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Exercise Makes Our Muscles Work Better with Age
- civilian 11y agoI thought this was taken for granted but I'm glad it's been confirmed and we understand the neural process behind it. It's a good motivation for working out. I often think: "I'm squatting 180lbs now, so that I can sit down onto and stand up from a toilet when I'm 80."
- hyperchase 11y agoI'm squatting 500 pounds now, so I can squat 350 when I'm 80 :P
- kelvin0 11y agoI got up to 250+ (3 reps), this makes me feel like a feeble baby! Have you been lifting for long? I can deadlift 300+, I bet you deadlift 700? Curious, lemme know!
- hyperchase 11y agoBeen lifting with a focus on powerlifting for about 7 years, my last meet total was 515 squat, 585 deadlift and 336 bench at 185 lbs. Be patient, get on a tried program, put in the work, eat and sleep and it'll come.
- dominotw 11y agoI am curious if you had to deal with any injuries over the years. My body seems to be the type that gets injured easily, no matter what I do I seem to get injured. I am obsessive about form, I seem to get "overuse injuries", shoulder impingement, sensitive it band ect.
- krrrh 11y agoCan't speak for GP, but I kept hitting a wall in strength gains with shoulder or lower back pain until I made mobility work a priority. It doesn't have to be fancy or extreme, frequency is the key. Search out Joe DeFranco's Limber 11 and Simple 6 for a decent routine and try to get 3-4 times a week minimum. After a month you'll be surprised how different your body feels.
- hyperchase 11y agoTook the words right out of my mouth. Mobility work is key, seems pointless when you first start but will save you down the road.
- dominotw 11y ago>Joe DeFranco's Limber 11 and Simple 6 Wow. Thank you for this, this seems very useful for me. I will def check it out.
- mindcrime 11y agoThis is making me really want to start powerlifting again. I got up to a 420 deadlift (sumo style), and 320x4 back squat, before I wound up drifting away from it. I think once my shoulder finishes healing (rotator cuff surgery), I'm going to start lifting seriously again.
- hyperchase 11y agoGo for it. The Iron Temple is the one constant, it's always waiting for you...beckoning. Will you heed the call of Brodin?
- jawilson2 11y ago“The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.” --Henry Rollins
- rebootthesystem 11y agoInteresting. Same question someone else asked: What's your injury history been like? Coincidentally, I just got back from the doctor. I had my right ankle x-rayed because it's been sore for couple of weeks. I kind of limp in the morning until it warms up and then I can walk normally but step the wrong way and it can be painful. Nothing wrong. They said it's probably a strained ligament issue. I am doing 200 lbs squats and same on Romanian deadlift. My guess is that my squat biomechanics is off and I am doing a number on my right ankle. I just started reading "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe and will get some coaching to see about fixing problems.
- hyperchase 11y agoI got cocky as a novice, and fucked my back pretty bad and was out of comission for a 4 months or so. Got cocky chasing huge (for me, at the time) numbers and ended up losing way more progress than I gained. Minor things here and there in my shoulders and elbows, which I ended up fixing by tearing apart my own bench press form and being meticulous with ever part of the lift. Bench press is, in my opinion, the most technical lift of the big three. Slow consistent progress wins out in the long run, I'm a huge fan of sub-maximal training and going for rep PRS and not maxing out often. I only compete at most twice per year, and don't bother going for max attempts when I'm not at a meet. All of my training these days is based around the principles in Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 and I've slowly added my own tweaks and customizations over time to it and it hasn't let me down. Don't neglect mobility work. It's boring, but it'll save you in the long run.
- industriousthou 11y ago>Don't neglect mobility work. It's boring, but it'll save you in the long run. Dude, yeah. Been lifting on and off for about five years and made a little progress. Just started working with a trainer and realized that I've never done a proper dead lift because I lack flexibility in my hamstrings. I always kind of blew off mobility as not being related to strength. A real eye opener.
- rebootthesystem 11y agoThanks for the insight. I am going to back off on how aggressively I increase the load and go to work on flexibility and technique.
- ellyagg 11y agoHere's a 70 year old deadlifting 683: https://www.facebook.com/tommy.mason.9237/videos/10207393442227388/ https://www.facebook.com/tommy.mason.9237/videos/10207393442...
- hyperchase 11y agoLooking good for me then!
- CuriouslyC 11y agoWord. I want to dominate masters powerlifting.
- anpk 11y agoYou should probably start using the squat toilets. Its a real good lower body workout.
- angersock 11y agoDon't neglect your arms...try the over-head piss.
- zeroxfe 11y ago"Of course, this type of single-snapshot-in-time study can’t tell us whether the athletes’ training actually changed their muscle health over the years or if the athletes were somehow blessed from birth with better muscles, allowing them to become superb masters athletes." I really wish they hadn't used world class athletes, who almost always have major genetic advantages.
- 0xcde4c3db 11y agoAlso, even if the difference is 100% in the diet and exercise regimen (which I consider vanishingly unlikely, given the established and increasing knowledge base of how genetic factors influence major age-related illnesses), a 14% increase in muscle mass between "sedentary" and "world-class athlete" doesn't suggest the greatest ROI for a more moderate regimen. I think there's value in this study; the study of extremes often yields useful hints for future research. But the way it's reported here is pretty bad. This kind of crap will continue until the prevailing attitude shifts away from the concept of "successful aging". Where would we be if Jonas Salk had focused on "successful polio"?
- bryanrasmussen 11y agoyes, and maybe if they hadn't used world class athletes they could have had more than 29 of them. I mean if they had 10000 exceptionally fit people for their age, that might start to mean something.
- takno 11y agoGiven that they had to get them into a lab and use specialised equipment on them I'd guess the low number of participants was more due to budget than experiment design
- bryanrasmussen 11y agoprobably, but the result is the same.
