Older Trainees

[tennisgod]

I would love to hear from my fellow older (over 40?) SS trainees.

I am 50, 188cm, 96kg... and am still progressing on my lifts:
sq - 132kg
dl - 152kg
press - 54kg
bench - 80kg

I am eating a lot and have added 5kg to my weight in the last month, but unfortunately have added a great deal to my gut. I'm very happy how the rest of my body is filling-out especially since I have always been thin, but this gut-thing is starting to worry me.

What's your experiences regarding weight-gain? Did you initially get a gut but then it subsided (as Rip says it will). Or did you have to limit the food intake?

What other factors do you notice... increased recovery periods? Some bad days (where you feel weak)? etc? etc?

[Kyle Aaron]

I'm 38, close enough?

If you want to put on muscle, you must put on some fat with it.

If you want to lose fat, you can do it without losing too much muscle.

Unless you are overfat to begin with, you usually cannot lose fat and gain muscle at the same time.

It's for this reason that bodybuilder types have bulking/cutting cycles. For example with out of the air figures, over three months, add 4kg muscle and 4kg fat, then next three months lose 1kg muscle and 3kg fat, after six months net result is +3kg muscle +1kg fat, overall stronger and with a leaner body composition.

Yes, recovery tends to take longer the older we get. Recovery is helped along by stretching after the workout, sleeping and eating well. A 19 year old can eat junk and work out with a hangover after three hours' sleep and still improve. You and I can't.

As for bad days, everyone has them. Sometimes it's better to work through them, sometimes it's better just to chuck the workout in and rest. But it takes some experience to know which is which, so when in doubt keep lifting.

[titan]

KA's advice is spot on, and it should be said that your lifts are going up nicely and you ought to be proud to post those numbers...

Linear progression will always come to an end, for some it's after 6 months, and for others it can be years depending on your genetics and how much you are willing to eat to continue getting strong.

I'm only 26, so don't quite fall into the "older" category, but I can tell you from a once stick thin novice I started with a 30-32" waist and my waist is now around the 34-36" mark (depending on trouser type). I am more than happy for it to pop right out to 40" so long as I'm continuing to add weight to the bar and getting stronger.

Once I've reached my goal (if I ever do), I can then decide whether to drop my waist size back down to 34" or somewhere in between, bareing in mind that some of that size increase would be down to increase in core musculature as well as some fat.

As for your last point, bad days affect everyone. Even us not so old trainees, and again, as KA eluded to it is how you deal with those days that sets you apart from people who just make excuses like "I don't feel well" or "I have a headache". You will know when it's time to call a workout a day, your body will tell you when it's had enough and needs rest more than a 150kg squat.

[misspelledgeoff]

tennisgod,

I'll be 40 in a few months and have been on SS since August. Squats are beginning to become very heavy, but I feel like there's a lot more left in the other lifts.

I pretty much threw caution to the wind with the eating business. I've gained 23 kg. I estimate half has been muscle. And obviously i have a gut, but for some reason just don't care as much anymore. My worksets as of yesterday are:

sq: 145 kg
dl: 161 kg
bench: 108 kg
press: 65 kg
powerclean: 82 kg

I don't feel a difference in recovery (vs being younger) as much as a difference in warmup required. At 19 I would squat (half squat) with pretty much no warmup. Now I need to go through 20 minutes of warmup sets and other kineptions to ensure I don't tear something vital. I also notice a lot of random aches and pains I never had 20 years ago.

[Bleve]

I'm 38, 112kg, 183cm (6'). My current stats :
squat 1rm 205kg
DL 1rm 185kg
BP 105kg (3x5)
press 61kg (3x5)
p-clean around 85kg 2rm
snatch 1rm 70kg

I'm using SS-ish programming as part of a track cycling sprint program, so not pure SS, thus I've put less emphasis on bench, press etc that most here probably would and have concentrated on squats (I'm the first rider in our club masters team sprint, got to get out of the blocks fast) which partially explains why it's a bit out of whack with the rest. Also, my squats are a little bit shallow, I had a knee reconstruction that left my knee less flexible and I can't get full depth. Also my p-cleans and snatches are low because my technique still sucks.

