Maximizing Muscle Growth vs. Optimizing Your Body as You Get Older

CT slightly OT but in regards to how a person’s body reacts to training, I’ve noticed several things: when I do high rep work, or ‘normal’ bodybuilding training I find my muscles look flatter and tend to have less energy and wake up with no morning wood.

When I train doing 90% of my work as lots of sets of 3 explosively, I have loads of energy, morning wood and people say I look bigger after only 3 days of doing it.

If I do higher rep triceps work…they disappear, when I do no direct triceps work (ala look like a bodybuilder…) then get larger almost immediately. I also notice I do better training every otherr day.

Now for some reason my brain can’t accept that this is optimal, it’s saying to me…to build muscle the fastest you must use higher reps and reach failure sometimes, but maybe I’m just one of those guys whose physiological profile works best with low reps, no variation, low failure etc…my question is do you know people who fit this? Whose best way to gain muscle is the opposite of what most would beleive?

Thanks

I never realized there were so many “older guys” on this forum. I enjoy reading everyone’s comments. It would be interesting if all of us, myself included, were to start a training log. It seems we all have similar goals and concerns and it would be interesting to see how we are approaching them.

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Before knowing about CT or these forums, I came to conclusion to age better you needed to focus on what people lose when they age: explosive strength and flexibility. My observations were that as people aged and continued to exercise, there were two camps of people:

  1. Those that stayed strong by lifting, but were hefty, slow and did not age well. This made me veer from wanting to focus only on the big lifts.
  2. Those that did endurance sports, like triathlons, trail races, etc… These people were in shape, but not strong or explosive.

So, since I was about 35 or so, I started every workout with box jumps and muscle ups. Are these some magic combination? Probably not, but doing them means you are explosive and relatively strong. I work out at a college gym often (I’m a professor), and 20 year olds always want to learn how to do a muscle up.

From a 43 year old looking to retain explosiveness and flexibility, here’s a typical routine:
–explosive

  1. 3x5 Box jumps and Muscle ups (things like band pull aparts between)
  2. 3x5 Snatch grip high pulls or SG muscle snatches
    -----strength
    3a) 5x3 Bench press
    3b) 5x3 pistol squat
    4a) 4x6 weighted pull ups
    4b) 4x8-10 weighted dips
    -------core/abs (not always)
  3. Hanging leg raises / front lever practice (or I do abs between sets above)
    ------- finisher (not always)
  4. Sprints or Farmer’s walks or
    sometimes I do a push up / pull ups finisher for reps, like 100 push ups / 50 pull ups rotating them until I finish.

I also will tell those in their 40’s that doing yoga with a real yoga instructor at least 1x a week is a life changer. It will stretch you physically and mentally. Also, competing in sports is a great way to retain explosiveness and keep training fun.

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That’s the only way I can post it here. Marcel at 82 years of age with a 237lbs front squat… still competing in olympic lifting!

As a 40+ lifter, I think the key message is “everything in moderation”. CT–what are your thoughts on simply alternating “the best damn” and the workout above? Maybe a 12 week program, Week 1 is best damn, week 2 is similar to the above, then week 3 is back to best damn? Seems like that would yield a good mix of explosiveness, hypertrophy, while still giving MTOR a break every other week.

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Well the everything in moderation doesn’t really say anything and honestly should be applied to everybody except drug users and freaks.

I think my message is more to include elements of performance training as you get holder… maintaining or improving power, strength and mobility being key elements in aging well

I don’t find this slogan of much use, especially as it applies to the topic of this thread. People usually use this as an excuse for poor behavior or habits, like eating fast food, their drinking habits, or a haphazard exercise agenda.

