USAWA

AGING AND STRONG

Part VI: Growing Ever Stronger

By Dan Wagman, Ph.D., C.S.C.S.

I hope that most readers of this series of blogs will derive at a new sense of motivation for training and competing. After all, the prognosis for getting older and bending barbells is rather good. Still, I know there are those who will dismiss what they read. After all, everybody sees how, when you get older, you get weaker.

If you hold observation in higher regard than science, why not consider instead your author’s positive observations? At the 2006 USAWA Nationals I claimed to be 35 and hit a 360-pound bench press feet-in-the-air. In 2015, when according to the age adjustment formula I should’ve lost 5% in strength, and while still entering the Open division and claiming no age, I lifted 380-pounds in the same lift for a new Open American Record, exceeding the Open World Record. Similarly, at the 2012 IAWA World Championships, and claiming to be 50, I performed a 104-pound strict reverse curl. At the 2019 Worlds, where I should’ve been 7% weaker due to aging, and accepting to be listed as 39-years old in the Open division, I broke the Open World Record in that lift with 153 pounds. Yes, I’ve been rebelling against agism by claiming to be younger than I am (and proving the age adjustment formula to be absurd). Sure, doing so gives overall placing advantages to other lifters, but they’re based on a fictional formula and I’d prefer to have my ranking based on strength in our strength sport as opposed to being artificially inflated. But I digress…so while I could provide more than just two examples, in the 30+ years I’ve been lifting weights I simply haven’t observed a meaningful decrease in overall strength…some lifts are up, others are down, next mesocycle it’ll be different lifts, just like in my 20’s. So why not generalize from such positive observations?

 

Enter Science

The fact is that the above self-observations constitute conjecture if generalized on to others. It constitutes flawed and lazy thinking to base decisions on simple observation without any controls and statistical analyses. Now, certainly, as it pertains to my strength performance over the years, I could’ve conducted a single-subject design experiment—called ideographic research—for the purpose of generalizing findings onto others. In fact, much of science in the 19^th century was conducted via principles of ideographic research. But investigators learned that generalizing from the individual to groups of people is problematic compared to the reverse. And so in the 20^th century research methods shifted to where groups of individuals were studied—called nomothetic research—so that one could more accurately predict what applies to the individual or, to be more precise, the vast majority of individuals. Therefore, if you want to figure out if chronological age results in reduced muscle strength, by how much, at what rate, and when, you have to turn to nomothetic research instead of just observations.

In Parts I, II, III, IV, and V I shared research demonstrating that muscle strength does not  decline to the extent commonly believed, nor to begin at the chronological age most sports organizations believe this to occur. Even in sedentary but otherwise healthy people, their ability to activate muscles and generate force doesn’t decline to any meaningful extent until around 70 years of age. And for people who lift weights you can expect to make gains until somewhere in the 7^th decade of life. You therefore have a clear and undeniable contradiction between what research discovered and what just about every lifter has observed. So what might explain this contradiction?

 

It’s All About Training

While the observations many lifters have made aren’t wrong, the conclusions generally are. In all the observations about the impact of increasing age on loss in muscle strength, has anyone considered the most important variable in not only maintaining strength, but gaining strength—lifting weights? Is it not obvious that if the primary and most effective way to increase strength revolves around lifting weights, that if your training is performed in a manner that doesn’t maximize your body’s ability to adapt, your strength gains will be inferior, stall, result in overtraining, and/or injury? And since any and all of that can occur at any age, chronological age ought to be but a minor consideration.

When you pump iron a lot more goes on than just muscles contracting and relaxing. Lifting weights impacts all systems in your body: the brain and neurons that connect to muscle fibers, metabolism, the neuroendocrine system, nutrients and stored energy sources, bones, sensory systems, connective tissues…everything, including psychological factors. Within that complex system, just as the medical doctor must consider multiple layers of effects of a particular surgical intervention, drug, etc., so, too, must the strength athlete consider how lifting weights will impact the entire body and how an error, while not as grave as a medical doctor’s mistake, can result in less than optimal strength gains.