[Charles Staley]

Tennis, I'd simply take regular body comp measurements- this way you'll know how much of your weight gain is muscle VS fat.

Weight gain always includes both muscle and fat, and I'd posit that slower weight gain (as opposed to faster) puts this ratio in your favor



I would love to hear from my fellow older (over 40?) SS trainees.

I am 50, 188cm, 96kg... and am still progressing on my lifts:
sq - 132kg
dl - 152kg
press - 54kg
bench - 80kg

I am eating a lot and have added 5kg to my weight in the last month, but unfortunately have added a great deal to my gut. I'm very happy how the rest of my body is filling-out especially since I have always been thin, but this gut-thing is starting to worry me.

What's your experiences regarding weight-gain? Did you initially get a gut but then it subsided (as Rip says it will). Or did you have to limit the food intake?

What other factors do you notice... increased recovery periods? Some bad days (where you feel weak)? etc? etc?

[IlPrincipeBrutto]

Hi TennisGod,

I am 40, 1.82m (6'') tall and started SS in June.
Back then I was about 76 Kg, now I'm between 84Kg and 85Kg.

My progress has been very slow, due to injuries and breaks (holidays in August). Before messing up my back big time on a deadlift two weeks ago, my lifts were:

Sq: 200# (~88Kg)
DL: 270# (~118 Kg)
PC: 145# (~63 Kg)
Bench: 153# (~67Kg)
Press# 102# (~45 Kg)

Back when I started I was lean and I almost had a six pack. Now the pack is gone, I have a hint of a gut, and when I bend to tie up my shoelaces I can feel the skin on the side of my trunk folding and creasing.

On the other hand, my back is bigger, my physio was impressed by my legs, and, this is the ultimate accolade, my Mum said recently that I was now looking big enough to stop putting on weight.

I am happy with my new body shape. I am still quite weak in absolute terms, but far stronger than I've ever been, and this is enough to make any other aesthetic consideration pointless.

the only drawback of the program is that I had to cut on my running, and I lost a lot of stamina.

I am now being a bit more careful about what I eat, while I recover from the back injury, but once I start training again I'll eat more than I've done so far. I am thinking it would be good to get to 90Kg, just to appreciate how is it to be that size. For someone who has spent his whole adult life in the 72/76 Kg range, it should be quite an experience.

IPB

[Mike O.]

tennisgod,

I'm 44 and on my 11th week, so I'm not far enough along to say how it turns out with the gut yet. I can say that mine is growing though.

Started out with squat/bench/dl, squat/press/clean for 8 weeks then switched to onus wunsler. My progress has been going pretty well so far, possibly aided by the fact that I'm regaining lifting strength I once had at a skinny 160lbs in my early 20's. But I'm closing in on where I was back then, and the squats are becoming daunting.

My bodyweight didn't change much the first 6 weeks. I was already getting chubby before I started, at 190lbs and about 23% bodyfat, and embarrassingly weak. So it's possible I was losing a little fat while building muscle. I started out with very light weights, practically with the empty bar on most of the lifts, as I was trying to rehab a shoulder injury and also had poor ROM in my hips from years of cycling and running. So I didn't feel the need to eat more calories at the start.

But when the bar started getting heavy I increased the calories a bit, and I've gained 10 or 12 pounds in the past 5 weeks or so. Some of the weight is obviously fat around my middle and under my chin, but it's hard to tell how much. For now I'm taking the approach of eating enough to gain a pound or so a week. If I start to have recovery problems not attributable to poor sleep then I'll increase the calories and see if that helps.

As for bad workouts, I've had a few, and it's frustrating. But each one so far I can attribute to 2 or more nights in a row of poor sleep, and to periodic low back pain which I've always experienced during periods when I'm lifting. The low back pain may itself be partially attributable to poor sleep, since they seem to coincide. Keeping a sleep log has been a big help in identifying these recovery problems.

