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Getting Stronger With Age

Getting older doesn’t mean it’s time to sit on the sidelines. You don’t have to grow weaker and give up what you love. No matter how many miles are on the odometer, you can get older and stronger.

And this strength can impact your healthy lifespan in powerful ways. As we’ll show you below, getting stronger is associated with better aging and mortality, stronger bones and heart, and improved quality of life. 

The best news? It’s never too late to add strength and experience the benefits of exercise. But if you want to stay fit (get in even better shape) as you age, you need to start thinking about your training differently. 

The reality is that growing older brings the possibility of age-related changes. Left unchecked, they can alter your quality of life and even contribute to a shortened lifespan.

Heart disease is the number one killer of men and women in the United States. And according to the National Institute on Aging, older adults (people 65+) are at higher risk. 

Why does this happen? As we age, fatty deposits can build up in the walls of our arteries. Over time, these deposits (called plaque) can harden and slowly narrow the arteries. This process, called arteriosclerosis, reduces blood flow and oxygen to the heart, leading to an increased chance of a heart attack. 

Age-related changes happen in your skeletal system as well. Bone is a living tissue. Although changes might not occur as rapidly as they do elsewhere in the body, bone tissue is broken down by the body and replaced. 

At around age 50, our body starts breaking down more bone tissue than it replaces. 

Not Much Change With Your Metabolism

Do you know what doesn’t change all that much as you age? Your metabolism. New research published in Science showed that when you account for differences in body size, your metabolism does not change between the ages of 20 and 60.

(Let that sink in.)

For years (maybe forever?), the assumption was that our metabolism slows down as we age. But, the ground-breaking study, which combined the work of more than 80 scientists, 6,500 participants (aged 8 days to 95 years old), and the gold standard methods of testing metabolism, shook the foundations of weight loss science.

Some rules still hold. Despite the common belief that lean people have faster metabolisms, the heavier you are, the more calories you burn. But, once you account for the differences in size, metabolism doesn’t change as much as we thought, and that applies to men and women.

After age 60, metabolism does start to decrease about 1 percent per year. Maybe not surprisingly, this appears to be correlated with a reduction in activity. So, the more active you stay as you age, the better. 

If you can’t move your joints freely through their range of motion (and control it), your chance of injury or dangerous falls increases. 

If you’re injured, it’s hard to do regular exercise. And if you can’t exercise, that’s when muscle loss begins. Why does this matter? Muscle loss is strongly correlated with a lower (or shorter) lifespan.

Avoiding injury also plays an indirect role in weight loss. Regular physical activity outside the gym (called NEAT) can help maintain your body weight in a healthy range. Move less during the day, and the pounds could sneak up on you like the decades. 

So, mobility is essential to a higher quality of life and a longer life. 

Unlike strength training (which we’ll explore more below), there’s an inverse relationship between mobility and aging. You likely need to invest more weekly time to maintain mobility as you age. 

How much? Strength Coach Mike Boyle once suggested that you should base your mobility sessions per week on every decade you’ve lived. If you just turned 50, that would mean mobility work five times a week. 

That doesn’t mean you need to spend an hour a day stretching. After all, getting older doesn’t mean you have fewer time constraints on your day. For most people, 10-15 minutes a day is enough. 

Not sure where to start? Try extending your warm-up before strength training sessions. By piggybacking on an existing habit (your workout), you’re more likely to make mobility a habit. 

For most of our clients, I suggest a 4:1 work-to-mobility ratio. So, if your workout takes 40 minutes, you should start with 10 minutes of mobility and flexibility work. 

You could also pair mobility with cardio on rest days. Before you head out on a walk (you are walking every day, right?), do 6 reps on each side of a move. You’ll loosen up your entire body and elevate your heart rate. 

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Building Hardgainer Muscle

If you want to go from scrawny to brawny, the plan sounds simple: Lift hard and heavy. Eat more. But, for some guys, like our client John, it’s more complicated.

John was a busy pre-med student tired of feeling skinny and slim. He wanted to add size. And he wanted to feel strong. The challenge is that John is what we call a “hardgainer.” Long and lean, with less than optimal genes for building muscle quickly. 

But being a hardgainer isn’t a muscle-building curse. While genetics inevitably do make a difference, your genetics are not preventing you from adding on pounds of muscle. With our help, John layered on 20+ pounds in just over seven months. Throw the excuses out because that’s incredible progress. 

How did John finally break through for more growth – and how can you achieve similar results? If you want to transform your body there are two muscle growth breakthroughs you need to know. 

We kept John’s training simple. But don’t mistake simple for effective. If you want to build muscle, it comes down to getting stronger and progressively doing more work month after month. 

And if muscle-building is the goal, then variety is your friend. This doesn’t mean altering up your workouts every day, but it does mean going through cycles where you rotate your reps and the movements you perform.

In John’s training plan, we alternated between strength-focused plans for one month, emphasizing lower reps and increasing weight each week. Then, the next month, we’d emphasize higher sets and reps, but with moderate weight (instead of max). 

