This is the second part of an 8-part series.
Introduction: Strength Training for Senior Athletes
Last week I posted Part 1 of Fast After…60?…70? In that piece I explained the advantages of cross-training for athletes in their 60s and 70s. One of those advantages is that cross-training allows you to maintain your aerobic fitness.
Days Off: Fitness, Freshness, and Fatigue
Taking one or more days off means a loss of fitness. I know that many athletes disagree with me on that thinking that a day off somehow improves fitness. It does not. You may come back the following day feeling much stronger, but that isn’t increased fitness you’re experiencing but rather increased freshness. You’re simply rested. If taking days off was all one needed to become more fit, we’d be sitting around watching Oprah all day.
I certainly understand, however, that many athletes, regardless of age, enjoy taking a day off. That’s quite alright. And if this is you, I wholeheartedly support the decision as a day off is as much a mental as a physical break. So it’s okay to take an occasional day off.
The problem shows up when you find that several days off each week are necessary because of fatigue. With primary sport cross-training (for example, a cyclist using an e-bike or a runner going for a walk or a swimmer using a pull buoy), you can continue to train in a way similar to your primary sport and yet reduce the training load allowing for some degree of recovery. True, it’s not as much recovery as you’d get from a day off.
Getting the training load balance of a day off versus a cross-training day right for you is the key. And I expect there are many aging athletes out there like me who love the daily workout and don’t enjoy days off. “Life,” however, always has a way of forcing us to take a day off from time to time. But each to his or her own when it comes to this topic. There is no one size fits all for this. Do whatever works best for you.
Training Indoors as an Alternative
Something I failed to mention in Part 1 is the option of training indoors on, for example, a treadmill or a stationary bike as an alternative to running or riding outdoors. This is especially good if you live in a hilly terrain as I do.
Several readers commented that this is how they deal with the cumulative stress, fatigue, and the repetitive nature of training outdoors. There are also other indoor options for athletes who want a break from doing the same sport on, perhaps, the same routes day after day but want to maintain, or even improve, their aerobic fitness.
Indoor machines such as a stair climber (or actually climbing “real” stairs), rowing, cross-country ski simulator, elliptical, and climbing are generally available at local health clubs or can be purchased for home use.
But remember that if the purpose is to allow for some recovery while maintaining your aerobic base, the workout must be very easy. That simply means the capacity to carry on a conversation without heavy breathing. It would be far better to take a day off than to do a hard or even moderate cross-training day.
I’m often asked which type of indoor training device is best for maintaining (or even improving) your aerobic fitness. My answer is, the one you most enjoy using. You may have access to the greatest ever cross-training machine, but if you don’t enjoy using it then it is the worst possible one for you. Consistent training, the key to success in sport, always starts with enjoyment. If you’re not enjoying the workout, I can guarantee your training will be inconsistent.
Part 2: Weight Lifting for Senior Athletes
One lesson I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is that I can’t make the same mistakes I did as when I was a much younger athlete. In my 20s I could eat junk food, stay out all night, do ridiculously hard workouts, skip workouts altogether—and yet still perform well. Not so in my 60s and 70s. Now any little mistake I make shows up to bite me.
I was fortunate to take up weightlifting at a fairly young age. Here’s how it happened and what I’ve learned about strength training over the years.
My Early Years of Muscle-Building Programs
When I was in high school (many decades ago) a coach told us we shouldn’t lift weights. In those days many magazines had ads for Charles Atlas muscle-building programs with lines like “Purchase this plan, become muscular, and you’d stop bullies from kicking sand in your face at the beach and from stealing your girlfriend.” The accompanying drawing of Atlas was of a muscular hulk of a man—much more manly than the 90-pound weakling he started out as, according to the ads.
Our coach didn’t want this to happen to us. I vividly recall him saying we’d become so bulky from lifting weights that we wouldn’t be able to scratch our own backs. So I didn’t lift any weights at all while in high school. (Since we didn’t have any weight equipment at the school, this was unlikely to happen anyways.)
Then I went off to college where, again, not one athlete lifted weights. But in my freshman year I discovered there was some weight equipment in a storage room at the gym. In four years I never saw anyone else use them. The Charles Atlas fear, I suppose. But I decided to give it a try my first year. If I became too bulky in the off season I’d just stop. That never happened. I stayed skinny. And I discovered there was a nice uptick in my performance. Was that due to the weights or simply maturing? I didn’t know, but I was unwilling to stop lifting to find out.
Muscle-Building Over the Years
I’ve been lifting weights for most of the last 61 years. There have been some short breaks in the routine as, for example, when Uncle Sam sent me to Vietnam to win the war (I failed!). But I’ve always come back to the weight room. I continue to believe that it’s beneficial, even for skinny endurance athletes. And I’ve never been unable to scratch my back.