I've been having a harder time sleeping since I've been near failure on the squats each workout for the past couple weeks. When I sleep well I seem to recover fine and the bar goes up convincingly. Changing my schedule so I lift earlier in the day instead of in the evening helps a little but not entirely. I see this sleep problem as my biggest impediment right now.

current stats:
44 y/o, 70.5 inches, 201 lbs.
sq: 265 lb
dl: 265 lb
bench: 165 lb
press: 117.5 lb
powerclean: 125 lb

[hbriem]

I'm 47. I started lifting 6 years ago at 41. I had always been really skinny, around 70-75kg (154-165 lbs). I used to do karate in the old days for about 12 years. At 39 I stopped smoking and gained 12kg (26 lbs) of fat in one year. I swam for a couple of years, but in the long run that didn't agree with my shoulders so I started lifting.

At first I used machines, but got bored after about six months and started using free weights and compound exercises. Not SS which I had never heard of, but similar. I compete in powerlifting every now and then and was even the 100kg national champ this year. No, I'm not that strong. There have been recent changes in policy here that caused many of the stronger lifters to leave the IPF affilated fed that I lift in.

Current stats:
57 y/o, height 180cm (5'11"), weight 94kg (206 lbs), 15% fat?
Squat: 175kg (386#,gym,raw), 190kg (419#,gym,equipped), 185kg (408#,meet,equipped)
Bench: 127.5kg (281#,gym,raw),140kg (309#,gym,eq),135kg(298#,meet,eq)
Deadlift: 232.5kg(513#,gym,raw),235kg(518#,meet,raw)
Press: 75kg(165#,gym)
Power Clean: 100kg (220 lbs,gym)

[TomF]

As I said on one of the threads in Rip's section, I'm 47, and did my first bout of SS when I was 44.

At 5'9", my bodyweight went from 180 to a high of 192, while my working weights for squats rose from #160 to #305. Working sets for the other lifts (i.e. not 1RM lifts) were DL #405, press #135, bench #205, power clean #180.

Some of that bodyweight was fat, which I later lost when I returned to CrossFit. Though I wasn't terribly interested in getting heavier, my SS progress stalled when I didn't eat to caloric excess. Drinking 1-2 quarts of milk/day made a noticeable difference to whether my squats continued to go up in linear fashion. So did sleep. As an older guy, I've found I need to pay much more attention to recovery than my 16 year old son does.

For me, that meant thinking more about the program. So when my squats and DLs stalled when the squats reached #260, and re-setting conventionally or dropping the rate of increase didn't work, I realized I needed to rest the movements more. I flipped over to front squats on DL days, and progress picked up again. That happened sooner than it's likely to for my son, even though I outweigh him by quite a bit.

Similarly, when I miss 2 decent nights' sleep, or things are completely hairy at the office and I miss a couple of lunches, it shows up in my workouts. That's life.

Also, when I've had to take periods away from training (e.g. doing renovations at night instead of lifting), I've de-trained further and faster than a younger guy who's at my stage of strength development. It would probably be different if I had a decades-long history of strength adaptation, but I'll lose 10-15% pretty quickly ... and it takes a while to get it back.

Those elements of training while getting older suck, but they're much better than the alternatives.

[Kyle Aaron]

For the sake of full disclosure and honesty, I should mention that I plateaued, pushed through the plateau, and caused myself a minor injury. However, this really has nothing to do with my age, but scoliosis. A lateral deviation of the lumbar spine means that basically only the left-hand spinal erectors etc were firing during squats and deadlifts (or 70-30, something like that).

This was alright until at 78kg I got squats to 80kg or so, and deadlifts to 110kg or so. That was the plateau, from there it was a real struggle up to SQ100/DL130, and at that point my half-back, which was trying to do the work of a full back, it complained by sparking up painfully during lifts. So it was time to back off and do what Rip would call pussy work with a PT to try to get both sides firing.

I didn't have that problem when I was 22. So that perhaps is a lesson for us, that as we get older, as well as slower recovery, we can no longer afford to ignore any little problems we have. If you ever had a knee reconstruction or tore a hamstring or something, it's going to come back with heavy lifting over 35.

