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Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2537: The 5 Secret Advantages of Old Experienced Lifters
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The 5 Secret Advantages of Old Experienced Lifters The 5 Secret Advantages of Old Experienced Lifters. (1:34) #1 - You can get the same or better results with lighter weight. (1:54) #2 - Muscle memory. (10:32) #3 - Keeping muscle requires far...
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- [00:00]
Sal DiStefano
If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.
- [00:06]
Adam Schafer
Mind Pump. Mind Pump.
- [00:08]
Sal DiStefano
With your hosts, Sal Destefano, Adam Schafer.
- [00:12]
Adam Schafer
And Justin Andrews, you just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we talk about the secret advantages that old, experienced lifters possess. They're pretty awesome. Now this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Meal One. So the people at Creatures of Habit have made a high protein oatmeal, 30 grams of plant protein, plus probiotics, healthy fiber. It's got vitamins in there. It's flavored with Himalayan sea salt. It's really low in sugar. It's a great way to start your day. Add some water or some milk and you have a high protein breakfast that tastes amazing with some good complex carbohydrates. It's a great way to start your day. It tastes amazing. Go check them out. Go to creaturesofhabit.com MP Creatures is spelled with a K. Use on that link. I should say you get 25% off your first purchase. Also because of this episode, we are putting maps 40 plus, 50% off. If you're listening to this episode, you're over 40. You want to get in incredible shape. This program is for you. It's strength training focused videos, demos, exercises, sets, reps. It's all there. Go to maps40plus. So maps40plus.com. Then use the code halfoff to get 50% off. All right, here comes the show. Old, experienced lifters have advantages. Yes, it's true. In fact, there's five distinct secret advantages they have related to muscle building and strength training. Today we're going to talk about those. I love this topic.
- [01:51]
Justin Andrews
Old man strength.
- [01:52]
Adam Schafer
Yes, 100%. I'll say the first one first so we can get one, you know, in and start talking about a little bit. But the older you get, and we'll explain why. The older you get, or should I say the more experienced you are. It's more accurate way of putting this. The longer you've been strength training, the more you can squeeze out of light weight. In other words, what once took heavy weight to accomplish can now be accomplished with lighter weight. And people who've been training strength training for a long time know exactly what I'm talking about. And we have data to support this. You see muscle fiber recruitment patterns higher in experienced lifters with less weight. That would take a novice lifter to accomplish that.
- [02:36]
Justin Andrews
Maturity factor, like you've been working on this for so many years, you're really in tune with your body and the whole recruitment process itself. You just get better at that and your technique and the skill of lifting, all that applies towards maximizing that effort.
- [02:51]
Doug
Do you think the main reason for this is the cns, right? Because there's other, there's other points that you're going to make that I think also like blend with this. Right. Or I, you know, because I would also say that you don't have to do as nearly as much volume. So not only can you get away with lighter weight, so can you with the volume or intensity too. I mean this is the. I've been saying this on the podcast for quite some time now. Maybe the neatest thing of getting older and what I've noticed in my own personal lifting career is as I've aged. Yeah, sure, the energy isn't quite there. Sure there's certain things like as far as, like getting back in shape and the aches and pains and the things that everybody complains about. But one of the things that's been so amazing is the ability to hold muscle, build muscle is just is easier altogether. It doesn't, I don't have to apply the same type of effort into the gym as what I used to.
- [03:53]
Adam Schafer
Somebody who's been strength training for let's say 10 years can make a 100 pound barbell squat more effective than a novice lifter who let's say is just naturally strong. Okay. Because they know how to connect to muscles and they know how to intensify lift and they know how to recruit more muscle fibers through training and strengthening and the adaptation process that the central nervous system goes through. So to give you guys another example, right when they look at and I don't remember the exact number, so these numbers are made up, but it's something like this that the average person is only really able to summon something like 60 to 70% of their actual strength. So when the average person goes and tries to lift something, the they're, they're only really able and they use all their effort, they're only really able to summon about 70%. Olympic lifters on the other hand, and they've done studies on this 80 to 90, they're close, they're around 90 or plus percent. They're able to really summon their maximal strength. Now the novice lifter, you can actually get higher than your 70% through extreme stress or duress. Like if your life is actually on the line. Studies show that your central nervous system kind of releases governors and allows you to express more strength.
- [05:15]
Doug
This is the Crazy story. We hear of the mother who lifts.
- [05:18]
Adam Schafer
The car to save their baby or something like that. Right. And we have these governors to protect ourselves. But through training and practice, your body essentially gets more comfortable with summoning more strength. And it's true for muscle recruitment, pattern muscle fiber recruitment as well. So when you take a novice lifter and they're, let's say, doing a bench press, and we're trying to activate, you know, 100% of the muscle fibers in the muscles that are involved, you have to really push them hard. They have to lift something that's so heavy and so hard that they're, they're, they're activating more muscle fibers. Now you take a, an experienced lifter, they could take a submaximal load, something they could lift relatively easy with moderate intensity. And through focus and concentration, they can get their body to utilize more muscle fibers. And this is why experienced bodybuilders will say this all the time. Like, oh, yeah, when I was younger, I used to have to lift heavy. Now I lift much lighter and I get better results. How is that possible? What's happening? Is it your technique is better? Is it your. No. They literally get more out of less with their lifts. And this is a, this is an incredible advantage as you get more experience. Because the risk of injury and problems goes up as the weight goes up, right? Makes sense. If I'm lifting more weight, my form is off a little bit. My risk of injury is much higher than if I'm lifting lighter weight. So when you're experienced, you can go to the gym. And I find myself doing this now all the time. 90% of the time I'm working out these days. I'm using weight that is 60% of what I could really push. And I'm able to give myself a really good workout through focus and concentration. It's a safer, yet still extremely effective workout.