If you’re healthy and you’ve observed your strength declining over the years and you haven’t even reached 60, it isn’t your advancing chronological age that’s to blame, rather your training method. Please understand, I’m not suggesting that if you want to maximize your strength gains you need to obtain the equivalent of a medical degree in pumping iron. What I am suggesting is that if you don’t consider the complexity of human physiology and how it responds to your training approach, you can’t leap to the conclusion that losing 100 pounds in your pull is due to aging. Unless there’s an underlying pathology at play, you’ve been training in less than optimal or counterproductive ways. Perhaps you’ve been following training advice based on beliefs rather than evidence. The research has shown that with increasing age things do change in a person’s physiology which result, as an example, in different ways in which muscles not only respond to weight training but also adapt and register gains. Therefore, if you simply follow age-old training wisdoms or new training conjectures, your only expectation can be mediocre gains that’ll fizzle out over time—regardless of age.

 

Entering A New Age

This series of blogs has demonstrated that you can make gains in strength of similar magnitude as young people in to your 60’s. Moreover, consider that the notion of you losing 1% in strength per year once you turn 40 is utter nonsense. In fact, giving lifters a 1% age adjustment is on one hand providing older lifters with an unfair advantage and on the other hand, if these lifters are indeed weaker than what they used to be, rewarding silly and non-productive training practices. How does that constitute fair competition?

If you feel that reason and fairness ought to govern all-round weightlifting, then you cannot support the age adjustment formula nor Masters starting at 40. Simply put, that practice needs to die. Having a Masters division, however, is not entirely unreasonable. But when should it start? Based on research, 65 could be defensible. So who will step forward and lead the fight against agism in all-round? I’ve given you the playbook, go run with it! And if nobody does, or all-round simply won’t accept the evidence, no worries. For all of you barbell benders out there, how you train is the fountain of youth. So how ’bout rejecting agist defeatism, turning to science-based training practices, and taking a dip in to that fountain with me?

AGING AND STRONG

Part V: Recovery

By Dan Wagman, Ph.D., C.S.C.S.

 When I was in my 20’s I would frequently hear older guys, like in their 30’s, talk about how they couldn’t recover as well from training as they used to. At that point in my lifting career I couldn’t relate. Now, several decades later, I hear guys much younger than me making the same complaint—and still can’t relate. But one of the worst things any person can do is generalize from their own experiences onto others. And so we need to discuss training recovery based on evidence and not experience or beliefs.

 Investigating Recovery 

In looking at recovery research you have to pay close attention to detail. To illustrate, two studies have found older people to have a reduced immune response to a graded exercise test compared to younger adults, indicating a delayed recovery response.(3, 6) Other studies have associated the decreased muscle mass found in older adults to increase muscle repair time after exercise.(2, 7) Then a study found that older adults (~69-years old) who recreationally train between 3 to 6 hours per week take longer to recover than younger people.(9) On the other hand at least two studies have found no differences in recovery time between younger and older people.(1, 5) It’s important to understand, however, that these studies looked at different modes of exercise, training intensity, pre-training status of the subjects, and only one looked at subjects with weight training experience. This, therefore, represents the perfect example of how research evolves from study to study and why it’s critically important to look deeper than just the summary of research to derive at an accurate understanding of a particular issue.

            With the above in mind I believe the best study on the topic of recovery as it pertains to us meatheads was published just a few years ago by researchers from the University of Central Florida.(4) They looked at recovery abilities between young male adults aged between 18-30 compared to middle-aged ones between 40-59. All of the subjects had been training with weights for many years and had no physical limitations. They went through ridiculously tough training of 8 sets of 10 reps to failure in the leg extension. The machine used controlled the speed (isokinetic) of each rep so that no variability between subjects was possible. Baseline data were collected via a visual analog scale designed to record each subject’s subjective feelings of pain and soreness including ultrasound; blood draw; and performance measures at baseline, i.e., before the training session, immediately after training and 30, 60, and 120 minutes after training and again 24 and 48 hours after training.

The researchers were interested in seeing what differences there might be between the age groups in terms of various recovery-related variables such as their feelings of pain and soreness, cross-sectional muscle size and overall muscle thickness, isometric (static) muscle strength, and biochemical recovery markers of creatine kinase, c-reactive protein, myoglobin, and interleukin-6 concentrations. The findings can be best summarized in the researchers’ own words and in but one sentence:

“Results of this study indicated no differences in the recovery response between

            young-age and middle-age for any of the performance measures, nor in subjective

            levels of muscle pain or soreness.”