We can fix these things or work around them, but like the recovery from heavy workouts, it takes longer than it used to. But that's alright, part of getting older means more patience ;)

[confuzzl3don3]

Wow....reading about how all these old aches and pains can come back to bite us in the ass when we get old is making me heaps worried. Am i going to screw myself over with chronic pain in my knees? Ever since i've been squatting like above 80kg, i've developed an inflammatory sort of pain in both knees. Only hurts when i go past 45 degrees and i'm pretty sure its some form of quadriceps tendinitis. The thing is i've had my form checked and all and most people say its ok so i don't think its the form. But for the heck of me it just wont go away and now i'm worried that i'm going to have some long lasting damage to it....it doesn't hurt once i warm up into it, which further supports my belief that it's inflammatory (gets better with use). What should i do?

[Gary Gibson]

A big squat is the greatest athletic bang for the buck there is. But it don't come cheap.

Even if you do everything right, there will be times when the sheer volume necessary to progress will cause some swelling in the knees. The intensity will cause you to strain one part of your squat musculature of the other.

This last cycle produced a constant dull ache all around my right elbow, a persistent pain in my right glute attachment on the condyle of my femur and knees so swollen that I can't bend them very far. My wonky right knee is particularly unhappy with me right now.

But it's nothing I haven't experienced before. The cycle ends and I spend a couple weeks waiting for my body to pull itself back together. But when it does I'm much stronger and the overall integrity of my joints is actually better.

There are still some nagging pains in those joints, however. That's fine by me. I can outrun, catch, kill and eat all the people with pain-free joints. At least I can when the inflammation has subsided.

There are times--like right now--when I can't squat to tie my shoes, my knees are so swollen. That's why God invented ibuprofen.

Get some neoprene knee sleeves and keep buckets of ibuprofen within easy reach. I get 500 generic caps for less than $20 at Rite Aid.

You'll be fine.

...Or maybe you won't. I've decided that a couple weeks of reduced mobility and increased discomfort here and there are worth being literally three times as strong as the average joe. You may not agree. Decide how important this barbell training shit is to you and proceed accordingly.

[Kyle Aaron]

I've decided that a couple weeks of reduced mobility and increased discomfort here and there are worth being literally three times as strong as the average joe. You may not agree. Decide how important this barbell training shit is to you and proceed accordingly.
Or you could just go to the physio.

[confuzzl3don3]

Awesome advice Gary. I'll look into picking up some neoprene knee sleeves as well. I think i saw them my local sports store going for about 30 or so bucks

[Kenny Croxdale]

A big squat is the greatest athletic bang for the buck there is. But it don't come cheap.

Gary,

You're right, a good squat doen't come cheap. You have to work for it.

[QUOTE=Gary Gibson;81857] Even if you do everything right, there will be times when the sheer volume necessary to progress will cause some swelling in the knees. The intensity will cause you to strain one part of your squat musculature of the other.

In my decades of lifting, I've never seen any lifter with swelling in the knees. It rarely happens.

However, as you noted, when pushing yourself in lifting or any sport, at some point you accrue some strain or injury.


There are times--like right now--when I can't squat to tie my shoes, my knees are so swollen. That's why God invented ibuprofen.

Having that much ambition/mental drive is an admirable qualtiy in an athlete. However, it can also be a little destructive.

Ambition is similar to nuclear energy. When harnessed and used right, it empowers you to, "Be all you can be"...maximize you genetic potential.

Just as with nuclear energy, when used the wrong way, you can blow youself up.

You certainly want to push youself. Some minor sorness 24-48 hours is ok. A training program that traumatizes you so much you can't squat to tie you shoes is a message that you've over done it.


Get some neoprene knee sleeves

Like you, I find the neoprene knee and eblow sleeves/bands effective. I also use a neoprene waist band. Just as the the knee and elbow bands, it keeps the my lower back warm.

Kenny Croxdale

[Gary Gibson]

Or you could just go to the physio.

Going to see a professional for effusion and inflammation is like going to the doctor for a cold. I don't see the point in spending $100 for someone to tell me to rest and take ibuprofen and to stop lifting so much weight.

[misspelledgeoff]

you worry too much confuzzled. do your squats and drink your milk and you will be just fine.


Wow....reading about how all these old aches and pains can come back to bite us in the ass when we get old is making me heaps worried. Am i going to screw myself over with chronic pain in my knees? Ever since i've been squatting like above 80kg, i've developed an inflammatory sort of pain in both knees. Only hurts when i go past 45 degrees and i'm pretty sure its some form of quadriceps tendinitis. The thing is i've had my form checked and all and most people say its ok so i don't think its the form. But for the heck of me it just wont go away and now i'm worried that i'm going to have some long lasting damage to it....it doesn't hurt once i warm up into it, which further supports my belief that it's inflammatory (gets better with use). What should i do?