- [07:04]
Doug
You know where we see another example of this that I don't think the average person would probably make the connection that it's relatively the same. Thing is you see this in sports at high levels with athletes that have practiced a, you know, practice their golf swing a million times. And, you know, that guy could come in cold because he's done it for so long, so many repetitions, and do a couple little practice swings and then seamless, yeah, perfectly right. Or someone like a Steph Curry, who has practiced that half court shot, he can, that guy can hit it and let him give him the ball five times to warm up real quick. And he's sinking it all of a sudden where the average person could shoot that 100 times and not make it, it's like it just shows you how much that. And that's not, it's not a per se, like a muscle thing that's doing that. It's more the central nervous system and the memory that it has than anything else. That's what's happening in this case with, with building muscle.
- [07:59]
Adam Schafer
This is the origin too of the, the, the term old man strength. Like every, every teenage boy, every 17 year old boy knows this. Like you're 17, 18, you're strong, you're big, strapping. Then you go wrestle your 45 year old uncle who's got a little bit of a pot belly, doesn't work out. Maybe he was an athlete back in the day, but whatever. And he's just strong. Like what's going on? They call it old man strength. Well, he's just been in his body longer. His body knows how to exert force more efficiently and effectively than you. And that's just because he's been on earth a little bit longer. Now of course, over time that starts to wear off as the body breaks down. But for people who strength train consistently, if you've been working out for 20 years, you can make exercises do more for you than you could when you were only working out for two years. You can squeeze more out of it. And again, it has to do with just your ability to activate more muscle fibers and make that exercise more effective with lighter weight. This is a tremendous advantage when you work out in the gym. Oh yeah.
- [09:00]
Justin Andrews
Well, it definitely takes all that time that you're working out that you realize your capacity. Stretching yourself and finding ways to exert more effort and recruit more muscle fibers and, and challenge and test that and then to find that sweet spot where you keep adapting, you keep getting stronger and then every now and then kind of exceeding it. But you have to go through that entire journey in order to get to the place where you're in that muscle maturity where it's just, it's so easy. I could, I could lift like smaller weights and, and lighter load and I can maximize that just because now I can, I can really summon and recruit that because I've experienced it.
- [09:42]
Doug
Wasn't, wasn't it Arnold, who was famous for saying that he could come into the gym and do one exercise, one set of something and it'd be more effective than somebody spending an entire hour inside the gym?
- [09:52]
Adam Schafer
Yes.
- [09:52]
Doug
You know, that's another example of efficiency. Yeah, yeah. Just how efficient you move and how Much strength you can summon, how well you're connected. All those things play a role. And so, I mean, this is the part that I've enjoyed about aging. I mean, again, there's a part of you I wish I was. I moved like I did at 20 years old and played basketball same way. But, man, one of the greatest things is I remember how hard I worked in my 20s to try and build a physique, and the effort I have to in order to build a comparable or better physique than. And all the work and effort I put in in my 20s is significantly less. That's a cool part about being older.
- [10:31]
Adam Schafer
It's like compounding interest 100%. Which brings us to the next one, which is muscle memory. Muscle memory is a real studied and documented phenomenon. There are epigenetic changes that happen when you build muscle that allow you to rebuild it at a later time, if you ever lose it at a much, much faster pace. And many people have experienced this without realizing it. If you've ever had a broken bone or a cast on an arm or. And you take the cast off after three months, and, you know, I went through this. I dislocated my knee when I was 13 years old, and I had to wear the straight leg brace for a while. I remember when I first took it off, I looked at my leg, and it was like my muscle was gone. I had, like, just a femur, and I was so, like, it was almost traumatic to see. And then just through walking, my leg came back to normal size. I didn't go work out yet. It just came back to normal size. That's muscle memory. That's a real adaptation that we all possess. This is true for strength training as well. In other words, you gain 10 pounds of muscle now, and it takes you a year to do it. You'll lose it in a month because something happens and you're like, I want to gain that back. You'll get it back in a month. You'll gain it back very rapidly. So the more experienced you are, the longer you've been doing this, like, this plays into your favor. You take some time off. You get back in the gym. It took you years before to get in that shape. Now it's like, give me six months. If I do everything right, of course my body's going to respond like crazy.
- [11:59]
Doug
It's so powerful. You could literally, over the course of three, four years, slow down your training, lose 50 pounds of muscle, do a docu series on YouTube and. And build back 25 of that, and everybody is going to think you're a liar. Yeah, I mean, that's the, the most popular comment on that that there was. Even though I documented everything for everybody, explained everything that I was doing, still people thought it was fake and it wasn't real. And I told them it would happen.
- [12:26]
Justin Andrews
Like I knew it's a compliment really.
- [12:28]
Doug
That that was going to happen because. And I knew that. Well, I didn't know exactly. Right, right. I knew that 50 was a long ways to go and I knew that that was my peak, but I knew that half of that was going to come quick to your point, like you didn't expect to come back from this casted leg to the best looking quad you've ever looked, but to get back to what it used to look like or what is normal for you, like, the body responds really quick that. So I knew that, man, 25 of those £50 I lost. I'm going to be able to get.
- [12:58]
Adam Schafer
Back how you gained it back. It was, how fast was it?
- [13:01]
Doug
30? It was in a month, dude.
- [13:02]
Adam Schafer
30 days.
- [13:03]
Doug
Yeah. The first, first bit, by the way.
- [13:04]
Adam Schafer
We, Okay, I want everybody to know we work with you every day. And I would, every day you'd walk in, you, you were gaining muscle. Every single day you were walking, you were gaining muscle. But it came back so fast because you had had, you had 50 pounds of muscle that you had lost when you remembered it from when you were competing. Yeah, but 25 of that, that muscle, pounds of that muscle was muscle you had on your body for a long time before you competed.