Recovery Reality

            Most lifters think about recovery this way, “I’m gonna squat till I drop today, so I’ll eat a big steak tonight and maybe I’ll even take tomorrow off.” That’s a simplistic way to look at it. In fact, even looking at just recovering is oversimplifying. You see, at the most fundamental level “recovering” from a training session means you’ll end up where you were before you trained. While I can’t speak for you, that’s insufficient for me as I want to end up at a place of greater strength. In other words, I want to recover from and adapt to my last training session.

When talking about recovery-adaptation you need to consider all that goes in to it. Full recovery-adaptation is influenced by all aspects of your training session, i.e., the composition of all training variables in relation to each other; heredity; demands of your job, school, family; social life; injury; sleep; nutrition; physical environment; and the sort of coach-athlete interaction you’re exposed to.(7) I’d like to shine a bright light on the fact that the athlete’s age is not part of the recovery-adaptation formula. Thus, regardless of your chronological age, if any of these variables are out of balance as necessitated by the demands of your training, recovery and adaptation will be compromised.

So now you know all there’s to know about the impact of chronological age on your ability to gain strength. That, of course, is an exaggeration. One of the hardest parts for me in writing this series of blogs was to decide what and how much information would fit the blog format, which is anything but scholarly. Still, there should now be little doubt in your mind that any losses in strength performance prior to your 60’s are not age-related and thus unnecessary and avoidable. And you’d most certainly agree that there’s little chance if any of you turning 40 and from then on you’ll bend the barbell less, and less, and less with every year of life as all-round weightlifting and many other strength sports would want you to believe. Yet I cannot dismiss what many of you are thinking, “If all this science is true, why am I weaker now that I’m in my 50’s than what I was in my 20’s? How do you argue against the fact that now that I’m 53 I’m benching 75-pounds less than when I was 26?” I’ll address that and more in the final part.

 References

1. Allman, B. and C. Rice. Incomplete recovery of voluntary isometric force after fatigue is not affected by old age. Muscle and Nerve 24:1156–1167, 2001.
2. Candow, D. and P. Chilibeck. Differences in size, strength, and power of upper and lower body muscle groups in young and older men. Journal of Gerontology and Biological Science in Medicine and Science 60:148–156, 2005.
3. Ceddia, M., et al. Differential leukocytosis and lymphocyte mitogenic response to acute maximal exercise in the young and old. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 31:829–836, 1999.
4. Gordon, J., et al. Comparisons in the recovery response from resistance exercise between young and middle-aged men. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 31(12):3454-3462, 2017.
5. Klein, C., et al. Fatigue and recovery contractile properties of young and elderly men. European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology 57:684–690, 1988.
6. Mazzeo, R., et al. Immune response to a single bout of exercise in young and elderly subjects. Mechanisms in Aging Development 100:121–132, 1998.
7. Peterson, M., et al. Influence of resistance exercise on lean body mass in aging adults: A meta-analysis. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 43:249–258, 2011.
8. Stone, M., et al. Principles and Practice of Resistance Training. Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL; 2007.
9. Toft, A., et al. Cytokine response to eccentric exercise in young and elderly. American Journal of Physiology and Cell Physiology 283:C289–C295, 2002.

AGING AND STRONG

Part IV: Still Ageless

By Dan Wagman, Ph.D., C.S.C.S.

 I’ve really enjoyed revealing the science behind the effects of aging (click here for Part I, Part II, and Part III). I derive at new-found levels of motivation knowing that my age won’t impact my strength until I’m close to 70. I sincerely hope that the readers of this series will feel similarly. Though you cannot argue the scientific facts, they do seem to fly in the face of what just about every older lifter has experienced. It is, therefore, necessary to look even deeper into the impact age might have on your muscles’ ability to handle a loaded barbell.

