Strong till Death

 

by Chris Rice

There’s an old saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same” and training into old age is certainly like that. Nothing has really changed in the way your body reacts to the stress’s of training and yet everything has changed. The body is an amazing thing, but it needs to be taken care of if we expect it to still function at its best after decades of neglect or abuse. And for a normal healthy individual, your body can perform at a pretty darn high level well into your “senior” years.

Age on your body is like a piece of steel left out in the rain, there’s still a lot of good steel under that rust but you have to clean it up before you can make something out of it. The exercise and eating habits that brought you to this point in your life, be they good or bad, have to be accepted as something that can not be changed. I hope you young guys with a few years training under your belts may perhaps gain a few insights that might help you to not make the same mistakes many of us have.

Health is something we worry about only after we start to lose it. Hard and heavy lifting has probably taken its toll on different joints and you probably have a number of old injuries to work around. You’ve no doubt lost some flexibility and range of motion over the years as well. Endurance is down and your movement skills have deteriorated dramatically.

So what do you have going for you now that you didn’t have when you were younger? Usually more time – your kids are raised and gone – and ball games etc five nights a week are memories. Often more disposable money that can be used for books, DVDs, seminars, a nice home gym, better equipment, better diet, supplements, chiropractic, massage, etc. The state of personal training today is sad to say the least but there are people out there with real world knowledge that can help you reach your goals. Search them out and utilize them.

The first and hardest thing you have to do is realize that you are probably going to have to change the way you workout and take care of yourself. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got” has never been more true than at this stage of your life. Hard, heavy, training done year round has brought you here, and it won’t take you back to a more youthful state all by itself. Let’s look at things one problem at a time.

Medical conditions need to be addressed, a good physical with blood work etc can show body system weaknesses in hormone levels etc that can cause all kinds of problems in your search for strength and health.

Old injuries or age related problems such as arthritis. Now I’m not going to tell you to see a doctor – you know if you need one or not. Joint mobility programs now exist that can certainly begin the healing process. They are usually easy to implement into your program and can at times have dramatic results. They also offer preventative measures if done prior to any problems. Along with this come problems with range of motion.

Along with the joint mobility program comes a need for a stretching routine and a balancing program to give more equal strength on all sides of a joint. Muscular imbalances can result from too much of one movement and not enough exercise of the opposing groups. Bench pressing and the associated shoulder problems are a prime example.

Flexibility – how much is necessary? Well it depends I guess but probably more than you have right now wouldn’t hurt anything at all if you’re like most weight trainers. I discovered Astanga Yoga a few years ago. It seems to realign my body and certainly has helped heal some injuries that nothing else would. The biggest thing to remember about any stretching program is it’s not a competition and pushing yourself hard is not a good thing, it took time to get you where you are now, and it will take time to bring you back. Overstretching is an invitation to injury – relax and breathe your way thru the program.

Endurance – there are two kinds, strength endurance and the more common longer cardio sessions. Both have a place but impact needs to be considered in exercise selection much more so than when you were young. Long distance running may not be the best choice for a heavily muscled individual of any age. There’s a lot of recent works that say interval training gives the same performance benefits, but I believe some long slow sessions can have benefits as well especially if the joint stress can be minimized by the use of a rowing machine, stationary bike etc. Usually this is one of the biggest weaknesses of most weight trainers program; as we age, cardiovascular health becomes so much more important to our overall well being.

Movement skills – when is the last time you tried a somersault, a flip, walking on your hands, any tumbling movement, a standing long jump or vertical jump, a game of basketball, baseball, football, a footrace with your grandkids etc. Over the years, if you don’t use it you lose it, and most weight trainers lift weights, and very little else for the most part, especially as they get older, and we end up with the lack of balance and motor control you would expect from such behavior. This is one of the big problems as we age – strong, but slow, uncoordinated, and with a lack of balance – there are a lot of ways to address this of course but start with just moving around in different ways and work your way up to something like Tai Chi perhaps.

Diet and supplementation. No doubt the area most neglected for almost all of us. It’s my belief that if we spent half as much time eating and supplementing properly as we do reading about the best way to workout, we could have much, much better results in both the short and long term, especially with our overall general health

Strength training – ahh, the only one most of us actually care about. And probably the only reason you’ve read this far is hoping I know some secret, some new tip that will transform you and allow you to act just like you always have and want to keep doing. If you’ve been at it for the close to 50 years that I have, you KNOW there is no secret. The secret is to show up, work hard but smart and keep learning what is necessary at each phase of your life. My tip is this – learn to recover better – you do not grow when you train – you grow when you eat and sleep. And as you age, this gets more and more important and also harder to do. I believe that variety becomes not just important but necessary as not only our calendar age but our training age increases. And limiting your workouts to heavy weightlifting alone will limit your long term heath, give you overuse injuries, and break you down over time. But you can lift your whole life long with some easy to live with additions or changes to your program. Starting at any age, increase the variety by changing the exercises you do on a regular basis – at least a few times a year. Do not make every workout an attempt at a PR. Develop balanced strength around each and every joint and consider endurance as a component of each workout.

Work muscles with resistance at the closed and open positions. Work some kind of abs as often as you do your back, even if you don’t want to. Maybe this needs more explanation – if you were to graph out the resistance curves of most exercises, you will find places where the resistance goes to nearly zero on the prime movers, a simple example would be the dead lift. When your back is bent over, the resistance is at its highest (lever arm is the longest and muscles in a stretched position, etc), as you rise, less and less stress is on the low back until at the top, it’s almost entirely compression and stabilizers. Now take a hyper extension – the reverse is true – bent over, there is no lower back involvement (elongation) but as the back straightens, more and more stress is developed in the posterior muscles (muscles in contracted position) but maximum stress is with the body straight this time. It is my belief that muscles must be worked in all variations of the force curve. There is a long list of movements with similar possibilities and solutions. I hesitate to bring up machines but this was one of the main things Arthur Jones tried to address with his use of the cam – working towards a force curve with no loss of load throughout the movement. With free weights, you will normally need two movements but the use of bands etc (accommodating resistance) may allow similar possibilities also. Think about it for a minute, almost every big multi joint movement gets easier as the joint angle straightens. Now think about many of the so called “rehab” movements – the reverse is true. Strengthening in both ways gives a stronger and more stable body overall that is less likely to become injured.

Work all your muscle groups, don’t skip your neck, calves, forearms etc. Include something for them now and then – this becomes more important as we age and lead less active lifestyles. Take time off once in a while and do something else, let your body recover and give it a change of pace with some other physical activity. Do 6 weeks of Yoga, or work on a Concept II rower and see what kind of shape you’re really in. Learn to rock climb or some type of Karate, heck learn to dance, it’s the mental and physical change you need. You’ll come back refreshed, with fewer nagging injuries and hungry to lift again. Learn to eat better and don’t get fat – guys often get bigger to help with getting stronger during competitive years but it’s a big strain on you as you start putting on the years and the muscle to fat ratio starts getting ugly. If your training does not leave you energized and feeling better than before, something is wrong. Most people of any age are working out too often, too long, too hard, and are eating too poorly and recovering less than enough most of the time. Do not take this to mean you should not work out very hard but that you must recover just as hard as you train. If not, your progress will never be what it should.

And most important of all…………… have fun with it, don’t take it too serious, training to supposed to enhance your life, not consume it. If you live in the gym, you’re going to miss an awful lot.