- [13:27]
Doug
That's right.
- [13:28]
Adam Schafer
Years and years as a, as a, you know, personal trainer, whatever. That muscle's like crazy muscle memory. And that came back like so quick that.
- [13:35]
Doug
Exactly. And that's what it was. And it, and again, it's also, you know, you have to factor in that I did all the things the right way too. Right. Just the same person who might have been in a similar situation who doesn't dial their diet into and doesn't manage recovery. Of course, it's, I was on the upper end of what you can do in that shorter period of time. But that just highlights though how powerful that is. And, and, and it wasn't a tremendous amount of volume. It wasn't like I had to like train my ass off to get that 25. I literally just needed to send a signal because to your point, my body has, has carried around those 25 pounds of muscles for most of my adult life. I mean, from 20 years old to 40, I've carried the 25. I really only lost. I mean I didn't have that whole 50, that 50 was peak me but I the 25 for sure. And so my body is so used to having that it didn't take much stimulus and right dieting to get it right back. And that is a very cool thing as you age because to your compounding. Interesting. Man. Man. You know it's a, it's so. It is slow when you're getting started and you're starting this journey. It is a slow process to build muscle or to lose body fat, but it's like compounding interest, you know. So is investing the first time you put your first bit of money in that 5% interest rate or that mutual fund or that stock, you know, you know that, that $500 doesn't make you millions, but $500 every month, every, for every year for decades, you know, and now over time then that's some serious money.
- [15:07]
Adam Schafer
This and what's beautiful about this and why it's such a great secret advantage is, and this is, this is mostly, mostly concerning building muscle, you know, stamina and endurance and all that stuff. As it's related to muscle memory. There's some truth to this as well, but the muscle hypertrophy aspect of it and strength as well, muscle memory is really directly connected to. And what's great about this is you're going to have seasons of your life. If you're an experienced lifter, you're 50 or 45 and you've been doing this for 15 years or 20 years or longer, there's seasons of your life where you're gonna not be able to go to the gym as much. Maybe you get sick, maybe there's an emergency or something happens in the family or you have kids, you have babies and you're not sleeping and you fall off and then you're like, okay, now I can get back to it. And you think to yourself like man, I used to. It took me so long to get into that shape. What's it gonna be like to get back into it? So long as you don't over train, right? So long as you just kind of go in and start working, it comes back so fast. It's remarkable. I used to love when I would train clients who had a background of high level athletics and then they let themselves get out of shape so long, so long as they didn't go crazy and overdo it. That was always a challenge because they'd always, they thought they had to go train like they used to when they, you know, follow my advice and we're going to do a little bit of strength training. The strength gains were always comical. They're funny. I had a, I had a rower that I trained, female rower. And she was, when she hired me, I want to say she was in her late 30s, early 40s. She was a D1 rower. And rowers, especially female rowers, they get really developed backs and biceps and shoulders and all that stuff. Her strength went up so fast. It was hilarious. And she was like, is this normal? I said, it's normal for someone like.
- [16:56]
Justin Andrews
You, for a high level athlete, because.
- [16:58]
Adam Schafer
You were so strong at one point you totally let yourself fall off. She's like, yeah, but I haven't done this for 15 years. Here's the thing about this. Muscle memory sticks around. It stays with you for a long time. And it's an incredible advantage that you have. By the way. Anybody will develop this. The longer you've been strength training, the longer you've been strength training, this becomes one of your secret advantages as well.
- [17:20]
Doug
Well, and when your goal is actually longevity, vitality, overall health, it also gives you a tremendous amount of latitude to your point that you're making. I mean, this is how I manage my life. Like, I'm at a period in my life where I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody. I'm not out shopping for a wife. I'm not, there's nothing I'm trying, nobody I'm trying to impress right now. I want to be healthy. I want to be mobile, healthy, strong. And so I've built so much muscle and strength over decades that I can really kind of, you know, I could take breaks and still be way healthier than any of my peers. Not lifting. And then as soon as I decide to turn it up a little bit, get it right back. And it's such a, it's such, it's a, it's, it's one of the best parts of aging that I don't think anyone ever communicated to me. I've always been afraid of getting older because it's like, oh my God, everything goes downhill. It's like, well, no, if you actually start investing in your health and lifting and building muscle and you keep chipping away and building more year over year. This is actually one of the coolest parts about aging is it actually works in your favor.
- [18:28]
Adam Schafer
It's awesome. Which brings us to the next one, which is keeping muscle requires so much less work than you took to build it. It's actually interesting. And again, this is a unique, this is unique to strength training in particular. A lot of forms of exercise are like this, building endurance and stamina and flexibility. It takes a certain amount of work to get up to a certain point and then keeping it requires less work. This is true for all physical pursuits, but it's really true for strength training. And there's a lot of studies on this. And the studies on this are they range okay, but the range is ridiculous. The ranges are ready for this. It takes 1/9 the work between 1/5 to 1/9 the work to keep the muscle than it took to build the.
- [19:13]
Justin Andrews
Muscle just to maintain.
- [19:15]
Adam Schafer
That's nothing. That means if for every nine workouts you got to work out once to keep it. Now the more extreme you are, I'm going to guess like the more, the higher you are on the extreme level of muscle and strength, I'm going to guess this number changes for you. Like if you're a competitive high level bodybuilder, powerlifter, whatever, it probably changes a little bit, but it's still way less than was required to build it. I mean this is remarkable in fact that the data on just the average person who doesn't strength train. Do you know how much strength training the average person has to do to just not lose muscle over decades?
