10 Workout Tips For Guys Over 60 1. Take a 10 to 15 minute walk to warm up before your workout and a 10 to 15 minute walk after your workout to cool down. You can do this in your home walking back and forth in a room, or you could warm up with calisthenics, but you don’t want to use up too much energy if you use calisthenics for your warm up. You want to save as much energy as you can for your workout. 2. Don’t try to break records overnight in your lifting. Increase the weight you work out with gradually. Take your time. Better to go too slowly than too fast and risk injury. 3. Drink a 40 gram whey protein mixture within one hour after you finish your workout. This should help increase lean muscle mass and reduce body fat. Seniors who followed this protocol in a study gained more muscle mass than a control group who took less whey protein and another control group who took no whey protein. 4. To preventing swinging the weights when you do exercises like curls or lateral raises, pause for a moment at the bottom of the exercise before you lift the weight back up. 5. Keep your form “smooth.” Don’t use jerky movements or swing the weight instead of lifting with the best form you can manage. This will enable you to get more out of the exercise and reduce the likelihood of injury. You might have to use lighter weights if you have been lifting improperly with heavier weights. As the saying goes, form is king. More so as a guy gets older. 6. Consider using high reps in all or some of your exercises. For example, 12-15, 15-20. Higher reps are kinder to your joints and can help prevent or heal injuries. But, to get the most out of high reps, you must work the reps to muscle-fatigue. Not total failure, just at the point where the muscle is tired and you would be hard pressed to force out a few more reps. 7. Be aware of your recovery. If you are exhausted the day after a workout, it might be time to reduce the volume of work you are doing or work out less. For instance, instead of working out using 4 or 6 day splits, you might consider the traditional 3 times a week full body workout with rest days between workouts. 8. If an exercise doesn’t feel right or you have hurt yourself doing it, find an alternative exercise. After age 60 strains and injures can happen far easier than when you were a much younger man. It’s best to play it safe then be sidelined with injuries. This often happens with bench presses. Older guys find their shoulders become sore after benching. Some guys opt for dumbbell bench presses with neutral grips. Others do push ups and chest flies. And there are other options you could try. 9. At your age 2 sets on all or most of your exercises might be more beneficial than 3 or more sets; e.g., shorter workouts easier to recover from. The 2 sets is just something to consider. Some guys past 60 still do 3 or more sets and 6 day splits. In my opinion, though, most of us would be better off with less sets and less volume. But, it’s an individual thing involving many variables. 10. Last, and most importantly, have fun. If you don’t enjoy your workouts, odds are you might quit working out. Some elderly guys don’t like lifting weights or doing any resistance training. They prefer to just take long daily walks. Though with only walking, they miss some of the benefits of resistance training, stronger bones, preserving muscle mass, etc, they are more likely to continue exercising if they do something they enjoy, and walking is a great exercise. I know a guy in his late eighties who has been talking long daily walks for decades and he looks great. That’s it. These are just some tips to consider.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 23:52:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015