Any recommendations on where to start with strength training?
I am a women in my late 50's who has lost 70lbs, still have 75lbs to go. I hit my 10K steps a day, more on the weekends when I take my dog hiking. My doctor recently recommended I add strength training to further my results, but I have no idea where to start. Any recommendations? Thanks in advanced!
Best Answers
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Ideal, if affordable: Hire an experienced, well-credentialed personal trainer to help you get started with a basic program and most importantly teach/correct so you learn good form. Poor form increases injury risk.
If that's not affordable, some areas have group classes that are like personal training in a small group. I took a class like that at around your current age. (I'm 69F, BTW, started being eoutinely active in my late 40s.)
Personally, I'd avoid the group classes where a bunch of people do the same strength moves in unison to pounding music. They're usually not well taught as to form, nor well-supervised to avoid injury risk. The fast, repetitive movements, plus the desire to keep up, plus the encouragement to go hard, can increase injury risk.
There are several threads here that can help you get started. I'll post links to them here.
This one has many strength programs that other MFPers have found helpful. Despite the title, some of them require little or no equipment - they use bodyweight to create the strength challenge.
This very good post talks about considerations for setting up your own program:
Strength training is definitely worth doing, and it's achievable in your 50s and beyond. Research studies have shown strength improvement and muscle gain among people in their 80s who start then. As with any new exercise, I'd advice starting low/slow, and building up gradually.
Especially as we age, that helps us condition the weaker links in our body, so they can safely help us challenge parts that will realistically need more profound challenge to make progress. As an example, sometimes waking up our connective tissue or strengthening small stabilizer muscles is needed first in order to really challenge some of the body's bigger muscles safely. (A good trainer can help with things like that, too.)
Best wishes!
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Will you be going to the gym, or getting your own equipment? If the latter and you're in the US, now and the next couple of weeks is the best time. A set of adjustable dumbbells with more weight than you think you need would be ideal, and an adjustable bench would be nice too.
As for exercises, a great start is the six movement patterns here and I'll put in brackets real world uses. These will all improve your ability to do these things as you get older, and reduce risk of injury too.
Squat (getting up easily from a chair)
Lunge (getting up from the floor, and from kneeling)
Push (moving furniture, reaching for something on a high shelf)
Pull (moving furniture)
Hinge (picking up something from the ground)
Carry (grip strength, endurance, core)
All can be done with dumbbells. All but carry with machines or barbells. There are variations for each movement pattern based on your equipment and experience.
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Thank you, this is very helpful!
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I would rather workout from home. I do have some adjustable weights and some resistence bands. Thanks for the list. It's hard to know where to start.
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Good.
Look up YT for form guides, find a source you like that seems to be consensus correct form. Practice it for a couple of weeks. Then start ramping up your volume (weight x reps) and intensity. You'll want to be doing 5-15 reps and being 1-2 reps from failure. What does that mean? If you get 10 and you're sure that 12 is your max, that's fine. If you get 10 and you know you could have actually done 20, you're almost wasting your time. Do each movement 2-3 times per week, a few sets each.
If your dumbbells aren't heavy enough, you may be able to add the band(s) to make it harder.
You haven't expressed this, but don't worry about looking bulky. Nobody gets that way by accident, least of all females of your age who are drug-free.
Increase your protein to close to 1g per pound of your goal weight.
Track your progress, and over time increase the reps and/or weight.
If you want examples of exercises you can do for those movements, ask away.
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Thank you, this gives me a good starting place. What is YT?
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YouTube.
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Here is a link to a very handy tool for strength training. You can select the muscle group(s) that you want to work, and on the right select the equipment you have. It will then generate several exercises with the correct form to do them.
Doing anywhere between 5 and 30 reps per set will pretty much give you the same result, as long as you do each set until you are close to failure (1 to 2 more reps would be failure). Heavier weight with less reps will increase injury risks, and lower weight with more reps will decrease injury risks. Aim for at least 3 sets of each exercise with at least a 2 minute rest between sets.
Form is extremely important, and you will be able to do less reps with proper form, but will get the best results with the lowest risk of injury.
Make sure you get enough protein. Here is a link to a calculator that will calculate how much protein you should be getting. You can't really build muscle without enough protein.
I use protein powder in the morning with a glass of milk, and get the rest of my protein through foods throughout the day, and I also take 5 grams of Creatine each day. Do some research on protein powder and creatine to determine if it is something you may or may not want to try.
Don't get discouraged by weight gains. When you do strength training, your muscles will hold onto water to help them recover. Also, muscle weighs more than fat by volume, so as you gain muscle and lose fat, you may see weight gains as well.
Feel free to post questions on specific things that you may have.
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"Doing anywhere between 5 and 30 reps per set will pretty much give you the same result, as long as you do each set until you are close to failure (1 to 2 more reps would be failure). Heavier weight with less reps will increase injury risks, and lower weight with more reps will decrease injury risks."
That's generally true, although the injury risk is probably a lot more likely aiming for 1-2 reps than say 5-10. One of the most prominent strength building programs for beginners focuses on sets of 5 reps.
