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Thread: I Taught a 64-yo Woman to Squat, Deadlift and Press Today

  1. #41
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    • starting strength seminar april 2024
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    Excellent to see. Most importantly: how does she feel?

  2. #42
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    She regularly reports sleeping better, better appetite, more energy. She sent me a long note about it the other day. She feels terrific, better than she has in years. She gets some DOMS and has a little trouble with her elbow, but her overall well-being is tremendously improved.

  3. #43
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    I want to show this to my early-20s male friends who refuse to deadlift because of something they read on the back of a magazine. A 64-year-old woman getting shit done - this was great to read and you do great work.

  4. #44
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    That's excellent to hear. My 64yo woman also feels much better, though she didn't have the same health issues, just a previous herniated disc and one or two other little things. I've only trained her once a week so have proceeded cautiously, she's now up to squatting the 20kg bar, doing the first full pushups of her life, and pulling 50kg from the rack. She started with just 35kg, I repeated that the following week, after that it was +2.5kg each week. I only introduced the BB squat a few weeks back, first week just teaching and getting the right depth etc, second week 3 reps for 5 sets, third week 4 reps for 5 sets, fourth (last) week 5x5.

    Certainly we could have progressed faster, but I wanted to err on the side of caution for the previous back issues, and as well I wanted her to be using weights she herself was very comfortable with, so she could do them in her own workouts during the rest of the week - after all, it's not really strength if they'll never do it on their own.

    Again assuming one session a week with me, I'll be happy if by the end of the year she can do squat 40kg, do 10 pushups, and pull 60kg from the floor.

    I'm lucky with her in that she has a very supportive family member in her daughter. Her daughter used to come to my gym and I gave her a routine or two, she now goes somewhere else - she's a physiotherapist who's very physically active, does rock-climbing, runs half-marathons and so on. Obviously the daughter supports all this. As well, she has as her inspiration another guy who comes to the gym - it's her old high school teacher, 83yo and still doing stuff, obviously not a huge amount, but he does his own shopping and so on.

    I also have a little story about a younger client recovering from cancer, not sure if it fits in this thread though.

  5. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kyle Aaron View Post
    Again assuming one session a week with me, I'll be happy if by the end of the year she can do squat 40kg, do 10 pushups, and pull 60kg from the floor.
    Excellent. Your case sounds tougher than mine. I think my gal is a bit to the right of the mean...a bit stronger than the average bear. I thought we'd be going much more slowly than we are, and sometimes I have to restrain her. She gets greedy. I'm actually hoping my next client is more challenging.

    I also have a little story about a younger client recovering from cancer, not sure if it fits in this thread though.
    Do tell.

  6. #46
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    This is so heartening to read.

  7. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sullydog View Post
    Excellent. Your case sounds tougher than mine.
    I'm not sure, I could be going slower than we need to. But when you're just exercising for general health, there's no great tearing hurry.

    Do tell.
    or A Cancer Patient Adds 20kg To Each Lift In 8 Weeks


    The point:
    (1) "Muscle memory" is real
    (2) Correct movement matters a lot

    Long version
    It's been said many times that strength is a skill, and simply practicing a movement makes it stronger, even if you're not heavily loading it. Thus Dan John's Easy Strength programme (pick 3-6 lifts, do them for 40 days, never going above 80% 1RM) and so on.

    What I discovered is that it can be even easier than we imagine, if we combine some muscle memory with some newbie gains - even if we add in cancer.

    I have a friend and sometime training partner György (not his real name, he is shy), who is in his early 30s. Being of east European stock, at the same height as me he is usually 10-20kg heavier (commonly mid-90s kg), much broader, and the lifts which I take 3-6 months to get to he can usually manage in 6 weeks or so.

    Last year had a big mole on his leg, it was a skin tumour, which was removed. However it was sitting on top of a lymph node, so they removed all the lymph system in his leg. After this he had localised chemo and lots of drugs, was bedridden for some time. The whole regime was several months, he is now on immune system boosters, has to wear a pressure stocking on his right leg.

    He asked me to train him 2-3 times a week, which I did on the condition that he do exactly as I told him - in the past he had a tendency to say, "I feel strong today!", slap another 20kg on the bar and go for it - and get stuck in his progress.

    May 9th we began, and not considering form too much, tried out his max strength. This was squat 60kg, bench 50kg, and deadlift 80kg. The form was atrocious, and he was dripping in sweat and puffing after these attempts.