- [19:50]
Doug
Because there's a once every two weeks.
- [19:52]
Adam Schafer
Once every two weeks.
- [19:53]
Doug
Once every 2 weeks.
- [19:53]
Adam Schafer
Like if the average person lifted weights once every two weeks, you're not going to be fit, you're not going to be all super healthy about it, but you're not going to lose whatever the number is per decade. I don't remember what it was 10% of muscle every decade after I forget, I think 30 that people lose. You're not if you just lifted weights once every two weeks. But for everybody else who's consistent, if you're seasoned and experienced, this is amazing. It's like, you know, I'm going to take some time off, I'm going to do way less because of whatever circumstance in my life. You're not going to fall so far out of shape that people, you're literally going to almost kind of stay right around where you're at with very, very little work. And this is kind of the compounding. Interesting.
- [20:33]
Justin Andrews
Should be encouraging, know, very encouraging. A lot of times it's, it's unnerving for people to take time off once they get in this super rhythm and, and they're doing so well. But yeah, to this point it's like you can take, you can allow yourself that, that time in between. It's, it's really takes a lot for you to decline in terms of your progress.
- [20:52]
Doug
If, if you actually this. And this was the last piece for me to this puzzle. If you can pair that with also learning to balance your eating habits.
- [21:02]
Adam Schafer
Good point.
- [21:02]
Doug
To mirror your training habits. Yeah, you can really well, you can hack into this. Like I can go on a run where I'm consistently training three, four days a week and I really pack on that muscle back in. Feel like I'm in great, great shape. Single digit body fat feeling awesome. Then also go like, yeah, I'm gonna train once every two weeks, go in there and do a full body workout. And as long as I don't eat like an. And go the other extreme where all of a sudden I'm piling ice cream and do.
- [21:28]
Adam Schafer
You're still eating good.
- [21:28]
Doug
I'm eating, yeah. Making whole food choices, hitting my prote. Probably scaling back a little bit of calories because now I'm not training as much. Just a little boy. You can maintain that physique for a long time and then all of a sudden you kick it up for a couple weeks because you got something coming up and it's a, it's. And when you're thinking about most people that just want to stay fit and healthy long term, it's. It is not that hard. Once you do this investing. Once you invest in yourself and you build this muscle and you do this, then the aging part becomes a really cool part of this and balancing that out.
- [22:03]
Adam Schafer
You know, when I, when I, when I started realizing this was when I would go on vacation and not work out for a week and I'd come back stronger is when I realized I was probably overdoing it in the gym. Like, you mean I didn't work out for a. Remember one time I went. I was, I was, I want to save. I was in my teens and we went to Europe. We were in Italy to visit my parents family. And I didn't lift weights for like three weeks. That's a long time for a kid. Like 21 days. And I came back, worked out twice and I was as strong as I was when I left. And I remember thinking like, what is going on here? Just goes to show you just how powerful it is. And the longer, by the way, the longer you strength train, the more powerful these advantages are, the more powerful the muscle memory is and you know, being able to get the results with lighter weight and all that stuff is. Which is really cool. It becomes an incredible advantage.
- [22:53]
Doug
I remember, I think one of the, probably one of the coolest stories that we've shared in our podcast journey was the first time we met Ben Pakolski. Oh, and you. So just to highlight the point you're making about when you've put a lot of investing in building muscle like it, he was trying to lose 100 pounds of muscle.
- [23:13]
Adam Schafer
He, he couldn't. It was hard for him to lose it now. He had lost an initial amount. He was a pro bodybuilder so I mean he was super extreme with his muscle size but he had an additional like, you know, 100 pounds he had. You want to lose a total of 100 pounds of muscle and it was a struggle for him. It was just sticking to his body.
- [23:30]
Doug
Yeah, he was like eating low calorie, super low calorie, intentionally not hitting his protein intake, not strength training.
- [23:37]
Justin Andrews
He was anabolic.
- [23:38]
Doug
Yes. And he was, I mean it just goes to show that when you have, when you've put enough time under the iron of consistency and building like that and you, and you've built, built up a certain, it's so cool to, I mean I would love to see this experiment with you because you've been so consistent, Sal, for so long and you've built the, the, your kind of peak physique right now of your, your journey. I bet you could get away with training once every two to three weeks and I bet a year from now you would still be more impressive than 90, 90% of every Instagram and fitness influencer. Yeah, that's how crazy of I think of investing you've done in building muscle.
- [24:16]
Adam Schafer
Yeah, I've seen this with injuries like, you know, I'll get hurt, lay off, go back to the gym, boom, you know, things come back, it's, it's pretty remarkable. I used to love seeing this with clients. Which brings me to this next point, which this is more of an ego thing, but I do think it's an advantage because, you know, it's, it's hard not to compare yourself to your peers in terms of, you know, how fit am I, how well am I doing? Whatever. The more experienced you are, the older you get, the wider the gap becomes between you and your peers. Like, you know, when you're a 55 year old person who's been strength training for 20 years, you are in a different category from other 55 year olds. You're in a completely different category. If you're 20 and you've been strength training for three years and you're consistent, like you're going to stand out, you're going to stand out. But among other 20 year olds, you'll stand out a little bit, but it's not going to be like, it's not going to be like, remarkably different. That 55 year old that I just mentioned, it's like two species. It's like there's the typical 55 year old and then there's John who, like, what is going on with that guy over there? And you see this, the older you get, the more experience you get, the wider this gap becomes. For me, this is an advantage. If you and your partner are both consistent with this. As you age with your spouse or your partner, my God, a lot of you're gonna, you're not going to experience a lot of the things that other people experience as they get older. And it's, it's combined with wisdom. You actually enjoy it more. What do they say? Youth is wasted on the, on the young or whatever? Like, you're fit and older man, you've got time, money, you feel good. It's pretty amazing.
