While most over fifty are focused on cardio to lose weight and improve heart health, they are often continuing to lose muscle mass. The statistic I teach in my Physiology of Exercise course is 40% from the 50 to 80 years. This is certainly a rough average, as we all differ according to lifestyle, activity, genetics, diet, etc., and it is not the inevitable fate of the aging adult. Loss of muscle mass shouldn’t be an expected result of growing old (though we can expect some decline).
Focusing on losing weight will only add to the mass of muscle tissue lost as we age. Cardio is less than beneficial for maintaining lean, as well as fat, tissue. So, while important for heart health, it should not dominate our exercise time (unless, of course, one is training for endurance performance—but, even then, there needs to be some effort put toward muscle mass).
So, the question remains: Does one lift for strength or for hypertrophy as one ages? My short answer is—both. It isn’t that simple, however, because hypertrophy isn’t that simple. We are learning more about hypertrophy, and the trend is to refer to two types of hypertrophy: myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic. Myofibrillar hypertrophy involves an increase in muscle size and strength by increasing the thickness of the muscle contractile proteins (e.g., actin & myosin) with some increase in fluid volume. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy involves an increase in muscle size with limited increase in muscle strength by increasing the fluid volume in the muscle (i.e., the “pump”). Myofibrillar hypertrophy comes from high-intensity weight training (i.e., heavy weights for few repetitions and sets), whereas sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is more associated with high-volume weight training (i.e., lifting less weight for more repetitions and more sets). Each has a place in the training of aging adults.
Functionally, we want to maintain (or better gain) strength for as long as we can as we age. The stronger we remain, the more activities of daily living we can maintain as we age. So, top priority should be to maintain (or begin) a regimen of high-intensity (“heavy”) lifting—e.g., the StongLifts 5×5 program or something similar. This will better maintain the contractile proteins in the skeletal muscle. This doesn’t diminish the importance of some “high-volume” training. While one might not be looking for “big muscles” in their older years, such training will ultimately do more to manage body fat than cardio alone. So, we want to take a more balanced approach to exercise as we age—muscle strength, muscle endurance, and cardiorespiratory endurance—to best maintain health and performance.
Opportunity costs, of course, and we do have limited time to exercise (albeit not as restricted as we might like to excuse ourselves). So, we prioritize. Ideally, we are performing 2-3 strength training sessions, 2-3 high-volume HIIRT (“high-intensity interval resistance training”) sessions, and 2-3 cardio sessions per week. The greatest emphasis should be on completing the 2-3 strength sessions and make as much time as possible available to complete some HIIRT and cardio sessions. Strength, after all, will best affect performance and body composition. The added physique (i.e., appearance) benefits of high-volume resistance training and fat-burning cardio are more icing on the cake.
Be you best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!