Great idea for thread.
Yesterday, 30 Minutes on Airdyne Bike, about 7 miles. Last week, about 40 miles on a bike over the course of the week including an 18 mile ride into Manhattan,ferry back to NJ.
Attachment 145797
Printable View
Great idea for thread.
Yesterday, 30 Minutes on Airdyne Bike, about 7 miles. Last week, about 40 miles on a bike over the course of the week including an 18 mile ride into Manhattan,ferry back to NJ.
Attachment 145797
Carlo-Yeah, I think it's good for us older men to lift weights within reason. I heard a study somewhere that after 35, a man loses 8% of his muscle mass every 10 years. I have found that even at 48, my muscles will respond to as heavy a weight as I can throw at them. My joints, however, force me to be careful in the gym. I wrenched my shoulder trying to do dips.
I've read that after 60 we begin to lose muscle mass and resistance training can help, if not reverse this, at least slow it down. At 65 I have to be careful. I'm more prone to injury and they don't heal quickly. I did a high ankle sprain in mid June and though it is much improved, it is still bothering me somewhat.
Over a year ago, hadn't done pushups in a couple of years, I suddenly got the urge. Dropped down and began pumping them out. I didn't do enough for a man of my caliber so I insisted on pumping out what I thought was an acceptable amount. Straining to get to the number. (don't even ask what that was)
I didn't feel anything then but when I got up in the morning I felt as if I had a knife blade in my back between my spine and left shoulder blade whenever I internally rotated my left arm. This went on for a few months and finally began to improve with some rehab learned on the net. It is still not 100% but almost.
One thing I learned from that incident is to avoid being a slave to rep numbers, but to listen to my body, and remember that discretion is the better part of valor. :beer2:
no workout today, half marathon race tomorrow morning, so I get to rest today
I lifted ~2lb chicken from my plate to my mouth yesterday. No rest between sets :p
exactly Jimmy, strength training does slow it and in some cases prevent in all ages. main lesson here is work toward a goal at YOUR pace. Hope you stick with it though, and most important is to have fun with it.
I ran 11 miles today.
Took about 67 minutes.
Jimmy-That also rings true for me. When I wrenched my shoulder, I was trying to do some pretty extreme shoulder rotation (low dips); I should have known better-that set me back months. My problem is, half of the guys who work out at the Y where I go, at least the ones under 30, are either current or former students of mine. I probably push it a little beyond sensible trying to keep up with the young bucks (almost always a mistake!).
Still, there is hope. My oldest fishing partner is 57, and will happily do a multi-mile brutal mountain hike to a remote trout stream, I mean an absolute death march, while contentedly smoking on his pipe the whole way, while I (48) and our other frequent partner, 33, huff and puff half a mile behind him. He simply does it a lot, and is very slim. There is another gentleman I talk to at the Y who is 62, and solidly muscular. I mean this guy works out hard, probably has 18" arms. I guess you just have to slowly get your body used to it.
But the hardest part of the equation, at least for me, is diet. They say it's "30% gym, and 70% diet"; I think I've got that backwards. I will eat right all week, high-protein, grains, fruits and veggies, etc., and then blow it all on the weekends with pizza, beer, chocolate, chips, you name it.
I guess we older fellows just have to fight the good fight, one day at a time.
In regards to dips I always go as low as I can; touching my chin to the dip bar. However, when I started doing bench presses a few months ago after not doing them for a while I did feel some pain, so I started with just partial reps for the warm up set (10 reps) and by the 10th rep I was doing the full movement. I always start a weights workout with 35 pushups (touching nose to ground) and in fact i also use pushups (same routine) as a warm up for bouldering, just to warm up my shoulders. I don't do exercises that cause me problems, like upright rows (they hurt my shoulders). I also need to be careful of my knees; I have a tendon missing in one knee (I tore it and they just cut it off and threw it away) and I tore my ACL in the other knee playing touch footy. I also have bone rubbing on bone in my knees and channels worn in the knee cap.