- [25:54]
Doug
And I actually think it is a, it's a healthy exercise. I know you were setting the table for, you know, you know, not to get like, caught up in, you know, comparing yourself to others, but I actually think it's a healthy checks and balances. I mean, we just had a, we had a live caller earlier today and he's in his late 60s and he just looks incredible, right? And you know, he's calling us for more, you know, like, what more can I do or this or that? And at one point, Sal's just like, had had to get him to reframe the way he was viewing himself because he is so caught up in building more muscle, getting stronger and keep pushing and adding more. And it's just like, when was the last time you compared yourself to your friends and your peers and like, how, how many light years ahead health and fitness are you? And, you know, you could see it on his face a little bit. Well, of course, you know, it's like, yeah, I think so. I think it's a good exercise sometimes because sometimes people that are into building muscle and into health and fitness can also get a little obsessive with it and forget to kind of check back and go, like, wait a second, if I truly am doing this for better quality life and health, like, reminding myself like, I am way I'm winning this race by a lot. And so I'm okay if I miss today's workout.
- [27:05]
Justin Andrews
You know, it's all right to look up every now and then.
- [27:07]
Doug
It is.
- [27:08]
Adam Schafer
That's right.
- [27:09]
Justin Andrews
I look at it because it's like, you do the work, and it's about your own benefit and progress, and that's who you're really, you know, challenging is yourself. But to look around, especially with your peers, because that's where it's the most visible. Every time I, like, almost like the reunion sort of timeline, right. I hit the reunion boom. Like, let's look and see, like, where we're at in the landscape in terms of everybody's shape and how well they're doing health wise. And it's. It's astonishing. Like, if you're consistently doing the right things and going to the gym and trying your best to eat healthy, it's. It just.
- [27:42]
Adam Schafer
And it's really an advantage of life because it's not a. Like, if we think it's inevitable that you're going to suffer from all these different things and have these massive decline in quality of life. And of course, you don't know what could happen. And there's lots of, you know, things that we can't predict, but, you know, by and large, like, you avoid a lot of it. It's a tremendous advantage as you get older and the more experienced you are with this. I remember when. When was it, Doug, you went. You went to like a high school reunion and you came back from. I remember him telling me, like, oh, my God, these guys had a heart. You know, heart surgery. This person passed away from this. This person. Like, I couldn't believe it. Right. It was like 30th. 40th.
- [28:19]
Sal DiStefano
I believe it was the 30th.
- [28:22]
Adam Schafer
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [28:23]
Sal DiStefano
I missed my 40th.
- [28:24]
Adam Schafer
Yeah.
- [28:25]
Sal DiStefano
But, yeah, the 30th. So I think. Yeah, you can really see how it diverges.
- [28:30]
Adam Schafer
Totally.
- [28:30]
Sal DiStefano
The people who take care of themselves versus the people who don't.
- [28:33]
Adam Schafer
Yeah.
- [28:34]
Sal DiStefano
And it's like two different generations.
- [28:36]
Adam Schafer
It's crazy.
- [28:36]
Doug
I mean, aren't you guys starting. I just. I mean, literally, I got this text two days ago. My. My childhood best friend, one of his high school good buddies passed away, had a. Had a heart attack. Like, we're now reaching that age, which is crazy. Yeah. Where we're having people that are our. Our peers that are starting to see those things like that and it result in. In things like that. I mean, that's. I mean, we've arrived at that age now where it's like, it's not that weird. You know, it's. It's still a little shocking when you hear someone passes as early as late 40s or early 50s, but it's not. Not heard of. Like, it happens. And so. And that is the example of those extreme gaps, Right. That is the person who just did not take care of them. How we're not talking about tragic things that happen, Right. Car accidents.
- [29:22]
Adam Schafer
And there's also unknowns, of course, like, you know, crazy things that happen. I had a client, Jim, Doug knows him, and he had, by the way, what happens to your body over years of strength training and exercise, it doesn't matter when you start. This is all about just how long you've done it. Because I had a client, he was almost 70, I think he was 69 at the time. And he had 30 years of strength training exercise experience. So he started in his late 30s. He was 39 years old when he started working out. Now, this guy would wake up every. Every morning, 6am he would swim two miles. He strength trained with me twice a week, and he rode his bike everywhere. And when he would get his hormones checked, when he would get him, he was the most healthy, fit person. And he would work out with me sometimes. And I remember laughing because this guy would just. He would just crush it. But he had 30 years of exercise experience. And again, he started later. Right. At 39 years old, he started doing this.
- [30:15]
Justin Andrews
That's awesome.
- [30:16]
Adam Schafer
Lastly, this is a huge advantage, you know, your body.
- [30:19]
Doug
Now this one, this one sometimes takes a really long time.
- [30:22]
Adam Schafer
Yes.
- [30:22]
Doug
For you to really start. Because to your point, you said earlier is like, you know, and I think that fitness people are notorious for thinking they need to do more, push more over enough hard lessons, you tend to figure out just that sweet spot of what your body needs. In fact, we had referring back to that caller, he's calling us, right, Asking he's finished Anabolic, and he feels like, you know, you know, that just doesn't feel like enough volume for me. And I think. I think I need more. And he's asking our advice. And I. We were all on the same page. It's just like, dude, you've been doing this longer than all of us. You know, like, if you were my client, I wouldn't argue with you right here. I would listen to you and go like, okay, maybe we'll go to a Maps aesthetic and let's see how you. The only thing I would do is I would say, I would challenge you to be honest with yourself. Like, okay, let's go. Let's. Let's double the volume up with Maps aesthetic, and you tell me how you feel compared to Anabolic. And nobody's gonna know that better than that, man. I mean, he has been in his body for 30, 40 years of consistent weight training. And you really get to learn yourself and how your body responds well beyond that too.