A Simple Monthly Training Setup

Month 1 – Lower Reps, Increasing Weight

Week 1:

• Exercise 1 – Squats: 4 sets x 6 reps (70% of your one-rep max)
• Exercise 2 – Bench Press: 4 sets x 6 reps (70% of your one-rep max)
• Exercise 3 – Deadlifts: 4 sets x 6 reps (70% of your one-rep max)

Week 2:

Increase the weight by 5-10 pounds (depending on your strength level) for each exercise compared to Week 1.

• Exercise 1 – Squats: 3-4 sets x 6 reps (75% of your one-rep max)
• Exercise 2 – Bench Press: 3-4 sets x 6 reps (75% of your one-rep max)
• Exercise 3 – Deadlifts: 3-4 sets x 6 reps (75% of your one-rep max)

Weeks 3 and 4 would continue this progression, eventually ending at 85% of your one-rep max. 

Month 2 – Higher Sets and Reps, Moderate Weight

Week 1:

• Exercise 1 – Reverse Lunge: 4-5 sets x 10 reps (60% of your one-rep max)
• Exercise 2 – Dumbbell Incline Press: 4-5 sets x 10 reps (60% of your one-rep max)
• Exercise 3 – Prone Leg: 4-5 sets x 10 reps (60% of your one-rep max)

Week 2:

Increase the weight by 5-10 pounds for each exercise compared to Week 1.

• Exercise 1 – Reverse Lunge: 4-5 sets x 10 reps (65% of your one-rep max)
• Exercise 2 – Dumbbell Incline Press: 4-5 sets x 10 reps (65% of your one-rep max)
• Exercise 3 – Prone Leg Curl: 4-5 sets x 10 reps (65% of your one-rep max)

Weeks 3 and 4 would continue this progression, eventually ending at 75% of your one-rep max. 

It’s a good reminder that multiple rep ranges can lead to growth, but it’s important to focus on a specific goal and make it easy to see progress. Dramatically changing your workouts each session might seem like a good idea, but not if it makes it hard to track progress and improve in the ways that allow you to pack on muscle. 

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Fixing Muscle Imbalances

For some clients (mainly those dealing with chronic pain), this was the right call. But, for the rest, it meant that we didn’t spend enough time actually training. More importantly, it was probably the wrong decision.

Unless you’re dealing with injuries or other pre-existing conditions, there’s likely nothing to worry about if you’re following a good training plan (more on that below). 

As human beings, we’re built to move through life asymmetrically. Slight differences in strength (and stability) side-to-side are entirely normal. And if you’re an athlete, trying to correct or remove asymmetries or imbalances might actually hurt your performance. 

However, if you have a significant strength deficit on one side, it could also lead to injury down the road as it’s highly likely the weaker side is also not as stable.

So, where do you draw the line? An easy test is judging your workouts based on 3 variables. 

You probably don’t need to worry if you’re following a solid training plan because a good workout program is corrective. It ensures that significant balances are unlikely, and that you’re training in a way that will adjust for all of the most common deficiencies.

As long as your workout checks the following 3 boxes with your training, you’ll likely clean up most muscle imbalances over time.

Do your workouts
include reaching exercises?

Because we spend so much time in front of computers and sitting, you’ll often hear that a 2:1 pull-to-push ratio is about right. So, for example, you should do at least 2 sets of rows for every bench press set. 

While this can help you correct any strength imbalance you might have (and that’s important), we have to dig deeper if you want a healthy, pain-free upper body. 

During a bench press setup (using a barbell or a dumbbell), we’re taught to squeeze our shoulder blades together on the bench. This position of retraction (pulled together) and compression creates a solid shelf to press from. 

The problem is that the exercises meant to balance out your bench pressing – pulling exercises like seated rows – finish with your shoulder blades pulled together and your back compressed. 

In other words, if we look at the position of your shoulder blades during many pushing and pulling exercises, there’s not much difference. 

That’s why it’s important to shift some of your push exercises, which are often geared towards barbell or dumbbell pressing, to reaching exercises like pushups and landmine presses. 

Where bench pressing and rowing squeeze the shoulder blades back, reaching movements open the shoulder blades (called protraction). That means they oppose (or balance) both pushing and pulling exercises. 

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The Kettlebell Goblet Clean

Unlike barbell cleans (or even the kettlebell clean), a kettlebell goblet clean helps you train explosive leg drive with minimal upper body movement.

Although controlled reps are a great way to create muscle tension and have a great workout, doing exercises explosively adds other benefits that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Explosive training can help you build more muscle and strengthen all your muscle groups by targeting your fast-twitch fibers. And, training with speed builds power, which is something that becomes more important as you age. Not to mention, more power helps with popular exercises like deadlifts, squats, and bench press,

However, most people aren’t sure how to move explosively without putting safety at risk. The answer is exercise selection.

Many traditional full-body power moves — such as barbell cleans — carry an increased chance of injury. It can take time and practice to develop upper body mobility, or hours of in-person coaching with a personal trainer to learn the finer points of very technical lifts. But, that doesn’t mean you need to abandon “power” movements in your workouts.