In fact, I think it’s more than simply beneficial for 60-something and 70-something athletes. But, as I mentioned earlier, you can’t make mistakes in the weight room at a senior age. This is especially important if you have not previously been lifting weights but decide to start. Your risk of injury is especially high at this age. The key to avoiding injury is to be extremely patient. This patience thing holds true in every aspect of training for the senior athlete. Take a long-term view. You can’t make mistakes now. Be patient, but also be persistent.
Benefits of Strength Training for Senior Athletes
Let’s talk about the benefits for aging athletes before getting into the details of how to build strength at your age.
Muscles and Bones
There are two detrimental changes happening to your body as you age, which we often don’t become fully aware of until it’s too late—sarcopenia and osteoporosis.
Sarcopenia
At some time in your 30s you probably started losing muscle mass. It may not have been even slightly apparent until you were in your 50s or perhaps later. This loss of muscle is called sarcopenia.
Despite being an active athlete for your whole life, you are still losing some muscle. The annual change is so small that you may not be aware of it yet. Since you are so active in your sport the loss could be as little as 2% per decade, but by your 70s the rate of loss typically increases rapidly, especially for women. By age 80 up to 50% of muscle fibers may be lost, accompanied by a rapid decline in performance.
Exercising a muscle group seems to reduce the muscle loss, but there isn’t much research on 80-year-old athletes. Of course, the muscles used the most in your sport will be better maintained throughout your 60s and 70s than those not used. So accordingly, resistance training is most beneficial to the non-sport-specific muscles (for example, the upper body in runners).
Osteoporosis
The other costly physical change is osteoporosis—the loss of bone density. With “normal” aging, bones become weak and brittle and easily broken. This also starts earlier in life, probably in the 30s for many, especially so if little or no weight-bearing stress is placed on the bones. And unfortunately, this condition is also more likely in women than in men.
Weight-bearing exercise such as walking and running are especially beneficial for the legs, hips, and lower spine. But not the upper body. Common sports that are most likely to encourage the development of osteoporosis are cycling and swimming. In fact, young pro cyclists are often diagnosed with the bones of a senior citizen. The most beneficial exercise for maintaining bone density is whole-body weightlifting.
Weightlifting Programs
How about endurance-sport performance? Does weightlifting help that also? Most of the research I’ve read on this topic supports increased strength from resistance training as beneficial to endurance performance.
I’ve also seen the benefits in athletes I’ve coached. A few years back there was a very vocal group of anti-weightlifting coaches and their arguments were a daily part of social media then. They are probably still out there so I am likely to hear from them quite soon.
Resources to get you started
What should a strength program for a senior athlete look like? I’m not going to touch on the details here as that could be an entire chapter in a book. And, in fact, there is a weight-lifting chapter in each of my Training Bible books: Cyclist’s Training Bible and Triathlete’s Training Bible. Those books weren’t focused on senior athletes but the routines remain the same. You can also find details in a couple of my previous blog posts for cyclists and triathletes.
Creating your own plan
If you’d like to develop your own weight room exercises I’d suggest including at least one exercise for upper body pushing (for example, bench press) and pulling (for example, curls or lat pull downs), and include at least one exercise for total leg extension (for example, squats or leg press). If you are a runner, you may not need the leg exercise.
Home gyms
Something that will greatly encourage the consistency of your strength-development training is a home gym. This could be in your basement or a spare room. Mine is in the third bay of my garage (something we look for now whenever we go searching for a new home). Every few months, add something else to your gym—free weights, dumbbells, leg press machine, bench, or whatever you may need to stay active.
How much to load
As I mentioned earlier, if you are new to weightlifting be very conservative with loads. You’re far better off making the mistake of too little load rather than too much. Be patient. Noticeable benefits take time. You can’t rush the body to become stronger. It has its own schedule regardless of what you want. Pay attention to what it is telling you.
How to fit with your primary sport
Just as important as the exercises you do and the weight loads you use is how you plan the program in conjunction with your primary sport’s training program. This topic is also explained in great detail in my Training Bible books above.
The bottom line here is that you go through various phases relative to your primary sport’s demands. When you are training easy in your sport, as in the off season or early base period, that’s when you should be most focused on weightlifting. Then as you begin to ramp up the durations or intensities in your sport, you also start backing off on the weightlifting and move toward a “maintenance phase.”
This is where most athletes get it wrong. They think that weight training loads should continue to increase throughout the year and can’t figure out why they are too tired or sore to do key workouts in their primary sport later in the season. Again, the details of all of this can be found in my Training Bible books.
Consistency over time
If you’ve been lifting weights for a few years—do not stop! That would be a big mistake. You need it now more than ever. As a senior you are losing muscle mass at a high rate compared with when you were younger and at the peak of your sport.
This is also how you can maintain or even increase bone density—another change that becomes apparent late in life. Strength training is also more important for performance the older you get. Weightlifting can improve both your sport performance and your health.
Next week in Part 3 I’ll cover the whats, hows, and whys of range of motion and joint mobility exercises for senior athletes.
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