- [31:27]
Adam Schafer
Even just at the most basic level when you exercise and you do it right for long periods of time, for years and years and then decades, you know good pain versus bad pain, you know injury versus the kind of pain that you feel when you work out. You can identify in your body when something is off better than the average person who oftentimes doesn't even notice signs of things that are happening until they get really loud. You know, how many times have you trained a new client, never exercised before and feels the pain of an exercise and freaks out because they don't know what's going on or they don't even feel the, the target muscle. They feel it in some other strange place because they're not in their body. You're not in your body when you're exercising, expressing movement through your body, you become connected to your body and you become aware of things that are happening. And so healthy people who have been doing this for a long time are more likely, the data shows this, to go to the doctor when they need to and to not go to the doctor when they don't need to. They're more likely to self diagnose accurately than the average person because they're in their body. They know this is off. I know what I feel like when I move. I know what I feel like when I squat, when I twist, when I run. They're testing themselves and moving constantly. They're far more aware. And this is a huge advantage, especially as you get older because a lot of people just, they're not in their bodies.
- [32:50]
Justin Andrews
You're teaching your body another language and that's, I've always looked at it. It's like you got to take the time to be intentional with what you're doing. Why else are you doing it? You're just doing it to lose weight or you're just doing it to look a certain way. You're not learning the full extent of what you could, which is the long journey, you know, it forces that because you end up hitting these walls and you end up hitting like the inevitable, it's injury or it's some kind of restriction. But to take that time and really like listen to your body's feedback, adjust and then also learn with more intention of how to maximize each one of those movements. You're going to go so much further.
- [33:25]
Doug
I, I love that and I love that, you know, if you, if you not only put the time and effort into the building the muscle but then the, like, I love the learning a language analogy and really, truly learning the language of movement and how your body responds to certain things. And when I squat, how much better my hips and my low back feels. And you start connecting the dots to the things that really make you feel good. And when you ignore certain things, things what will start to express itself. You get, you practice that enough over years and years and you start to notice things. You know, I was sitting in front of the red light this, this morning and I know because I haven't been strength training lately. Like the first thing that starts to go is my, my hips just naturally want to have this tilt. But if I'm, if I'm training, if I'm actually squatting and I'm strengthening everything, they stay where they're supposed to be and I have no low back pain. But what will start to happen is I neglect my training, is that I'll start to tilt back into that, that position. And so I'm sitting in front of the, in there and I'm doing like a floor bridge position, like engaging that. I would not know that if it wasn't for all the years of training. Having low back pain, not having low back pain, knowing what exercises, where it's coming from, that's one of the coolest parts, is that you learn this language of movement about your body as you understand these things and you start to sense them or feel them before.
- [34:39]
Adam Schafer
Yeah, well, I'll give you a couple examples too, just to go from a health perspective. Like you'll see somebody with really, really bad posture who, let's say they were 60 years old, you know, at some point that posture wasn't as bad. It was kind of bad. And before that it was eh, getting there. Now people who are moving, expressing their body, they'll catch it right away. They'll feel it right away. Something's off a little bit. I'm aware of my body, that gradual decline. It's like that. What's that analogy where you put a frog in a pot of water, slowly boil it and it doesn't know what's going on. Somebody who's expressing and moving their body is keenly aware of how their body feels. Another example, like, and this happens all the time, this is a terrible one, but it's true. Somebody will have something going on internally. They're like, oh, my back hurts. I think I have back pain. I don't know what's going on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Go to the doctor. Doctor. Is it muscle? I'm not sure. Then they do, they do an exam, they do a scan. Oh, it's your kidney or your liver or cancer. Somebody who's been working out and exercising will know that's not.
- [35:39]
Doug
Yeah, that doesn't feel bad.
- [35:40]
Adam Schafer
That's not muscle pain. That's something different. I gotta go get that checked out. Because they know what it feels like, they know the difference. They're in their body. And that is a massive advantage. As you age, you want to know what your body feels like.
- [35:55]
Sal DiStefano
Got some questions. The first one is, can new older lifters build muscle like younger lifters?
- [36:00]
Adam Schafer
Yes. Yeah, there's, there are, in fact there was a study.
- [36:02]
Doug
I've had so many clients in advanced age tells me I'm in the best shape of my life at 60, 55, you name it.
- [36:10]
Adam Schafer
So there's, there was a study that came out. So here's the difference between a younger lifter and an older lifter. It's the potential. So the potential of a younger lifter may be higher because of youth than the older lifter, but until you hit that ceiling, the rate of muscle growth and progress, so long as injuries and things aren't in the way is actually relatively similar. They did a study on 80 year olds, okay, 80 year olds and strength training and the amount of muscle they build in strength over it was a short period, like 12 weeks was remarkable. And really the study was like, you build muscle just as well as you get older as you did when you were younger. Now their capacity again is lower, but you'll build muscle very effectively.
- [36:49]
Justin Andrews
It blew my mind for sure.