Around 5-6 reps or lower biases towards strength gain with some muscle gain, and higher reps bias towards muscle gain with some strength gain. The reason I recommend new people aim for 10-15 reps is because many lifters, in particular inexperienced lifters, often think they are much closer to failure than they actually are. The more reps you target, the easier it is to misjudge how many more you have left in the tank.
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The USDA DRI calculator gives woefully low protein recommendations in light of most recent research, especially for someone who's trying to build muscle, or who is aging (55-60 or so), among other subgroups. The DRI is more like s minimum to avoid malnutrition than an optimal target.
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I gave the 5 to 30 range so the OP would know the full range of reps that could show results, and she can find the weight and reps that best suits her. She is older, and I was also considering joint health in regards to possible injuries, and not just muscle detachment (like could happen in the 1 to 4 rep range).
I just think it's good for people to know the full range, and be able to find what is comfortable for them.
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Yeah, it probably is a little low, but it's still a good starting point for a beginner. Especially in older people. I was also thinking of the fact that she mentioned that she wanted to lose more weight at the same time.
I also think it's better to start a little low, and work more protein in gradually. If the OP is protein deficient (say less than 50 grams per day), it may not be a good idea to go from that right to 150+ grams per day.
I was just giving a "basic" starting point in my post that I would consider safe for someone who I know very little about.
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Both very good points, @bcalvanese . I think if you had included the logic in the first posts, you would not have been called into question.
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Yeah, and that's all accurate and fine, but it's also important to keep the context that it should be close to failure, like 1-2 reps away. And most lifters especially inexperienced lifters misjudge where failure is especially with higher rep counts. Can you build muscle at 30 reps? Yes… if you would fail at just over 30. If you stop at 30 reps but could have managed 40-50 reps, that's not as useful. Same logic at lower counts. If you stop at 10 reps but could manage 15-20, that's not ideal. The most important thing is the intensity of effort, not the specific rep count.
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You make good points, and I agree on the importance of being as close to failure as possible, and even throwing in a few negative reps at the end (if possible). If a person can do more than 30 reps, the weight should be adjusted, because anything more than 30 reps starts moving toward less progress.
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Did anyone else actually check out the protein recommendtion from that USDA DRI calculator?
I weigh roughly 132 pounds, 5'5" (60kg, 165cm). I turn 70 next week. I'm active.
That calculator says I need 48 grams of protein daily.
The common rule of thumb around here for protein during weight loss is around 0.7g per pound of goal weight. Since I'm in maintenance, that would be 92g.
The Examine.com protein guide and calculator, which is based on research - all of it linked in the guide - and aims to identify an optimal range for various scenarios, says "optimal protein intake: at least 72 grams/day" if I say my goal is maintenance. If I say my goal is muscle gain, it says "optimal protein intake: at least 96 grams/day. Intakes of up to 132 grams per day should be consumed to maximize muscle gain, based on limited evidence."
The European Union Geriatric Medicine Society (EUGMS), cooperating with other scientific organizations, established an international study group to review dietary protein needs in aging people, called the PROT-AGE Study Group. It targeted people over 65 specifically, but I think a smart person would pay attention before reaching that age.
Their paper is available full text here:
https://www.jamda.com/article/S1525-8610(13)00326-5/fulltext
Quoting that report:
Guidelines for dietary protein intake have traditionally advised similar intake for all adults, regardless of age or sex: 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight each day (g/kg BW/d). The one-size-fits-all protein recommendation does not consider age-related changes in metabolism, immunity, hormone levels, or progressing frailty.
That 0.8g per kilogram traditional generic recommendation for me would be 48 grams, just as the USDA calculator recommends.
The detailed PROT-AGE recommendations are quite nuanced, with specific recommendations for various subgroups. I won't repeat all that here, but here's the generic recommendation for healthy older adults:
To maintain and regain muscle, older people need more dietary protein than do younger people; older people should consume an average daily intake in the range of 1.0 to 1.2 g/kg BW/d.
For me, that would be 60-72 grams.
For active people in that demographic, they say:
. . . Increase dietary protein intake or provide supplemental protein, as needed, to achieve total daily intake of at least 1.2 g protein/kg BW
So, 72 grams as a minimum for me, according to the PROT-AGE Study Group.
Yes, if someone's significantly under-consuming protein, it may be easiest and perhaps even best tolerated digestively to increase gradually.
But I'll double down on saying that as an eventual goal, the USDA RDI is woefully low in the kind of situation we're talking about here: A woman in her late 50s, losing weight, and wanting to benefit from strength training.
P.S. FWIW, the personal minimum I shoot for is 100g daily, and I usually exceed it. I have some health issues that the PROT-AGE Study Group says can benefit from higher protein; and am also vegetarian so a little extra in the protein grams give me more flexibility for balancing essential amino acids and recognizing that a portion of my protein intake - a small portion in my case - may be less bioavailable.
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Good information. Thank you.
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