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Agreed that “everything in moderation” is an excuse used by a lot of folks. But I think for us that have lifters for a long time and are serious about what we do, it does shed some light as we age. I am going to definitely incorporate more performance training into my 2017 plans, but I am also doing really well on the Best Damn. Typically, at the end of the year, I review everything and set goals for the following year. At 42 and still making decent progress, I want to incorporate some hypertrophy goals for 2016, but also shift to include some longevity goals, so definitely want to figure out how to best intermix these two approaches into a good compromise. For those using the Best Damn, and have interest in the performance style workout that CT mentions above, how are you planning to incorporate? Thanks all

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I see a few separate article possibilities here. Obviously CT would have to agree since he would be the person writing them haha. But, obviously he has some loyal followers (me included) and I am sure we would sincerely appreciate an article similar to the 1- “Best Damn Workout for Nattys…Senior edition” and then a separate article about 2- “Aging and the possible impact of mTOR” and then finally, an article about 3- Genetic Potential. I remember Dante Trudell once said, something to the effect of, “WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE AFTER 2 YEARS OF LIFTING IS GOING TO BE A SMALLER VERSION OF WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE AT THE END” and “Two years of hard lifting and being past 19 years old will tell you if you have pro bodybuilder genetics.” I would very much appreciate every one of those articles if they were ever published.

Very cool CT, what words of wisdom would you have for the younger guys?
And age here is biological age (i.e. training 15 years since 15 years old, 30 year old would be “old” guy, 40 year old just starting training relatively “new”)?

I think you can get the best of both ways (“optimal training”) by doing your current style, rotating through push/pull/legs (1-2 big lifts per day, 5-10 sets of 3 reps), then 2-3 assistance exercises done for hypertrophy/intensity

Staggering the big lifts lets you do this high frequency, resting only 1 or 2 days a week so you never get stale/fry CNS from movement overload

Back to focus on performance for me…anythign else and I lose motivation to train (sometimes health dips too, mental/physical fatigue, lowered pump etc) !

I have been doing a mix of the Best Damn along with some of the methods CT outlines above to decrease mTOR and help with aging and logevity. I guess one thing that can be changed with the Best Damn is to take the maximum mTOR sets out.

The Chinese say that athletes age faster. Perhaps it is this Mtor , more stress on the body causes ageing.
Is Mtor muscular damage (wear and tear on the system ) from too much muscular remoulding? Fibres getting irreversibly damaged eventually?

There is something to that. We must understand that when they mean athlete they likely mean the elite level people who train 30-40 hours per week. Could be wear and tear… increased rate of cell turnover, overproduction of free-radicals, etc. And if talk elite, you must also consider include drug talk.

Elite sport is not and has never been healthy.

So true. It reminds me of the story about bodybuilder Casey Viator during his prime. He just finished training and was outside the gym chain smoking cigarettes. Someone asked him if his smoking was a contradiction to the healthy bodybuilding lifestyle. His answer, in a perplexed tone, was something along the lines of, “Who told you bodybuilding was healthy?”

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This should be a sticky.

It will actually be an article with some more stuff added

@50, I am doing a simplified training two day split as well.
Day 1
a1 clean grip dead>power clean>push press
a2 Squat
5 sets ladders 1,2 reps
btn press
neutral grip pulldown
light hack squat, 1 1/4 reps
rear delt work

Day 2
a1 Clean grip dead
a2 hex bar dead
ladders 1, 2
bench
row
Snatch grip dead
read delt work

I should add more loaded carries.

Or more simply put, you will age better if you train for functionality and health rather than superficial muscle mass.

Pretty much yeah

Great information, CT. I look forward to future articles. I wonder if the supplement regime also could help negate some of the mTOR activation. I know someone above mentioned metformin, but I wonder if a solid plan using circumin, berberine, garlic, fish oil, etc could help protect against the downsides of mTOR as we age, so we are getting the best of both worlds? I checked around but most indicate more studies need to be done here. Also noticed some mention of hard gainers vs easy gainers…that mTOR is less of a concern for natties who might struggle to put on some muscle vs the chemically enhanced. Overall, great information to consider and definitely appreciate you posting this. Probably one of the best threads out there…

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