Weight Lifting for 50+

We're not that special. ("We", the "50ish plus", because I'm 66 . . . but I'm a late-bloomer, not a former D1 athlete.)

There's a great thread here with Community-sourced recommendations of strength training routines, plus lots of discussion of them:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

Despite the title, it does include some bodyweight strength programs, not just lifting per se.

I do know quite a few former D1 athletes (rowers) casually, and I know it's a common pattern to be burned out by the intensity of collegiate training and practice, and go on to an adult life with less exercise volume, but maybe still-high food consumption habits.

You can do this. You may even have an advantage, in that you have past experience and some physical and kinesthetic adaptations that can be reawakened, rather than constructed totally from scratch after a life of fairly consistent low activity.

I say this next not to self-congratulate, but to encourage you: I didn't even start being routinely active until my mid-40s (after cancer treatment), and didn't reach a healthy weight until age 60 despite being really active from mid-40s. (That weight loss was after around 30 previous years of overweight/obesity - I was only thin briefly during late teens/20s). At this point, while I don't have the fitness level of a consistent lifelong athlete, I'm substantially fitter than the average 66 y/o woman, from anything I see in the world around me.

I'd predict you'll be surprised how quickly gains begin to show up, if you set yourself to it, patiently and persistently.

The one thing I'd say is that as I age, I do need to be more intentional about recovery (of all types) as part of my plans. When I was younger, I would've benefitted from doing that, but I could get away with over-stressing, overdoing, under-recovering, and bounce back quickly. Now, there's a bigger price to pay.

I'd suggest managing your combination of intensity, duration and frequency thoughtfully based on how you feel (and relevant metrics), not pushing to be back quickly to your youthful level out of misplaced expectations (or ego?). De-training is faster if I take extended breaks, too, so consistency and injury avoidance are useful.

These are just one li'l ol' lady's opinions, though.

Best wishes for success: I think you'll surprise yourself with what you can achieve!

I'm 48, so not quite 50 yet but I use an app called Fitbod ($50/year w/free trial of X workouts) which lets me select what my goals are (ie hypertrophy, strength, general fitness, Olympic lifting, etc) as well as what kind of split I want to do and it gives me a workout for that particular day. I chose general fitness, full body split, 3x per week and I've been pretty happy with it though I had to make some adjustments to the starting weights when I first started as they were too low.

I've done a variety of programs over the last decade or so ranging from Starting Strength to Wendler's 5/3/1 to having a PT to just kind of doing my own thing. Many of the programs that I've done I found to be beneficial at the time...like I started with SS and it did help me build a good base of strength but I also started having recovery issues when the weights got really heavy. I also have tended to get bored with the off the shelf programs as they're pretty repetitive, but that is to be expected when something is being programmed to provide the most benefit to the most number of people with that particular goal...but they did help me reach my goals at that time.

I had the most progress in my overall fitness when I was working with a PT as everything was tailored directly to me with my goal at that time being to improve overall athleticism. I had the most fun too because he had me doing a lot of different things depending on the day and what we were working on so it wasn't just endless squats or deadlifts or whatever all of the time (did I mention I get bored). Downside is that it was expensive and at a certain point I just couldn't justify his gym fee ($50/mo) on top of $50/session once per week...though that also included "homework" for the other two sessions per week. The other possible downside to a PT is finding a good one. I actually worked with a couple of others before him but I always felt like they were just giving me something pretty generic that I could come up with myself with the knowledge I already had. I'm quite leery of trainers employed by big box gyms and my overall perception is that trainers who rent space from a gym and have their own clients outside of regular gym members or trainers who own their own facilities are much better as they aren't having to do the corporate thing.

Doing my own thing, even though I have enough knowledge to provide myself with a decent program has never really worked out well for me as I will tend to program in mostly things I like doing and avoiding the things I don't like even though intuitively I know I should be doing some of those things I don't like. It's one of the reasons I ended up with the Fitbod app. It's about as close to having a PT in my pocket as I can get. My general fitness program is full body and every workout is a little bit different in terms of movements and lifts which provides a good bit of variety while still hitting everything and also hitting everything in a little bit different way which at this point I feel is good for me as I age as my primary goal is to remain physically competent.

I'd say the biggest downside to that app is that it gives you a little too much freedom to muck up your program if you aren't particularly knowledgeable which can hinder one's results. For example, one of the most frequent review complaints I see is from younger guys in their late teens or early 20s who are new to lifting and they want to run a hypertrophy program to put on mass, so they select that, but then also select a full body split either 2x or 3x per week. Nothing wrong with running a 2-3x per week full body split, but it's very sub-optimal for the goal of putting on mass as it's just not going to be enough volume (at least the way this app lays out the workout) which is why most hypertrophy programs are 4-6x per week with most of those days having a higher volume than a typical full body split would. But the app gives you the freedom to select an inappropriate split for stated goals and then people complain in reviews that they aren't getting results and the app doesn't work. It would be a lot better if it gave you some kind of warning that your selected split is counterproductive to your programming goals or that if you select your programming goals it only allowed you to select certain splits conducive to those goals...though I'd also say that if one truly wanted to bodybuild or powerlift they'd be better off with a coach than this app.

My wife is actually thinking about picking it up as she currently is working with my former PTs wife and it's becoming costly with the price of everything else going up. She looked at a couple of my workouts and they're similar to the kinds of things her PT would be having her do on a given workout so she's thinking about switching to save a little $$$. Anyway, this turned out long...good luck and have fun getting back into the weight room.

Aside from what the posters above have said - recovery, recovery and recovery! Ann pointed it out, and I’d strongly echo it. I’m 48 and a competitive weightlifter, and I need more recovery time than my lifting buddies in their 20s. I can’t perform on a poor diet, without enough sleep or without enough time spent on mobility. I used to get away with cutting corners but that doesn’t work now. I also prefer to work on a “reps in reserve” basis as my form and the weight I can throw around is hugely impacted by my recovery. My numbers probably fluctuate more than someone in their 20s, and I try not to over-reach so that I don’t increase my chances of injury. I didn’t lift when I was younger but I did compete in martial arts, and then I could exist for a few days on flapjack and energy drinks. Not any more!!

As an over 50 year lifter and trainer, I'll tell you the best thing you can do is go back to the basics and use light weights. Get movement back and form back, then increase slowly as you adapt. DON'T train like you were 25years old or like when you were a former athlete. This is one of the biggest mistakes that many a former athlete does after a long layoff. Good luck.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition