Reply With QuoteDefine "stronger."Originally Posted by David Masini
Member
Other than strength
Hi everybody,
we all know that lifting 5 pound more than last time is all we need to do to get stronger (and bigger in the process), I agree with this in fact I did it for many years.
But, once we have passed the early stages of training and we're lifting heavy loads (and we're older too) do you think that struggling to lift heavier weights will help us getting stronger and bigger? I guess the starting strength approach is best suited for novices and early intermediates. Once you have some decent numbers and you're in your 40's or 50's this approach won't be as good and maybe even a little dangerous. Don't get me wrong here, I love lifting heavy and I will try to, at least, maintain my strength with my 5's, or better, 3's but adding a little amount of weight every 1-2 month won't make me so much stronger or look different than before. So why do we have to try to increase the loads forever? The question is: do you think that another way to gain muscular weight apart from adding weight to the bar is possible? I mean, does creating a great amount of tension in a muscle with compound and/or isolation exercises work? Simply changing the execution of a basic exercise, trained not to lift heavier weights, but to hit the muscle group hard i.e. slowing down the tempo or trying to "feel the muscle" or using bodybuilding style techniques. I ask because now, at 54 (even if I look and feel much younger and don't have any physical limitation) since this so called pandemic shut my gym, I was thinking to change my training. What do you guys (older ones) think? Is the pursuit of strength our only concern? Even if (especially in exercises like the press) our strength gains are very small and infrequent if at all?
Thank you.
TMPHBITEU
Define "stronger."
Member
And define decent. And a little dangerous is Ok. Like masklesssness (a Mississippi mouthful).
At 52, I’m still chasing numbers. So should you. Press of course moves slowly. Yet it moves, and mine has never been stronger. Strength, at reasonable bodyweight, is fundamentally our only concern.
Do not use the M-word.
✓ Member
Going on 53 here. I won't presume to answer for any other older guy than this one.
Is the pursuit of strength my only concern? Not even close. Nor is it even close to being dangerous relative to my other activities (concerns). Any improvement, no matter how slow, is improvement, especially in the press and power cleans. And that slow progression lends itself very well to keeping me safe in my other more dangerous activities, plus enhancing my enjoyment of those activities.
If you're looking for permission to back off, especially based on age, don't seek it here.
I, for one, will keep pressing forward.
Starting Strength Coach
I'm with Rip on this. You are always working towards something even if that something is an overall decline.
That aside, I am not 40 yet but I got into this to get bigger and "look like I train" and believed a 500 deadlift, 405 squat, 300 bench press, and 200 press would do it. I hit press first, then 2 years later hit the deadlift and the squat in the same training cycle. Then you know what happened the next time I was in the gym? I reset my loads and have been incrementally adding ever since (nearly 3 years and counting). I don't think too much about it, I skip workouts if I need more recovery, and somehow in this I've continued to get stronger, far more than I cared to. I don't chase numbers necessarily, I just go in and try to add. If I can't I give myself a punishment set, get it done, and call it a day or take another day off depending on which option makes the most sense. Truth be told, I don't necessarily want to squat but it is embedded into my routine at this point that I just get in there, get my mind right, and get it done. PRs actually have come easier this way because I do not care one way or another I just know I have to try and add. At some point it's Just What You Do.
Member
It sounds like you've been training a long time. If you're 55 and started training when you were 53 it's going to be a different answer than if you're 55 and started when you were 16. At some point for everyone, chasing numbers isn't a realistic option. Nobody gets stronger forever and everybody gets weaker eventually so of course, there has to be other ways to go about it than number chasing.
Member
Hi, sorry for the delay (my wife broke her leg...what a year),
that's exactly my point. I'm 54 and I've been training for 20 years. I follow Rip's advices and I respect him for his experience and wisdom. I've done the program and I think the Starting strength methodology, as to say, is the best. In the end is the old linear progression with minimal basic exercises, the same I read in "Brawn" by Stuart McRobert many years ago. So, nothing new under the sun. But I believe it works really fine. For awhile. As you become stronger and older, it is difficult to continue to add weight so the problem is: it is satisfying to add 5kg. in my Squat or Deadlift in a year, but at this point, not every year obviously. So keep pushing the same weights over and over and not make the training days be challenging somehow? If the answer is yes, then, my point is irrelevant but if, like me, you find yourself grinding with the same weights for many, many months even if you have tried to manipulate all the variables, then maybe you have to approach your training with another mentality that is not adding weight to the bar. Being stronger is not only adding weight to the bar but can also be adding some reps, adding sets or reducing time of work sets. You can even try other systems like the rep goal system (which I tried and liked very much). It could also be advisable to drop some basic and important lift (as the dead-lift) in favor of a combination of other basic back exercises and maybe pull from time to time since our technique is now well established after all these years of training. You could give more room to weighted chins becoming very strong on these, the same concept for incline bench or close grip bench or Lying triceps extensions. I mean it's even a mental break from pushing the same weights on press, squat, dead-lift...our muscle won't atrophy I guess. So, my point is that, starting strength is great for novices because it gives you a solid program to follow for years, but, in the long run, when you are a normal family man, older, not living in the gym, you get to a point where it's impossible or too hard (we push our limits but we aren't allowed to get injured because we are important to our family right?) to add even a small amount of weight and if you do, it happened after too much time. To me, it's not that satisfying anymore. And it is even not so much stronger from where I was before, I mean stronger, on the paper but a little amount of weight doesn't makes difference really. That's the way I see it and sorry if I'm not making myself clear..I 'd be able to express better my point in my language (maybe ah ahah). I wish all the best for everybody on the forum despite the fact this Christmas is going to be lived as the shittiest ever lived.
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