[elpo]

I'm 57, and have been trying SS for a couple of months. Every week, I would start it, and end up straining something, by my second work out. Not a bad strain, just enough that I knew I hurt myself. It would be fine in a week, then I would do it all over again. I got smart, and finally got through a week by cutting down on the weights, on all the exercises. I'm only going to up my weights next week by a few pound. I guess I'm old enough, that it is going to take me a while to get my body use to working out. I also have some shoulder problems, and holding the bar the way we are suppose to, for the squat, kills my left shoulder, and presses kills my right, but I can still do them.

[tennisgod]

Hi Elpo,

Yes, Rip says in his "Strong Enough" book that the older lifters really need to start very light and progress at a gradual pace. You would be in the very novice stage having done SS for only 2 months.
As long as your form is correct, your nagging injuries should go away. You should spend the time when the weights are light to ensure that your form is correct before progressing.
The reason I started lifting was because I was getting fatter and weaker, and I hurt my shoulder when horsing-around with the kids, which pissed me off. Also, I play national-level tennis (hence my username), and I used to get very sore in the lower back which would prevent me from serving hard after a couple of matches.
Now all those previous nagging injuries have gone (although I have a new crop of injuries due to lifting but these are much milder than the ones I had previously). I got to the finals of the state titles last month and could have served all day, so I thank the deadlifts for this!
I feel so much 'denser' than before which is fantastic, but I guess at our age we really need to watch the fat as we just don't have the raging hormones any more. But its certainly a balancing-act, as I know that the more I eat, the better I recover.

[franklie]

I would love to hear from my fellow older (over 40?) SS trainees.

I am 50, 188cm, 96kg... and am still progressing on my lifts:
sq - 132kg
dl - 152kg
press - 54kg
bench - 80kg

I am eating a lot and have added 5kg to my weight in the last month, but unfortunately have added a great deal to my gut. I'm very happy how the rest of my body is filling-out especially since I have always been thin, but this gut-thing is starting to worry me.

What's your experiences regarding weight-gain? Did you initially get a gut but then it subsided (as Rip says it will). Or did you have to limit the food intake?

What other factors do you notice... increased recovery periods? Some bad days (where you feel weak)? etc? etc?

I am 48, 178cm, 82kg:
sq - 155kg 1RM
dl - 150kg 5RM
press - 70kg 1RM
bench - 105kg 1RM
clean - 75kg 3RM

Right now I'm using TM programming to give myself more recovery. Being not as young as I used to be it is very easy to overtrain/underrecover

[Bergie]

Hello,

I'm 50 years old. 6' , 202lb last time I checked. I started the SS program a year ago. Before that was in pretty good shape but had never done any weight training before.

I found that the biggest challenge presented by being a bit older that the average person starting out with weightlifting is injuries, caused mostly because I was in a rush to increase the weights. The older body definitely needs more time to adjust to changes, but it certainly can get out of shape fast.

As you can see below I spent the first few months playing with injuries before some good linear progressing was possible.

I started the program 11/12 and on 11/24 pulled something in lower back during squats. So i reset the weights and rested.

Started back up on 12/8 and pulled it again on 12/22. Hey but at least it happened at a new PR.

With resting and rehab during the holiday I started back up 1/8. This lasted until 1/28 when had another injury and Febuary was a loss because of work and the birth of twins, my 6th and 7th children.

So started back up early March and progressed well, no back issues. However, my left bicep started complain vigorously due to low bar squat position.

So I stopped again to work on improving flexibility, some CF, and trying to get the babies to sleep at night. By the end of May I was ready to try SS again.

From 5/27 through 10/5 I had a good run of linear progression. through that time nothing broke and I was able to perform well.

However, it was not to last that 10/5 work out produces a very nicely torn adductor in my left leg.

This week I am starting out again. Hopefully everything will hold together for a long while time.

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff199/wgbergman/log.jpg