    I took him back to true basics.

    Squat - hold onto rack, drop into deep squat, move hips in figure 8 to improve mobility
    Push - plank 15" x3, pushups 5,5,5
    Pull - bat wings 7.5kg 8,8,8
    Hinge - Bulgarian goat belly swing -x10, 12kg 10,10
    Loaded carry - farmer's walk with 15kg dumbbells

    We built up from there, slow and steady. During workouts he'd usually feel fine and that he could do more, but afterwards realise it'd taken heaps of his energy. His body's recovery resources were being mostly used for something else, after all.

    Some of the workouts were tough for him. All of us have good days and bad days, but the recovering cancer patient's bad days are really bad.

    Eight weeks later as of 2012-07-04 he's had 18 workouts. In his last workout he did,
    Barbell back squat 30kg 5,5,5
    Bench press 30kg 5,5,5
    Dumbbell rows 15kg 10,10,10
    Below-knee rack pulls 65kg 5,5,5
    Farmer's walk with 30kg dumbbells

    So that's what we'd worked up to. But then he was about to go off overseas for three weeks, and being 8 weeks it seemed a good time to try out his maximum strength again.

    Barbell back squat 80kg
    Bench press 70kg
    Deadlift 100kg

    Now, these are lifts few here will think remarkable for a guy in his early 30s who weighs 95kg or so, until you remember the cancer. But what is remarkable to me is that in all our training he never went above 50% his original 1RM - but they still all improved.

    This says to me two things,

    (1) "Muscle memory" is real - if you've been strong before, it'll come back more quickly and easily than it went on in the first place, not only with less time but less effort and

    (2) Correct movement matters a lot - maybe his strength gains came mostly just from going back to the very basics and doing lots of reps.

    Certainly with newbies to training just adding a few kg to the bar every workout or every week is very effective. But those coming back after a layoff, or recovering from illness or injury, perhaps can benefit from an approach with less pushing of heavy weights, and more focus on consistency and technique.

    Lastly I would say I admire his consistency. I have a few clients who've various issues, not all of them are willing to do the work to sort them out. The hardest is when you've been very capable and are now so useless compared to what you used to be able to do, it's hard to tread the same road again, and even harder to start further back than you did before.

    Anyway. Strength is a skill. Really.

  8. #48
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    Excellent story, Kyle. Thanks.

    And yes, the more I read in the strength science lit, the more I'm convinced that strength is a skill, and that almost all the increases during an early novice progression are in muscle memory and neuromuscular recruitment. But that's not a bad thing. Quite the opposite.

  9. #49
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    Rosemary, 58kg 64yo school teacher, previous herniated lumbar discs, this morning sqautted 25kg 5x5 and deadlifted 60kg for a single.

    These are not lifts I'd expect to impress anyone here. But when she started she couldn't do a single goblet squat with anywhere near good form, it was a goodmorning squat with knee valgus collapse etc. She sees me once a week, this was week 18; we could have progressed more quickly, but I like to be slow and steady when it comes to previous injuries, especially in the back. She's dedicated, repeats our workouts during the week, the session is just to step things up and/or introduce a new exercise.

    Given that a quarter of people over 70 can't sit down and stand up without using forward weight shift and their hands, nor pick 5kg off the ground and walk with it, I think if she keeps this up she'll be doing well.

    Her school is having everyone do a "reflections" presentation, she's doing it on "resilience" and strength is part of that obviously, she had me take pictures, if she sends them I'll post them up.

  10. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kyle Aaron View Post
    Rosemary, 58kg 64yo school teacher, previous herniated lumbar discs, this morning sqautted 25kg 5x5 and deadlifted 60kg for a single.

    These are not lifts I'd expect to impress anyone here. But when she started she couldn't do a single goblet squat with anywhere near good form, it was a goodmorning squat with knee valgus collapse etc. She sees me once a week, this was week 18; we could have progressed more quickly, but I like to be slow and steady when it comes to previous injuries, especially in the back. She's dedicated, repeats our workouts during the week, the session is just to step things up and/or introduce a new exercise.

    Given that a quarter of people over 70 can't sit down and stand up without using forward weight shift and their hands, nor pick 5kg off the ground and walk with it, I think if she keeps this up she'll be doing well.

    Her school is having everyone do a "reflections" presentation, she's doing it on "resilience" and strength is part of that obviously, she had me take pictures, if she sends them I'll post them up.
    Well I am impresed and hope to see the pictures. Good work!

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