 Older and Pumped

In 1945 a Captain in the United States Army Medical Corps investigated the effects of lifting weights on injured soldiers.(1) His research highlighted many important lifting insights, among them that regardless of how old an injury might be, or how old the soldier might be, if he began a weight training protocol and over time increased the weight lifted, he would be able to make sizable gains. Still, as research built upon these findings, sport scientists began to understand that as a person ages the degree of muscle mass decreases. But since lifting weights via a carefully designed training approach increases muscle mass, could it turn old muscles young?

Researchers at the Department of Medicine and Physiology at Rochester University, NY, recruited young (22 to 31) and older (62 to 72) males and females.(9) Baseline MRI studies for muscle mass were conducted, then 3-RM baseline strength was recorded. At baseline there were no significant differences between age groups in the size of the biceps and hamstrings, but the quads in the older group were 22% smaller. Also, at the beginning of the study the older group was significantly weaker than the younger group. Next, the subjects began a three-month scientific strength training program for the quads, hamstrings, lats, and biceps.

Upon completion of the training regimen the researchers found increases in bicep and hamstring size were significantly less in the older group (13% and 7% difference, respectively). For the quads, however, there were no significant differences between groups. In terms of the amount of strength the subjects developed, there were no differences between groups. As an example, overall the biceps increased in strength for the young group by 21% and for the older group by 19%. When, however, the scientists considered how much weaker the old group was at baseline, biceps strength increased in the older group by 64% compared to 28% for the younger group. The research team concluded that, in terms of gains in muscle mass, “…the effect of age on responses to exercise in one muscle group cannot be generalized to all muscle groups.” And related to strength gains they stated, “…substantial strength gains can be achieved in older subjects even in the absence of muscle hypertrophy [growth].”

A few years later an international group of scientists from Finland, Australia, and the United States collaborated in a much more extensive study.(3) They recruited young (29 ±5 years) and older (61 ±4 years) men to examine the effects of an involved and highly scientific 10-week training program on their muscle mass, peak strength, and explosive strength. They performed the squat, leg extension, leg curl, calf raise, back extension, bench press, and crunch. Each week had training days dedicated to muscle growth, muscle strength, or muscle power. At the end of this project both groups recorded significant gains in all measures, though the physiological means by which they were achieved were a bit different.

What appears to be the case is that older people can make the same amount of strength gain compared to a younger person, but there are differences in how their bodies respond and adapt to weight training. One study actually found that after a 6-week weight training period the maximal motor unit (a motor unit consists of the nerve and all of the muscle fibers it innervates) discharge rates increased in young subjects by 15% compared to 49% for older subjects.(5) This is an indication that as you age, there might be a shift away from increasing muscle mass to increasing neurological function as the main driver for strength gain.

From Nerves to Protein

To expand upon this interesting finding a 2014 study looked at what differences there might be between men with average ages of 29 and 64 years.(8) The subjects participated in a 10-week high-volume medium-load training program designed to enhance muscle growth. Although the subjects performed whole-body training the research emphasis was on the leg press, leg extension, and leg curl. The researchers found that despite the fact that both groups made “large increases in strength” (13% young, 14% old), “the dominant mechanisms that may have led to these increases appear to be different between the two groups.” This, because although strength increases were large, they were accompanied with a significant increase in muscle mass in the younger participants, which was not found in the older ones.

The research team acknowledged that the issue of diet was not addressed in their study and believed that it’s possible that the older individuals’ dietary intake may have resulted in less gains in muscle mass. Previous work found that following a 21-week weight training protocol the younger trainees made quicker gains in strength early on compared to the older ones. At the end of the training cycle, however, strength gains were equal.(7) The gains in muscle mass, on the other hand, were greater in the young group and since the subjects’ diet was recorded, the scientists were able to link smaller gains in muscle mass in the older subjects to less daily energy and protein intake.

