their genetic potential at any age and I just think it's important that the general public understands that exercise later in life can really improve the way they feel and their functional ability, not just sort of maybe slow the rate of decline.

Now if I can just figure out how a severely broken 62-year old body can do any kind of effective resistance training. Walking seems to be the only certain thing I have left.
Getting old is not for wimps.

 

[Prince_Alarming105]

Now if I can just figure out how a severely broken 62-year old body can do any kind of effective resistance training. Walking seems to be the only certain thing I have left.
Getting old is not for wimps.

Can you deadlift? I'd suggest a high frequency, low volume plan
Something like Pavel's power to the people.

 

[MetalBoar53]

Now if I can just figure out how a severely broken 62-year old body can do any kind of effective resistance training. Walking seems to be the only certain thing I have left.
Getting old is not for wimps.

I owned and operated a small fitness studio, offering strength training exclusively, for ~12 years before the pandemic and other factors caused me to shut it down. Our team worked with a lot of older people and others with physical limitations (EDS, degenerative disc, osteoporosis, severe repetitive stress problems, thoracic outlet syndrome, etc.) very successfully. If you can walk, I’m sure you could get an effective strength training workout with a good program.

In my gym, we used a high intensity, low force, slow motion protocol similar to what is described in Body by Science, by Dr. Doug McGuff and John Little. I tend to be a little more conservative than McGuff/Little with starting weights, as I’ve found that even for people without any physical challenges it leads to much faster skill development and therefore much faster progress overall. I also approach a couple of things a little differently. Still, McGuff/Little present a really fantastic exercise protocol in their book and everything I do differently is pretty trivial in the overall scheme of things and we all started from the same sources.

I still use this protocol to train my mother, who’ll be 89 in about a month and has some significant mobility issues, ongoing problems with severe tendonopathy in one leg, and of course, being 89, general health challenges. She does great! She regularly has women 15-20 years her junior express amazement that she’s lifting 2-3x what they do.

If you have any questions, I'm happy to try to answer them for you.

 

[isshinryuronin]

Getting old is not for wimps.

Ain't that the truth. Here's what I think is why in terms of working out: Loss of purpose = Loss of motivation ->
Loss of discipline -> Loss of working out. For most of our lives we have a purpose to do so: Competition, self-defense, advancement, impressing the girls, ego, pleasing Sensei, and more. By the time we get "old" most all of the reasons no longer exist, so what's the use of working out?

Aside from this powerful internal loss of will, there is the physical boogey man as well. We're not as strong, not as tough, unable to do the things we used to do so well. It hurts to exercise and takes double the effort to do half as much. This is painful mentally to accept as well as physically. So most old people just give in to being old and let go to live their golden years as easily as possible. Can't say I blame them. They deserve the easy life (but at the cost of getting old a bit quicker).

Then, there are those masochistic individuals who put themselves thru the torture of weight training, MA, running, whatever. Why would they put themselves thru this? Perhaps old age has rattled their brains, and they've lost common sense. Maybe it's just pride, sense of self-respect, or habit developed over a lifetime of being in the Art. Whatever, it's still not easy. For most of us masochists, it takes every bit of willpower and self-discipline to do it. It's not for wimps, though at the end, eventually, we are all on the path to aging wimpydom. But I plan to tread that path as slowly as possible.

Speaking for myself, it's not fun for me, but I do it anyway because I can't accept not doing it, and I'll keep doing it (except for when I feel lazy) at whatever level is physically possible for me, short of risking a stroke. This post is not to inform or sway those who read it, just a description of what I think of aging and working out. Just the musings of a guy who's been around for 3/4 of a century.

 

[HighKick]

Can you deadlift? I'd suggest a high frequency, low volume plan
Something like Pavel's power to the people.

Um, no. Hard to do on a partial leg/foot and diminishing spine. Even if I could, I would not.

 

[Kung Fu Wang105]

Competition, self-defense, advancement, impressing the girls, ego, pleasing Sensei, and more. By the time we get "old" most all of the reasons no longer exist, so what's the use of working out?

When you get old, you still have the following reasons to train:

- Maintain your MA skill/ability as much as you can.
- If you can still do what you did when you were young, you will be happy.
- You still feel excited when you punch/kick on your wavemaster.
- Give you a good reason to sleep as long as you want to that evening.
- ...

I also find out to drink "carrot juice mixed with protein powder" after workout is a good idea.