Building muscle after 60 is an important endeavor in order to maintain mobility, joint stability and muscle strength as we age. It’s never too late to start; the human body remains responsive to muscle-building exercises, regardless of age or when you begin.
Building muscle after age 60 “can help prevent or delay the onset of several age-related conditions (such as arthritis and osteoporosis), leading to an extended quality of life and ability to remain independent,” says Nathan L. McKinney, D.O., orthopedic sports medicine specialist with Norton Orthopedic Institute and Norton Sports Health. Strength training exercises also can help boost confidence and an overall sense of well-being.
Sarcopenia, which is age-related muscle loss, can cause a decline in physical health, strength, vitality, balance and overall functioning in activities of daily living. It is commonly associated with higher fall risk in older adults. Although sarcopenia is a natural part of the aging process, its impacts can be countered through adherence to an effective strength training routine.
In this article, we will explore the key strength training principles, muscle building exercises, nutritional considerations, and recovery guidelines needed for building muscle after 60, to help guide you on your journey to a full, physically active life in your later years.
5 Keys to building muscle after 60
#1. Put in a maximum effort
The higher the intensity of your strength training workouts, the better your results will be. Your goal on every set of every exercise is to reach 100% intensity, the highest possible level, which means exerting a maximum effort.
In order for your body to change, you must give it a good reason to do so. If you can lift 50 pounds on a certain exercise for 10 reps, but you always stop at 8 reps, why should your body alter itself? It has no reason to.
On the other hand, if you did 10 reps last time, and today you try for 11 reps, you have sent a signal to your body that the current condition of that muscle is insufficient, and it needs to get stronger to deal with these demands.
#2. Full-Body, consolidated workouts
For best results building muscle after 60, you want to train your body as a unit, and rest your body as a unit. This means performing full-body workouts, as opposed to working different body parts on different days.
By emphasizing multi-joint exercises, you can consolidate your workouts and cover several muscles with one exercise. For example, when performing a bench press, you are not only working your chest muscles, but also your shoulders and triceps, eliminating the need for additional shoulder and tricep exercises.
Utilizing this consolidation principle, you can cover your full body with 5 different movements:
A lower body push, such as a leg press exercise, where you are extending or straightening your knees and hips;
Next is plantar flexion of the ankles, which mimics pushing the gas pedal and involves your calf muscles, such as a seated or standing calf raise.
Third on our list is an upper body push, which would involve straightening the elbows, such as a bench press, chest press machine, or overhead press;
Then we add an upper body pull, an exercise where we’re bending the elbows, such as a pulldown, row or chin up;
And the 5th one is a midsection exercise, either trunk flexion for the abdominals, or trunk extension for the low back muscles, on a machine or a specially designed bench.
#3. Allow for full recovery between workouts
Recovery is just as important to your results as the workout. The workout must come first; it is the stimulus, the thing that flips the switch and sets muscular change into motion. Recovery time is when those changes take place.
That’s why lifting weights every day is a mistake, even if you are training different parts of your body. There is an overall energy drain on your body, and eventually you’ll get burned out and your progress will come to a grinding halt.
Starting out, you will be working out 2 days a week, with a minimum of 2 rest days in between each workout.
During periods of uninterrupted training, if no increase in reps or weight takes place with the majority of exercises in your workout for 3 weeks or more, that’s a sign that you have gotten so strong that your body can’t recover in time anymore.
The solution to this problem is to insert an extra rest day in between each workout. This will decrease your frequency from twice a week to about three times every two weeks.
#4. Consume enough protein
Recent research indicates that protein needs for older adults who engage in strength training are higher than previously thought – about 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of body weight per day.
For example, I weigh 170 pounds, so to determine my daily protein needs I would convert my weight to kilograms (170 divided by 2.2), which is 77.27 kg, and multiply that by 1.6, which equals 123.62, which I round up to 124 grams of protein needed per day.
Foods high in protein include meats, poultry, fish, dairy products (the low-fat kind are healthier), and eggs.
#5. Progressive Resistance
Progressive overload is required for continued strength gains. Every workout, you should strive to do more reps, more weight, or both, than you did last time.
Progression can be built into your muscle building program through the use of the “rep range”. For example, you could set a rep range for lower body exercises of 9 to 12, and for upper body exercises of 7-10.
Use a weight that allows for at least the low number of repetitions in the rep range. When you can meet or exceed the high number, increase the weight a little (usually 1-10 pounds) on your next workout.
Common misconceptions about building muscle after 60
“I don’t have time”
“I don’t have time” is the classic objection to exercise, at any age. “More is better” doesn’t apply to strength training, and here’s why.
If you make the intensity of your workouts high by putting in a maximum effort, they will necessarily be brief, because intensity of effort and duration of effort are inversely proportional. In simple terms, you can either strength train hard, or you can train for a long time, but you can’t do both.
And training hard for a short period of time is what will give you the best results. It’s the exercise equivalent of using a tanning bed to get a suntan.
“It’s too late to start, I’m over the hill”
The other common concern I hear from older people is the “I’m over the hill” mentality – this idea that they’re too old to lift heavy weights, and if they try they’ll end up getting injured.
The way to address this fear is to use a slow, controlled repetition speed, so that the weight is being moved by the force of muscular contraction alone, while limiting the dangerous forces of momentum. This makes the exercises hard on the muscles, but easy on the joints, which is exactly what we want.
Also make sure you are choosing the safest piece of equipment available for each exercise, where all you have to concentrate on is pushing or pulling as hard as you can with the working muscles, without having to worry about losing your balance, having something fall on you, or getting stuck under a heavy weight.
Once these guidelines are applied, strength training becomes the safest form of exercise, even when using heavy weights.
Motivation and consistency for sustainable results
Set realistic expectations
At 60+ years of age, you may not be able to add 15-20 pounds of muscle to your body in a year. But it is certainly possible to add 2-5 pounds of muscle in a year by following the guidelines in this article.
And 2-5 additional pounds of muscle is a VERY significant addition. That added muscle will help you move better, and be more resistant to injury,
And here’s a biggie: That added muscle tissue will increase your basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is the amount of calories you burn daily at rest. The higher your BMR, the more you can eat without adding extra body fat.
Remember your “Why”
Take a moment now to reflect on why you want to get stronger and build muscle. What do you think having bigger, stronger muscles will do for you? How will it improve the quality of your life? Why is it important to you?
Answering these questions will help you successfully make your way through the myriad of distractions we all deal with in day-to-day life and get your workouts done.
Summary: 5 Keys to building muscle after 60
- Building muscle after 60 is an important endeavor in order to maintain mobility, joint stability and muscle strength as we age.
- Sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss) can be countered through adherence to an effective strength training routine.
- The higher the intensity of your strength training workouts, the better your results will be, which means exerting a maximum effort.
- For best results building muscle after 60, perform full-body workouts, emphasizing multi-joint exercises.
- Starting out, work out 2 days a week, with a minimum of 2 rest days in between each workout. If progress stops, add an extra rest day between workouts.
- Older adults who engage in strength training need about 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of body weight per day.
- Every workout, you should strive to do more reps, more weight, or both, than you did last time.
- It’s never too late to start.
Thoughts or questions about building muscle after 60? Leave a comment below!
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