Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Mark Rippetoe on Making Gains in Your 40s and Beyond

Episode Date: April 16, 2015

In this podcast I interview Mark Rippetoe and we talk about how training changes in your middle and even later years, how to keep joints healthy (34:35), how to avoid injuries and overtraining (45:09), and more... MARKS'S WEBSITE: http://startingstrength.com/ FIND A STARTING STRENGTH COACH: http://startingstrength.org/ ORDER MARK'S BOOK: http://amzn.to/1Hug9UQ ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS VIDEO: The Definitive Guide to Muscle Recovery: http://www.muscleforlife.com/the-definitive-guide-to-muscle-recovery-and-muscle-growth/ Does CrossFit Work? http://www.muscleforlife.com/does-crossfit-work/ How Much Protein is Needed to Build Muscle: http://www.muscleforlife.com/how-much-protein-build-muscle/ 8 Signs of Overtraining That Most People Don’t Know: http://www.muscleforlife.com/8-signs-of-overtraining/ Debunking the Myth of Weightlifting and Joint Problems: http://www.muscleforlife.com/weightlifting-joint-problems/ Why the BCAA Supplement is Overrated: http://www.muscleforlife.com/bcaa-supplement/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and this podcast is brought to you by my books. Seriously, though, it actually is. I make my living as a writer, so as long as I keep selling books, I can keep writing articles over at Muscle for Life and Legion and recording podcasts and videos like this and all that fun stuff. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger if you're a guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger if you're a girl. Now, these books, they basically teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build

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Now, as you probably know, I'm not a fan of the supplement industry. I mean, I've wasted who knows how many thousands of dollars over the years on worthless supplements that really do nothing. And I've always had trouble finding products that I actually thought were worth buying and recommending. And well, basically I had been complaining about this for years and I decided to finally do something about it and start making my own products. And not just any products, but really the exact products that I myself have always wanted. So a few of the things that make my supplements unique are one, they're a hundred percent naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because

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about my supplements at www.legionathletics.com. And if you like what you see and you want to buy something, use the coupon code podcast, P O D C A S T, and you'll save 10% on your order. All right. Thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get to the show. Hey, it's Mike. And in this interview, I talk with Mark Ripito, who really doesn't need any introduction. If you are familiar with the fitness world at all, you know who Mark is. He's the author of several best-selling books. The most well-known and the most popular book is Starting Strength,

most popular book is starting strength, uh, which is a program that it's a, it's a barbell program that, I mean, the, I don't know, probably 50 to 70% of the people that I speak with, uh, that read my book and, and, and get into my work have also read starting strength. And most of them have also, you know, ran the program. It's a great program, especially for beginners, uh, it for, for building that, that initial foundation of strength and getting the muscle growth going and so forth. And, um, Mark is obviously very, very knowledgeable. He's worked with, I don't know how many thousands and thousands of people, uh, including elite athletes, Olympic athletes. So he has a, uh, a unique insight into not just what it takes to get into shape, but what it takes to really get into kind of the elite level of performance and getting an elite type of physique. Even though

physique is not really his thing, he is more of a strength coach. But of course, he understands that in terms of physique, really all we're talking about is getting big, getting strong and then getting lean. He's just that, you know, get the whole getting lean and getting shredded thing. He thinks it's kind of funny. Not that he doesn't know how it works or how to do it, but he's more focused on how do you get big and how do you get strong? So with that, let's get to the interview. All right. Hey, Mark, thanks again for taking some time to talk with me.

Anytime, Michael. How's things? You know, busy and busy, but I can't complain. Did you get big yet or not? That's funny. I had so much. That's not funny. I got so much flack from people from that last one.

Good. So, Mike, when are you going to gain your 30 pounds right now? Hey, Mike, why don't you get to be 215 and ripped, and then that'll be better. Honestly, I don't think. I'm 190 right now, 189. That's 25 pounds. I know, 25 pounds. Let's say your body fat goes up 3%.

That still puts you at about what? 8? I'm probably around 7 to 8 right now. 7 to 8 is stupid. It looks good though. It's just ridiculous. It's a level of obsession with this

body fat thing that's just not psychologically healthy. You and I will talk about this off the air. I can understand where you're coming from, but you might be surprised with how – I mean I'm very flexible with how I eat and I don't have a bunch of head whatever stuff. It's just part of – I guess part of my world is to walk the walk. And a lot of – like the people that that that uh generally are reading my stuff and reading my books and following me are they want to they want to look a certain

way you know what i mean they want to be they want to want i don't i understand aesthetics yeah they would they would sacrifice there's a market for that and you're in that market i'm in the other end of the deal yeah exactly but uh. But, uh, yeah, anyways, that's, that's another conversation. So, uh, so in this interview, what I want to do is I want to talk about, um, training for, for people that are, you know, when they start getting into the, to the middle-aged years, because, uh, I get asked about it a lot and a lot of guys, you know, especially, and, and girls actually, and women in their forties and and 50s and beyond are kind of worried that it's almost like too late to get into shape that you know if they didn't do it if they didn't do it when they're in their 20s that now can they really do anything and in terms of guys most guys

that have this concern they think that they can't really build any real muscle to speak of and that their hormones are all messed up now and you know they won't be able to get lean and uh so you obviously with all your just years of experience what what have you seen in terms of people that uh you know what what what can guys and what can men and women in in their middle age years expect well let's let's first define middle age years uh in my it's been my experience that that um you have a relatively normal novice training response up until you're in your early to mid-40s. Okay. In other words, there's not that much difference.