- [36:52]
Doug
I think there's a flaw in even those studies because there's another factor that you're also not playing in. And we always talk about the, the, the mental part and there's something to be said about wisdom and somebody who's older versus somebody who's younger. So not only from a physiological point that that study proves the point that you can still build, but then there's that also that advantage of just being an older, wiser person on how to approach things you tended. I think you do things a little dumber when you're younger. So I think the older, the older client, like the, the young kid that I was coaching and helping, right, that's 25 years old, who's, you know, one, he's the kid who I tell them to do these things and I have to go repeat myself because it's like I told you to do this and he thinks, oh, I could do more or I need to do more. Listen, versus my client who is older, wiser, respects me, as in my profession, knows that his, he came here for a reason, knows that I know what I'm talking about. I tell him what to do, he just does what I have to do. Like, there's something to be said about the psychological and the, the wisdom part that it comes with the old age too. So I would also make the argument that there's a slight advantage to the, the older person who's getting into it because they, and they tend to have different priorities. Like, that person is very serious about, like, hey, I'm making this change for myself. I'm 50 something years old, I want to play, I'll play with my grandkids, I'm doing this versus the kid who's just like, I want to get hot chicks, like, what do I need to do?
- [38:07]
Justin Andrews
More balanced temperament. And it's like they're very much more receptive to listening and learning at that point. So, yeah, I would give that advantage.
- [38:14]
Doug
And that plays a role. Right. It's not just the physiological. The studies are pointing out the physiological possibilities. Right, but we know better than anybody, right? If that's not the only thing that. That's right. The mental part plays a huge factor in results. And I would make the argument that my older, wiser clients were better at adherence than my young kid who's full of piss and vinegar and thinks he knows better than I do, still gain muscle.
- [38:38]
Justin Andrews
I mean, tripped me out like 10, 15 pounds. This guy was 80 years old. I'm like, this is crazy. And it's just, yeah, never done it before. But there's a progressive way to get there. You do the right things and your body responds.
- [38:52]
Sal DiStefano
What age should someone stop lifting heavy?
- [38:55]
Adam Schafer
You know, heavy is relative. It's all relative. So I guess the question should be reframed. At what age should someone stop lifting with good intensity? Never. You never stop doing this. So heavy is all relative. The intensity, so long as it's appropriate is fine and that never, ever changes. It just needs to be appropriate to the individual. So if you're deconditioned, well, the intensity needs to be very low. If you're very conditioned, then the intensity is much higher. But you never stop lifting, quote, unquote, heavy. So long as you're within the parameters of proper technique and form. And do you need to necessarily lift as heavy as you used to? This is when you're more experienced. Which goes to our first point, which is like, I, I know, for example, use myself, I'm 45, I could go. And if within Within a month I could get myself squatting four plates to get, you know, great results. I could squat with two plates and get just as good as results. Why take the risk? Except for my ego likes the four plates. But why, why take the risk when I can do it with less?
- [39:59]
Justin Andrews
With less you can generate that, that demand.
- [40:01]
Adam Schafer
Yeah.
- [40:02]
Justin Andrews
And that's, that's what you learn is that you can actually intrinsically squeeze out more recruitment. You can, you can produce more force. But you have to go through the process of learning that a lot. And that's why, you know, load is a really good teacher in that. And you learn that through, you know, how much you have to overcome this load. But as you learn, you can, you can squeeze and maximize that effort quite rapidly, which then, you know, you see that progress with the stacking of more weight as you go. But I mean, you don't necessarily need to stack more weight. You just keep that progression of squeezing and maximizing your effort.
- [40:42]
Doug
You know, I actually, I think about this question a lot. It's not, and it's not an easy one to answer because the range, because I, I think of lifting heavy, I think as someone who's chasing PRs. Right. So at what, what point do you stop chasing PRs? What age do I stop trying to hit PRs? And I, and what to me what matters most is am I putting the prerequisites in place in order to do that? What do I mean by that? Well, I have, I know just the same reason why I stopped getting on a basketball court. It's not because you can't be 45 years old and playing basketball. I've actually played basketball when I was a young kid with 45 year old dads in great basketball shape and playing. But I'm not in that because I'm not doing the prerequisites to, to earn the right to go cut left and hard and jump on a basketball court. Because I'm just being honest, I'm not training that way, therefore I have no business doing that. But it has nothing to do with my age, has everything to do with putting the work in to take that type of risk on the body because I'm not conditioning it correctly. I think the same way with PRs. Like are you doing the work with mobility, stability, control in the joint. Are you slowly, progressively overloading to get to that point like that? Are you building a solid enough foundation? Well, you could do that at 70 if you take the right client and he is putting in all the work and taking care of his body. He could be hitting PRs at 70, no problem. But I'm not training for PRs right now. I don't think I earn it. I don't think I deserve it right now. So I'm going to do. I'm going to lean on what Sal's saying, which is I know that I can move half the weight that I've moved before and still maintain a physique that's more impressive than 28 year old fit me. So why would I do that? So in that case I'm not even going to. The risk versus reward isn't there.
- [42:24]
Adam Schafer
That's what I always weigh out. What's the risk versus reward in the beginning? Getting stronger gives you a lot of reward as you become more experienced. It doesn't and it doesn't make sense to add 10 pounds to your PR because what are you going to get for it aside from the fact that you lifted more risk reward.
- [42:40]
Sal DiStefano
Are machines better for older lifters?
- [42:43]
Adam Schafer
No, this is a common one, right? Oh, machines are good if you're older. No, machines just balance and stabilize for you. So they're easier to use.
- [42:51]
Doug
I almost feel like they're worse.
- [42:53]
Adam Schafer
They, I think, I don't think they train. Obviously they don't train you as well. They're not going to give you the same return, that's for sure. Free weights are harder. They're harder to learn and practice. But if you do them properly, you're going to get way, way better.
- [43:04]
Doug
I mean it's like I would take.
- [43:05]
Justin Andrews
Those bumpers for bowling.
- [43:06]
Doug
Yeah, well, yeah. Are you ever going to get good at bowling? Yeah, I would never want. So if I had a 70 year old client who's new too, it's green. I would rather do body weight squats with them than leg press.
