Tip: Age Makes No Difference in Recovery Rates

The Middle-Age Stereotype? A lot of unfortunate things happen when a man hits his forties or fifties. His skin starts to resemble distressed leather and he leaves behind a winter storm of dead skin flakes whenever he gets up off the sofa. Stiff hairs and strange growths start to sprout from his body, making him look more like a potato that’s been stored under the sink too long than a man. He also finds himself giving up on colorful, presumably flattering underwear and gravitating towards the same, 5 in-a-bag discount, asexual, tightie-whities his mom used to buy for him when he was 10 years old because, realistically, there’s no scenario where any woman aside from an emergency room nurse is going to see him with his pants off. On the weightlifting front, he finds his progress slowing. Muscle comes hard while fat comes easy. His joints and muscles ache so bad in the morning that he wishes he could just call an Uber to take him straight to the can. But maybe all these age-related assumptions are just stereotypes, especially the ones related to weight lifting, because American researchers have discovered that as far as recovery rates, there’s no real difference between men in their 20’s and men in their 40’s or 50’s. What They Did The scientists recruited 19 recreationally trained men and split them into two groups, a “young adult” group (21.8 years old, plus or minus 2 years) and a “mature adult” group (47.0 years old, plus or minus 4.4 years). The men were asked to train one leg on an “isokinetic dynamometer,” which is a kind of glorified leg extension machine with electronic readouts. Their training protocol consisted of 8 sets of 10 reps with 60 seconds of rest between sets. The scientists measured max voluntary isometric contractions and isokinetic peak torque, along with blood values to determine levels of inflammation. Blood samples were taken before lifting and immediately after lifting and were repeated 30, 60, 120 minutes, 24 hours, and 48 hours post-exercise. What They Found The results revealed no differences between max voluntary isometric contractions and isokinetic torque. More importantly, there were no between-group differences between myoglobin, creatine kinase, C-reactive protein, or interleukin-6, all markers of recovery or inflammation. What This Means to You The researchers concluded that, “…this study indicated no differences in the recovery response between young adults and middle-aged adults for any of the performance measures, nor in subjective levels of muscle pain or soreness. Furthermore, no between-group differences were observed in the inflammatory or muscle damage response to the exercise protocol.” So maybe this study will help put to bed some of the misconceptions about age and lifting. Too many people have it in their minds that 40 or beyond is some sort of real, tangible barrier to progress. Granted, older lifters need to stay mobile and flexible, because that’s where real aging will manifest itself if you’re not diligent with your stretching, mobility drills, yoga, Kama Sutra sex, or whatever you do that keeps you from turning into a human floorboard. Other than that, older lifters shouldn’t necessarily temper their training or their goals because of fears they’re in the throes of codgerdom. Progress should continue just fine, thank
Origin: Tip: Age Makes No Difference in Recovery Rates

Tip: Methods vs. Mechanisms. Know the Difference

What’s Your Main Goal in the Gym? Think of your primary goal. Now, how are you going to achieve that goal? There are two steps: Seek out others who were successful in reaching that goal. Next, isolate the behaviors and/or methods that these people have in common, rather than what they did differently. (That last part is crucial.) Fat Loss Goals A great example of this is fat loss. If you look at 100 people who lost a significant amount of weight, perhaps some of them used Weight Watchers, some went low carb, while others focused on eating “clean” foods. At first glance this seems confusing, but if you dig a little deeper you realize that all these people found a way to consistently eat fewer calories long enough to achieve their weight loss. In this example, there are various methods, but only a single mechanism. If you need to drop some fat and you’re debating whether or not to go vegan or use intermittent fasting, for example, do some serious thinking about which method you’re more likely to do consistently. Does that mean that all weight-loss methods are equally effective? Certainly not, but a “less effective” method that you’ll do is preferable to a more effective method that you won’t (or can’t) do. Training Goals You might notice that some successful bodybuilders use bro-splits while others use a push/pull split. Some use lower reps, others high reps. Some use mostly free weights, others focus on machines. Some use forced reps, others don’t. If you focus on these various methods, however, you’ll be blinded by the fog that prevents you from seeing the underlying mechanisms of success: brutally hard work for long periods of
Origin: Tip: Methods vs. Mechanisms. Know the Difference