- contingencies 11y agoAs someone who has recently quit smoking (6 months) and started a daily regimen of 1.5 hrs of serious cycling (including 45 min up a steep incline) at 2000m (6500ft) altitude at age 34 (2 weeks down; with a couple of breaks for alternatives like hikes or longer bike trips), this article makes me feel like I've made the right decision, despite daily aching muscles. I'm using the hope of joining a group cycle trip across Tibet to Nepal from southwest China[0] in September as a mental crutch. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20091026172350/http://www.geocities.com/graydonandjoanne/yunnan-tibet.html https://web.archive.org/web/20091026172350/http://www.geocit...
- mindcrime 11y agoAs someone who has recently quit smoking (6 months) and started a daily regimen of 1.5 hrs of serious cycling (including 45 min up a steep incline) at 2000m (6500ft) altitude at age 34 (2 weeks down; with a couple of breaks for alternatives like hikes or longer bike trips), this article makes me feel like I've made the right decision Definitely. Take it from me, the alternative(s) are no fun. I got lazy about biking and running and everything, let my weight creep up, and was over-stressing myself way to hard, and ultimately had a heart-attack. Luckily I lived and the doctors say I should be fine, but they all hammered me on the importance of staying active and fit from here on out. Luckily I never smoked, so I have that going for me at least. But yeah, quitting smoking is definitely a Good Call if you care about your health.
- phyalow 11y agoGood luck, all the best with your health going forward.
- contingencies 11y agoThanks for the supportive words and I'm glad you're still around to cajole people in the right direction!
- mindcrime 11y agoI sure hope so! I'm 42 now, and I just came back in from a bike ride - only my second since a 5 month layoff caused by a combination of weather, travel and shoulder surgery - and I'm beat. And gawd was I slllooooowwwww out there tonight. Uuuggghhh. But hey, I know it will come back with time, and - more to the point - I know how important it is to stay active. After the whole heart-attack thing back in 2014, I'm pretty committed to staying active from here on out. Keeping my heart healthy is priority #1, anything else is just gravy at this point.
- jjrp 11y agoHoly cow, heart attack at 40? Can you elaborate on how that happened?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rosser 11y agoI'm 43. My father had had his third heart attack by the time he was my age. Shitty diet, smoking during more of his life than not, negligible exercise (despite being an adrenalin junkie), and high-stress work (during my life, he was everything from a paramedic, to an underwater welder, to a corrections officer at a state penitentiary) were doubtless contributing factors. I'm sure genetics played a substantial part, too. Given all that, it's something I've been pretty paranoid about since his death (motorcycle accident). My cardiovascular health, however, seems to be a bullet dodged: my BP is pretty consistently about 110/70, my resting heart rate is in the low 50s, and my 1-minute heart-rate recovery is always at least 40.
- sndean 11y agoFrom the paper: "World champion master athletes in their 9th decade of life had a greater number of surviving motor units, reduced collateral reinnervation, better neuromuscular transmission stability and a greater amount of excitable muscle mass as compared with age-matched controls." and "The Masters Athletes (MA) consisted of track and field athletes ranked in the top 4 of their respective events at the world masters championships..." I'm not sure how surprised I'm supposed to be about people who were world-class athletes some time within the past ~40 years ago having above average strength. Though, I understand that you can't easily pull off a randomized controlled trial (long-term) for exercise.
- Someone 11y ago"World masters" championships are for older athletes. For example, in athletics, we have https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_athletics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_athletics: "Masters athletics is a class of the sport of athletics for veteran athletes in the events of track and field, road running and cross country running. The competitions feature five-year age groups beginning at age 35. Men as old as 105 and women in their 100s have competed in running, jumping and throwing events." Winners of these events need not have been world class athletes when they were young, and often weren't, but they typically have been exercising regularly more than other people. But yes, it is not that surprising that people who are world-class athletes in their age group score differently in some metrics than people who are not. Question is: in what metrics? This study researched that. It's not just that they have more muscles, the muscles they have work better, too.
- rsync 11y agoIt's my understanding from my reading of pop-science books (specifically, Nick Lanes) that mitochondria can be selected for within your own body. As you age, mutations naturally produce slightly broken mitochondria who do a slightly worse job at making energy. However, if you are exercising vigorously, those poorly functioning mitochondria will die off (apoptosis) and you will maintain a (relatively) "fitter" population of mitochondria inside your muscles, as those are the ones that are left to reproduce. If you don't ever exercise, you'll probably feel fine (all else being equal) but secretly, you're cultivating a weak population of mitochondria within your own muscle cells. At some point the weakness of that population will become apparent.
- known 11y agoTake hot water bath and go for one hour early morning walk;
- julian55 11y agoThis seems fairly obvious but it's good to have it confirmed as I'm 60 now. I usually cycle about 100 miles a week and I'm glad I'm not wasting my time!
- algorias 11y ago> Of course, this type of single-snapshot-in-time study can’t tell us whether the athletes’ training actually changed their muscle health over the years or if the athletes were somehow blessed from birth with better muscles, allowing them to become superb masters athletes. I really appreciate this kind of honesty. It's rare that a popular article explicitly points out possible confounders.
- altotrees 11y agoPeople often ask me if I worry about tearing muscles/sore joints when I run, ride my bike or lift weights. In college, I kind of worried about those things, but now sitting in a chair from 8-10 hours a day makes me worry way more about heart health/blood pressure, etc. I just kind of hope to offset all of that sedentary time in front of the monitor, and indeed do hope that all this activity benefits me down the line, be it muscle elasticity, heart health, lung function, whatever.
- justinhj 11y agoTry a standing desk if you can. I find that aside from tired feet I feel a lot more energetic throughout the day and no longer get and aches in my back that I used to experience when sitting