- [43:18]
Adam Schafer
Totally.
- [43:18]
Doug
You know what I'm saying? The benefits that they're getting. And even if he could leg press, say a lot more weight on the leg press, the benefits of the body weight, squats, you know, free weight. And that's no bar on his back. I'm not even saying put a bar on his back. I think that is better than sitting on a machine and leg pressing away.
- [43:34]
Justin Andrews
Because there's no situation in real life where you're not going to experience multiple forces at once, like opposing forces while you're doing a movement. And so, you know, that's the thing about machines, they're very controlled and it's great if you have like some kind of rehabilitation therapy, you're trying to get stronger, you're trying to get back to the point where it's in full function. If you're in full function, we need to challenge that full function. Otherwise it's like, you know, you're doing yourself a disservice to just everyday activities you do outside lifting.
- [44:04]
Doug
You know, I'm glad we this question actually got asked because we have a lot of trainers that listen to us and I and this takes me back to my fitness manager days. A mistake that a lot of trainers would make would be making this mistake is they would take a client because it's easy to put them on machines and, and show them they got stronger. Right. So I could take a 70 year old man, he just gets started in the gym and I could show him, oh he started at leg press at £60 and now he's at £250. Look how much stronger he's got. But that guy is still just as as likely to be walking down his stairs and fall or step up and slip and lose his balance versus I use his body weight to squat up and down or step up onto a mild step, step up and bounce like that will be. And sure he didn't load 50 or 100 pounds on his back and he's not as strong on the leg, but that will in real life for that client. He'd be far better off doing free weight body weight type movements to get strong this than he would showing and impressing somebody with machine exercises. That's how much of it.
- [45:07]
Adam Schafer
Adding a hundred pounds to a leg press is probably equivalent to like £30 on a barbell squat. Okay. If you add a hundred pounds on a barbell squat, it's way more than adding £100 on a leg press. Everybody knows this. So free weights just, they train the body better but they require more attention. They require really, really close attention to form and technique and practice and coaches and trainers. It makes you work harder. It's easy to put someone on a machine. It's a lot harder to do something free weight.
- [45:34]
Sal DiStefano
How should an older lifter eat?
- [45:36]
Adam Schafer
Same way younger lifters do. So high protein, whole natural foods eat appropriate amount of calories. There's really no difference. In fact high protein building materials, in fact, high protein is more valuable for older individuals than it is for younger individuals. They find this is true for even people who are older and don't strength train. They actually now recommend as parity. For sure, as people age they need to increase their protein intake because it's got protective benefits.
- [46:02]
Doug
You know, I actually found this conversation with my advanced age clients easier than it was for your Clients, most clients that are older already recognize what foods they're intolerant to, how they take their digestion and their stool a lot more serious than the 22 year old.
- [46:21]
Justin Andrews
Talk to you about it all day.
- [46:23]
Doug
Yeah.
- [46:23]
Adam Schafer
And so they, that's us now.
- [46:25]
Doug
So they know they do a better job of adhering to a whole food diet, avoiding foods they know that disrupt that stuff. I would say it's easier to have this conversation than, than having this conversation with a 25 year old who still is ignoring the signs of eating a large pizza and what it does to their gut and everything like that. And so you tend by you by the time you start getting 40, 50 up, you're pretty aware of how foods agree and not agree with you. And so that's pretty easy to communicate. And then again hitting the amount of grams of protein. We always talk about your goal body weight that stays the same, you know, no matter what.
- [47:01]
Sal DiStefano
What are the best supplements for older lifters?
- [47:04]
Adam Schafer
Oh boy, man. You know, multivitamin is always a good idea just to make sure you don't have any nutrient deficiencies. But creatine is so valuable. It's valuable for everybody. It's really valuable as you get older, in fact. So a lot of people know creatine as being good for muscle. That's true. It's also good for health. It's a longevity compound. So it helps your mitochondria by giving them more, more fuel. So all the cells in your body that use mitochondria now have more fuel and every cell in your body use mitochondria. But what they're showing with the data on creatine in older individuals is it's anti dementia, anti cognitive decline effects. Huge remote, remarkable. It's remarkable. Creatine will be within the next 10 years a supplement that is doctors are going to tell people to take.
- [47:51]
Justin Andrews
Yeah.
- [47:51]
Adam Schafer
After a certain age, doesn't matter if you work out or not. They're gonna be like you're gonna take 5 grams of creatine a day.
- [47:55]
Justin Andrews
I mean it's pretty much a multivitamin, especially if you're aging. I mean it gives, provides you an extra amount of strength and support around the joints and also it's got all those cognitive benefits. It's like it also no brainer.
- [48:09]
Adam Schafer
They've even shown that it is anti osteopenia. Osteoporosis. So yeah, if you're as you're getting older. Multivitamin and creatine. Creatine, big one.
- [48:19]
Doug
Yeah. I feel like those are the, the basic generic answers to this. I think the, the, the more accurate that we would all actually do is you would, you would assess this client and where, where they lack. Because the best, the best, the best supplement is the one that you're most likely lacking in. Like if you're deficient in vitamin D, well, that's going to become one of the most important supplements. If you don't get enough magnesium, that's going to be one of the most important supplements. You don't get enough iron. And so in advanced age, I, I would say getting a, a blood work done and seeing where you're deficient in something is probably the most important thing. And then supplementing for your needs.
- [48:54]
Adam Schafer
There you go. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump Justin, I'm at mind pump DiStefano and Adam's @ Mind Pump.
- [49:01]
Sal DiStefano
Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super bundle@mindpumpmedia.com the RGB Super Bundle includes Maps, Anabolic Maps, Performance and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free resources@mindpumpmedia.com if you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.