You can simply do bodyweight exercises more explosively, including things like jumps (with a bodyweight squat or lunge), bodyweight rows, or pushups. Or, you can select variations of power movements that are a little less complicated to learn, and, therefore, safer for you to perform. Enter the kettlebell goblet clean.

Why Kettlebell Goblet
Clean Is So Effective

Kettlebells can be confusing for some people because of the handle, but they also provide a lot of variety that can make it easier to learn or modify exercises.

Unlike barbell cleans (or even the kettlebell clean), a kettlebell goblet clean helps you train explosive leg drive with minimal upper body movement. With most clean exercises, you have to “catch” the bell or bar in what’s called the rack position (resting on your arm and upper chest). This is the same position as barbell front squats, only, instead of starting with the bar in position, you need to catch it during the lift.

The kettlebell goblet clean doesn’t require finishing in the rack, which is what makes it difficult for some and can lead to injury. Whenever you hear the term “goblet,” it means you’ll hold the KB with both hands in front of your chest.

Here’s what makes this movement so effective: taking the kettlebell from the floor to the goblet position only requires relaxing your grip. That’s it. You won’t need to bang up your wrists and forearms for weeks while you learn it.

This makes it an ideal move for beginners. You’ll be on your way to mastering the lift your first day. And you’ll learn how to safely get a heavy bell into the starting position for goblet squats without tweaking your lower back. Win-win.

The entire movement is great for building lower-body explosiveness that will strengthen your hamstrings and glutes. As you get better, you can try “catching” a single kettlebell or progress to a double-kettlebell clean. Or, you can just keep adding weight and never have to worry about the “catch” aspect. The variety is part of what makes the exercise so effective.

How To Do It

1. Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width. The kettlebell should be centered between your legs.
2. Unlock your knees and push your hips back until you can grip the kettlebell handle. The starting position will be very similar to a deadlift.
3. Driving through your legs and butt, stand up quickly. Keep your arms close to the body. The kettlebell will travel straight up like it’s on an elevator.

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How to squat properly

Squats are great for lower body strength, but not everyone needs to do them. Blanket recommendations are dangerous. One person’s path to better performance can be another person’s path to injury.

Some things you can’t debate, such as whether it’s a crime to hide a raisin cookie in a batch of chocolate chips. Other acts are a little less certain. And, when it comes to exercise movement, there’s no shortage of disagreement about what movements are safe and which should be limited. 

Squats are one of the most controversial exercises. Some people suggest they are the best movement (period), whereas others – most notably, respected coach Mike Boyle – suggest they are oftentimes abused and unnecessary. 

At Born Fitness, we work with our online coaching clients to determine what movement is best for them. We love squats, but not everyone needs to do them. Blanket recommendations are dangerous. One person’s path to better performance can be another person’s path to injury.

And, if you do, it certainly doesn’t have to be on two legs (you can do 1-leg variations) or with a barbell on your back. 

Let’s assume you want to squat (remember, it’s still a primary movement). All you need to do is figure out how deep you should go, and what is dangerous for your body. 

Many people will suggest any type of “butt wink” – a rounding of your lower back – is dangerous. 

It’s not quite that simple, but we can offer an easy way to help you figure out what’s best for your body. 

Is The Butt Wink Bad?

Some coaches want you to squat ass to grass (ATG). While others, notably Dr. Joel Seedman (screenshot from https://www.advancedhumanperformance.com/blog/squats-truths below), claim that you should stop your squat around 90 degrees. 

The two camps primarily disagree about what is dangerous for your spine. And, the movement most often in question is the “butt wink.”

As you lower into a squat, there’s a moment when you get so deep that your lower back (lumber spine) starts to round. 

If you want to see what this looks like on your own body, find a mirror and it’s easy to assess. Turn sideways to the mirror and then slowly lower into a bodyweight squat. As you reach the bottom of the squat, watch your lower back. If you’re like most people, you’ll see this area slowly “wink” as you go deeper.  

This rounding of the spine, called spinal flexion, isn’t inherently dangerous. Our spines are made to flex, extend, and rotate as human beings. That’s why you likely don’t need to worry about this rounding during movements like that bodyweight squat.  

So, what’s the big deal? Rounding with no weight on your back is not much of a problem. But, once you start adding flexion with weight on your back – and doing it for many reps – such as during a heavy back squat, that’s when the story changes.

Most spine experts consider rounding your low back with load (such as a barbell) to be a risk for your lumbar spine, which means you’re at higher risk of disk injury and back pain. 

Here’s why: Between each bone segment (the vertebrae) of your spine is a gel-filled disk that helps absorb shock. This means when there’s weight on your back, you can transfer it safely throughout your spine. 

When you load your spine, you create a compression force that pushes the vertebrae together and squeezes the intervertebral disks. This isn’t dangerous if you have a healthy spine. (Fun fact: your spine is quite resilient to compression.) 

The issue is when you compress and flex your spine at the same time. This combination of load and flexion increases another force (shear) on your spine. And shear plus compression could increase your chance of injury. 

We all have different anatomy, so for you, that injury might not happen for years. But, flex your spine under load for rep after rep, and eventually, you might have a problem on your hands. 

That’s why a butt wink while squatting under load isn’t a good idea for the vast majority of us. 

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