So protein remains a critical aspect when it comes to developing muscle mass, regardless of age. But since a muscle’s protein “accretion,” as physiologists like to put it, is a highly complex matter related to hormones, cell signaling, etc., it could be that these mechanisms are stunted in older lifters. Scientists from the Universities of Alabama and Arkansas found out, however, that if you trained young and old subjects with weights over a 16-week period, there is “no evidence” that older subjects would synthesize protein to a lesser extent than younger ones.(6) So regardless of age, all you have to do is make sure you pump iron and ingest sufficient amounts of protein. In the short term, if you’re older and say, you’re supplementing your diet with essential amino acids, all you need to know is that your protein synthesis rates are a bit slower compared to younger people (3-6 hrs. vs. 1-3 hrs., respectively). In the long term, however, there are no significant differences.(2)

The Middle-Aged

As you can see, the vast majority of studies tend to look at strength and age between young people in their 20’s and older people in their 60’s and beyond. But since all-round weightlifting considers people to be Masters at 40 and starts to apply an age adjustment, it would be important to know what difference there might be between 40-year olds and 70-year olds. An international group of researchers recruited healthy and fit subjects active in walking, jogging, cross-country skiing, aerobics, and cycling—though none had background in strength training—representing both genders and at average ages of 40 and 70.(4) The subjects trained with weights for six months with the goal of enhancing maximal and explosive strength via a periodized training regimen, meaning that training intensity and volume were manipulated over time to maximize physiological adaptations. Once the scientists crunched the numbers, here’s what they found:

• All subjects increased their muscle mass significantly (4.9% men 40, 9.7% women 40, 5.8% women 70), except for 70-year old men (2.1%);
• large increases in maximal isometric leg extension strength were recorded: men 40 and 70 by 36%, women 40 by 66%, and women 70 by 57%;
• maximal isometric leg curl strength increased significantly by 14% in both groups of men and by 22% in women 40 and 17% in women 70;
• the rate at which subjects could reach maximal strength increased significantly: men 40 41%, men 70 40%, women 40 31%, and women 70 28%;
• all groups also increased the electrical activity of the muscles investigated significantly;
• maximal leg extension strength increased significantly in all groups: men 40 22%, men 70 21%, women 40 34%, women 70 30%;
• the squat jump was used to measure improvements in lower body explosiveness with all groups recording significant increases, though the increases achieved by the 70-year olds reached its peak after two months of training whereas for the 40-year olds it was after four months of training; men 40 11%, men 70 24%, women 40 14%, women 70 18%.

The main finding of this extensive study reveals that healthy and fit 40- and 70-year olds can make tremendous gains in strength and power. And what struck the scientists was that these gains were much greater than what the smaller, yet still significant, gains in muscle size would suggest.

What these studies teach us is that if you lift weights and you’re older, the age factor seems to have little impact. What does seem to occur, however, is that in older people the way in which the body responds to strength training is a bit different. Moreover, it appears that certain exercises and body parts are impacted differently, meaning that whatever age effect there may be, it doesn’t impact the entire body equally. But before we conclude this series, there’s one more issue to consider—recovery. A common mantra of older lifters is that they just can’t recover from training the way they used to. We’ll take a close look in Part V.

References

1. Delorme, T. Restoration of muscle power by heavy-resistance exercises. The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. 27:645-667, 1945.
2. Drummond, M., et al. Skeletal muscle protein anabolic response to resistance exercise and essential amino acids is delayed with aging. Journal of Applied Physiology 104:1452-1461, 2008.
3. Häkkinen, K., et al. Changes in agonist-antagonist EMG, muscle CSA, and force during strength training in middle-aged and older people. Journal of Applied Physiology 84(4):1341–1349, 1998.
4. Häkkinen, K., et al. Changes in muscle morphology, electromyographic activity, and force production characteristics during progressive strength training in young and older men. Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences 53A(6), B415-B423,
5. Kamen, G. and C. Knight. Training-related adaptations in motor unit discharge rate in young and older adults. Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences 59A(2):1334-1338, 2004.
6. Mayhew, D., et al. Translational signaling responses preceding resistance training-mediated myofiber hypertrophy in young and old humans. Journal of Applied Physiology 107:1655-1662, 2009.
7. Mero, A., et al. Resistance training induced increase in muscle fiber size in young and older men. European Journal of Applied Physiology 113:641-650, 2013.
8. Walker, S. and K. Häkkinen. Similar increases in strength after short-term resistance training due to different neuromuscular adaptations in young and older men. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 28(11):3041–3048, 2014.
9. 9.Welle, S., et al. Effect of age on muscle hypertrophy induced by resistance training. The Journals of