Right. But between a 40-year-old guy and a 30-year-old guy in terms of how he responds to training and what constitutes too much volume and that sort of thing. Okay, you take a guy that's just starting out and he's 40 years old. Just put him on a regular program just like we normally talk about. Right. He can go three days a week. He's probably going to have to be a little bit more careful about getting enough sleep. But he can handle the three-day-a-week volume. He can handle the normal novice progression as we describe it in our books without any real alteration in volume load. Now, as a general blanket rule, here's the deal. The older you get, the more sensitive you become to volume, to number of reps in a workout.

Okay? And would that also then apply? This means that a guy that's 60 years old is probably not going to be able to do three sets of five across three days a week. He could go two days a week. But the extra volume is what we find that older people are more sensitive to. They just can't recover from all of the reps. all of the reps. So if we looked at it like on a weekly,

like if we're looking at 15 sets per week on a major muscle group, you've seen that. Well, 15 work sets. Yeah, 15 work sets. Yeah, excluding, that's your 15 heavy sets. Let's say, for instance, it's going to be more like nine probably. Yeah. But you get up to where you're 60 years old. We're talking about six work sets a week instead of nine.

Yeah. I've seen a lot of people go through this process. What strikes me as being the constant across all masters training, this is men, women, everybody,

you have to curtail the volume, which means that a Masters lifter can deal with the intensity. And that's just to clarify for listening. The heavy weight is fine. That's not the problem. The problem is doing a bunch of sets with the heavy weight. I personally, for instance, right now, I'm just trying to stave off death with my training. I squat one heavy set of five once every two weeks.

Wow. And you find you're able to maintain with that. Yeah. Yeah, I can maintain with that. In fact, I make a little progress every once in a while. I'll pull heavy once every two weeks. Last night, I deadlifted 435 for five, and it was easy. Nice.

Okay? But it's going to take me a while to recover from that, which means that I'm going to be more sore than I recover from that, which means that if I, you know, I'm going to be more sore than I would have been 20 years ago. Right. I'm, uh,

I'm, it's going to affect my other training more than it would have 20 years ago. So I've got to wait a little bit longer, but between now and any more lower body work, uh, any squats or, or deadlifts. And I have found that once, like I alternate Mondays.

Every other Monday will either be heavy squats, heavy pulls. And I don't do any other stuff for those movements except once a week. And so I'll pull heavy about twice a month. I'll squat heavy about twice a month. I'll squat heavy about twice a month and that's enough. If I try to go up in volume and every once in a while I'll forget everything I know just like most people do

and I'll try to go up in volume and add another. I can't get away with it. I can't get away with it. Even if it's in a higher rep range? That's right. Especially if it's in a higher rep range? That's right. Especially if it's in a higher rep range. Let me say that again. Especially if it's in a higher rep range. This is my point.

Sets of 10 for guys my age, for Masters guys, are not a good idea. Even if it's only one set. Going somewhere approaching failure as opposed to taking 50% of your one rep max and just kind of, you know, it's almost like getting a warm-up. Well, 50% of your one rep max is not enough. Yeah, it's not enough. That's not enough. It's not even a set of 10 load.

Exactly. A set of 10 load would be 70%, 75% of one rep max, 78% of one rep max, somewhere in there. 50% of one rep max of warm-up set, it doesn't really do anything. Yeah, and that's what I mean. In terms of work weights for sets of 3, 5, 10, you can get away with triples and fives when you're older. You can get away with perhaps a couple of triples or three triples across, maybe. Right. But when you get to where you're handling sets of ten, it's going to bother your knees.

It's going to bother you. It's just going to make you sore. The inflammation doesn't go away as fast. And my advice to older guys is to hold it down to sets of five and try to use as few sets as you possibly can to get a training effect. You'll be less sore. You'll sleep better at night. You won't tend to accumulate tendinitis. Your life will just be more pleasant while you're training. But if you overestimate

your recovery ability, then you will not have good luck with this. And your recovery ability is best taxed by a bunch of volume yeah don't do 20s don't do 10s yeah hold it down to five and i found that stuff rough even when i was in my early 20s doing you know trying to do everything twice a week and trying to do all this volume and training training to failure all the time and right volume is training to fail you failure all the time. Right. Volume is training to failure all the time, a whole bunch of volume, five sets of five across. That's a young man's deal. Yeah.

