Newbie Weight Lifter at Age 49

It sounds like you're doing everything right and making great progress. Keep doing what you're doing. Make sure to maximize your chances of success by getting enough protein, about 150g in your case is a good daily target, no harm in going higher, and make sure you get plenty of sleep. You may also consider adding creatine too.

Don't worry about how you might progress relative to someone in their 20's, say. Yes, it'll be harder as you know, but what's important is progress relative to your old self, and what you're doing will get you that progress. Ideally, you'll be doing this as long as you possibly can, and if you do then you'll be seeing more health benefits than just what the scale tells you.

I started lifting at around 45ish. IMHO, too many make weight lifting too complex. Just start out really slow, get someone to help you with form, even if it's just a couple of trainer sessions.

I'm 58 now and I've moved from lifting 3X a week down to 2X per week, but I do a pretty rigorous workout when I lift (and do a lot of other stuff like Rowing and Assault Bike, that also compliment weights for my cardio).

I've been somewhat stunned, how over time, how much muscle I've been able to put on. Even in my late 50s. I'm around 208 right now (I'm just a bit taller than you), but I only really need to lose around 10 lbs.

daymonh74 wrote: »

I lift twice a week. Full body heavy weights. I've been thinking about going to 3x a week, but I'm not sure if I'd be overtraining and I don't quite understand all of the mechanics related to doing splits just yet. I'm learning what my different muscles are and what they do. I'm just not 100% yet. I'm doing a lot of compound exercises right now too which if I understand correctly will kind of put my body into that muscle building mode (to dumb it down).

Some thoughts on the bolded parts...

Every person is different, and for some going 3x a week would be too much, for others it's not. Since you're still doing full-body, just make sure you have at least one day of rest between, so for example lift Mon-Wed-Fri taking Tues-Thur off. If you want to move one of those days to the weekend, no problem, just keep 24 hours between consecutive workouts. When and if you decide to try it, just monitor how you feel. If you are still feeling weak at the start of the next workout, then for your body at this moment in time you may not be ready yet for a third day. Likewise if your sleep starts to suffer or you are nonstop sore all the time. But realize that even if you aren't ready NOW, doesn't mean you'll never be ready, it just may take some more time getting used to lifting. Lots of people are able to graduate up to three lifting sessions per week just fine.

Don't worry yet about doing split workouts. Some people never do them, just stick with full-body every time, and they are very satisfied with their results. Others reach a point where they want to try splits, whether for the sake of variety or because they feel they can get better gains. Both paths are completely valid and can yield terrific results. If/when you want to learn about splits, there are plenty of resources available to read, and lots of people on this site more than willing to teach.

Now, for the part about compound exercises causing a "muscle building mode," let's stop right there. The way your muscles grow is a several-step process:

• Muscle fibers are stressed/torn
• The body sends nutrients to heal the damaged fibers
• If the same fibers are repeatedly stressed/torn, the body does more than simply repair the damage, it adds reinforcement to help prevent future damage, aka builds bigger muscle

This cycle can occur through lifting objects at work just as easily as through exercise of all forms. Yes, ALL forms, not just weightlifting...swimming, running, yoga can all spur increases in muscle, provided it first stresses the cells to the point of needing repair, then repeats the process until the body feels compelled to repair AND reinforce. This won't continue indefinitely. Think about walking: as an infant, walking was new and decidedly difficult, requiring lots of new brain coordination and muscle building, but as an adult you can walk around without causing any overt damage, thus there's no reason for building the muscles based strictly on walking. You CAN prompt the body into repair, such as by walking for hours on end or hiking over rough terrain/steep slopes.

Anyway, back to the part about compound exercises causing magical muscle building. The fact you're lifting weights is causing strain on your muscles, prompting the body's healing process. Keep doing this, and that's why you gain muscle. Now, what's special about compound moves (bench press, deadlift) compared to isolation moves (curls, leg extensions)? From a purely biological perspective, nothing at all. Both cause the muscles to tear, both require the body to adapt. What sets compound moves as generally considered superior is two-fold:

• Time-saving
• Heavy-setting

Think about it this way: You can spend ten minutes doing pushdowns (triceps), another ten minutes doing cable fly's (chest) and ten more minutes doing DB front raises (shoulders), hitting all three groups in a total of 30 minutes. Or you can do bench press, hitting the same three muscle groups in ten minutes total, saving time to either do more compound moves or just get on with your day.

The other part about compound moves is how you can really load up the bar, since the combination of muscles working together are stronger than any one group by itself. Heavier weights cause correspondingly greater damage, which elicits a correspondingly greater healing/building reaction from the body.

Thus compound moves let you lift heavier for less total time while achieving more body response. That's your "muscle building mode," which can be achieved using nothing but isolation moves, it just would take a lot longer, both in terms of per workout as well as more weeks due to lighter loads being used. Isolation moves have their place, but unless you have a specific reason for doing them (a certain goal, a trainer's instructions, medical rehab, etc) you're probably better off going with most, if not all, compound moves.

nay0m3 wrote: »

Creatine is also a must...

For the record, I've never taken creatine and have been quite happy with the results of my hard work. I'm sure I ended up having some through my diet, but I never took it as a supplement. So while I won't argue it's potential benefits, I will argue the idea it's a "must."

Technically, creatine isn't a "must", but the potential benefits weighed against how cheap and easy it is to add to your regimen, make it very compelling.

I used to lift casually in my 20's and early 30's. This was before the internet, so it was harder to get good info. I'd go to the gym, do stuff with no real plan. I made some progress, nothing amazing. Then my habits changed. I got more sedentary, and gained weight.

As I turned 50 a bit over 3 years ago I made changes. I got myself a little home gym of bench, loadable db's, ez-bar, barbell, pullup bar and various plates. I've since dropped over 50 pounds and sustained there. TBH I could probably drop another 10-20. My waist size is down about 6", and my tshirt size is the same, though some are baggier than others, but not enough to drop a size. I just got some blood work done, everything is in normal range though my glucose was higher than I thought it would be, at the high end of normal.

I've tried various splits and what I've found works for me, that I can sustain, is an upper/lower split every other day. On the in-between days I may do a bit of cardio. Yes, that means Monday one week will be a lifting day, the next week not. Since I'm working out at home, that's not a problem. Every four days I'm getting bench, squat, row, etc., and at the end of leg day I may add in Myo-reps for arms to get a little extra volume.

If you want to add a third day of weights you don't have to do entire full body again, which may well lead to overtraining even if you are (hopefully?) doing a deload every so often. Different parts recover faster than others. You don't need a convoluted split either. Keep doing bigger lifts like squats or deadlift twice a week, and on the extra day in between do more arms, accessories, etc.