Effective and Efficient Strength Training for Older Women

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  • Pdc654
    Pdc654 Posts: 317 Member
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    I have not posted here in a while. Middle of January I got Covid, then Covid rebound. While the Covid infection itself wasn't too bad ( no hospitalization, and it did not effect my lungs, which was my greatest fear since I have asthma and mild COPD), I did have some longer term after-effects, including daily headaches, and very low energy levels for several weeks afterwards. I was not able to exercise, and especially not lift weights for quite a while. I was just getting started back into my routine when I got hit with a bad case of bronchitis. I was out of the gym for another 3 weeks. Therefore, I have been rather inconsistent with my training and had to cut back quite a bit on my weights. I pretty much had to start over. That's life. But now I'm almost back to where I was.

    Today I had my final session with my personal trainer. I was wanting her to show me some Barbell exercises. Specifically bench press, deadlifts, Squats, rows, overhead press. I could tell when I first talked to her a couple weeks ago about it, she had some hesitations. I told her I knew I wasn't ready for barbells yet but wanted to get the form down since it was our last session together. Well long story short, I wasn't even ready to learn the basics yet because on the bench I was having trouble just keeping the bar stable to enable me to do the press. I don't think it was that my chest muscles weren't strong enough, I think it was that my stabilizer muscles were not, so I was wobbling a lot with it. We are going to postpone the Barbell work a while longer, and I will continue with the dumbbells and machines. Maybe I'll pay for another session in a few months when I think I'm really ready.

    On another note, she wants me to increase my protein to 1 gram per pound of bodyweight, since I've reached my goal weight and starting to increase my calories now for maintenance. That would be 125 grams! Seems a lot to me, but I was already at 105-110, so really it's only one cup of Greek yogurt to get to that goal. And...she wants me to increase my weights and use a 8-10 rep range. I had been going up to 12 reps before I increased my weights, so now I'll increase them once I can do 10 reps.

    Hopefully I don't have anymore set backs for a while, and can make some good progression with my lifting.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,481 Member
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    If the weight is a problem for you, with good form . . . there are shorter/lighter bars (depending on what you're using now), or even working with a dowel/broomstick to understand and practice the form, even if that weight doesn't create enough useful stress. Alternatively, many exercise can be done pretty close to the same way with dumbbells, giving you more flexibility with total weight load.

    I used to do Chinese martial arts, specifically Tai Chi and some types of traditional kung fu (Taiwanese lineage). There's a saying there, "invest in loss". It's complicated, but the core idea is that you may need to do some not-optimal things on the path to optimality. I'd put practicing strength training form at minimal weight in that category, sometimes.
  • Pdc654
    Pdc654 Posts: 317 Member
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    @AnnPT77. Yes, we did go try out the lighter bars, and I do think I will practice with them for form. They have a lot of those at the Y, starting at 20 lbs all the way up to very heavy. I wasn't sure how heavy they went up to, but I did see a 90 lb one. So I do have choices. All of this was in a part of the gym I don't usually go to. A little intimidating but also kinda interesting.

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