The Official Hype Fitness Thread 6.0 - Part 8

[RetrogradeOrbit]

You will probably be thankful to have lost the bulk as you get into your 40’s. As you progress into your 40’s it gets harder and harder to maintain the muscle simply because your body isn’t pumping out the testosterone the way it did when you were younger. And your metabolism slows down as well. It is easy for that muscle to atrophy into fat even with a lot of lifting. I personally made a decision into my 40’s to pursue being athletic over muscular and that was a great decision as I was able to keep a more lean and athletic frame for most of my 40’s which helped me to stay active. As a result, my cholesterol remained managed and my heart has stayed really strong, despite the fact that heart disease runs rampant through my family.

So I really applaud your efforts to get to where you are. I think that you will appreciate it in the long run.

(Now if someone could just advise me how to manage my way as I transition from 40’s into 50’s, I’d appreciate it. Injuries and metabolism at a crawl is vicious.)

Hello there,

Speaking as someone who recently went from their 50's into 60.
It wasn't fatal, but it felt final...!

The key is to train smarter and not harder (a phrase I have come to detest!) like you probably have done in previous decades. I know I did.
As we get older it is all too easy to injure yourself and it takes maddeningly longer to heal.
It is fine to push yourself with more weight or reps on your sets, but do it very gradually so as to avoid an injury.
What I have tended to do is to keep the weight manageable but increase the reps.
I have found it avoids injury but gains are still made.

Also, it is worth trying to add to the amount of sets you do.
For example, I was struggling to do 10 body weight wide arm pullups with good form.
Decided to do 5 sets of 4 reps instead.
Now I get 20 pull ups done, all of which have good form.

Be 100% prepared to accept that gains are going to be harder to come by and take longer to make.

The other things which are just as important?

• Good quality sleep and enough of it, I advise a minimum of 7 hours, ideally 8.
• Cut back on, or even cut out, alcohol.
• A good quality diet, with a moderate to high intake of protein is essential.

It is also way harder to lose excess weight, certainly since I hit 60 last October, it is a real struggle for me. But it is possible, even though I am not there yet...

The more muscle mass and bone density you can build and maintain as you go into those "golden" years the better.
And legs, legs, legs...

That's all I've got. Hope it is helpful...

 

[Lily Adler]