Older guys, look, you're not going to have good luck with that. In fact, what we find is that when we put older guys on a linear progression, where we come in, test them the first day, three sets of five across, second workout of the week, go up five pounds. They'll get away with that for, you know, three or four months. They'll go up, they'll get stronger. But they're going to peter out on that linear progress pattern a lot faster than a younger guy will. And if you try, if you go more than the first month doing three workouts a week

instead of two, you're going to get burned out. It's just too much to recover from. Right. Especially for an untrained older guy. Yeah. Recovery is trainable too. Your ability to recover will improve over time. Will improve over time. And that's even true for an older guy.

But there reaches a point of diminishing returns on that faster with older guys than there does with younger trainees. Yeah. So you, my advice to older people is to just look. If you waited until you're 58 to start working out, look, you fucked up. There are consequences to that. You cannot make as fast a progress as you could have if you had started doing this when you were 19, 20, 21. You have to admit that you're not going to approach your potential as closely as you had started when you were a kid, younger, with a better hormonal background to help you with your recovery.

All of that stuff is gone. It's all gone. I'm sorry. It's gone. You're not a kid. You can't pretend you're a kid. There's a price to be paid if you do. Hundreds of reps of anything for an older guy is just hospitalization. That's what that means. It's not a good idea.

I've run into that with a few guys in their 50s, friends of mine, that started with CrossFit, even though I told them not a good idea. Especially, I mean, they just got into weightlifting for the first time in their late 40s or 50s. And two in particular, one got hurt, and the other one was, it wasn't a bad injury. He was having nagging pains. It was approaching injury. And then now he got out of that, and now he's just coming with me in the morning and he's back to just like what

you're saying heavy lifting he's doing about 9 to 12 sets a week for each major muscle group all just compound movements and he's he's doing amazing i mean he's uh he's turning 50 and he just pulled uh 315 today. And this is a guy who hasn't – he never really lifted. He does this first time ever even doing a deadlift maybe four months ago. So I definitely have seen the same thing that you're talking about, that all the high rep stuff – I mean, like I said, even when I was five, six, seven years ago, I found that taxing. So I can only imagine what it would be like in a 50-year-old body. Well, there's a time to tax.

And that time is when you're in your late, your middle, late, novice period. Yeah. Or your intermediate period. See what you can do. Yeah. Push it. I mean, wouldn't you think it's... see what you can do. Push it. Lift the volume up. See what you can recover from.

Tax it. Find your limit. Train at your limit. Because when you're that age, you can get away with it. That's how you build a big, giant, strong guy, is pushing it to that limit, finding where the limit is, extending the limit.

But when you're 58, when you're my age, when you're 60, 65, you just have to be realistic about what you've got. What you've got is a completely different hormonal milieu than you did when you were 22. When you were 22, when I was 22, I could jump off of buildings for plyometrics, and all it would do is make you stronger. But that's not now. That's not now. Older guys, several things change as you get older.

Obviously, the hormone situation changes. Your growth hormone, which helps you heal up connective tissues and stuff. Your testosterone. It's not that the levels are down, but the receptors aren't as effectively responding to the presence

of testosterone as they were when you were young. Yeah. You start to have transcription errors accumulate. You know, you don't build things as effectively. And in terms of the effects of accumulated training, you've accumulated injuries. Right. As a result of accumulated injuries, you're in a minor level of pain all the time. This is the stress.

That minor level of pain all the time affects your ability to sleep effectively at night. You don't get as sleep like you used to. And if you medicate, the quality of sleep isn't as good. Nutritionally, you're not as good at absorbing nutrients, most especially protein, as you get older. Therefore, you have to have a higher protein intake in terms of grams of protein a day per pound of body weight,

and the protein has to be of a higher quality. Right. You know, you get away with, you know, Hoffman's high-protein soy flour when you were a kid. But as you get older, the protein has to be of a higher quality because you're not absorbing as much of it as you were when you were younger. as much of it as you were when you were younger. So all of these things accumulate into the fact that you are not going to be as effective at recovering from training as you're older. And the factor and the training variable that seems to be the one that is most hard to recover from with age as volume.

Right. And I find that even with younger, I mean, I email and work with a lot of people, and I find even a lot of these young guys that are natural and they're trying programs that are having them do, for instance, a medium volume, probably like I'd say a 12 to 15 set heavy workout for upper body and then 12 to 15 set heavy for lower and then doing that and then alternating in the same week with then something about the same with a bit of a higher rep range. So like 8 to 10 rep range in the upper lower and they're trying to run a program like that, massive weekly volume. I've yet to come across a single natural weightlifter that's been able to do it for any longer than a few months, regardless of age, and they also were in a calorie surplus. Forget about it if they're in a deficit. People I've talked to –

Oh, no, it's not possible. That were just miserable. They had to stop. And even in a surplus, I remember running into one person that said they were able to do it for about three months in a surplus and progress. And I mean a big surplus. Yeah. And even at the end of that, though, they didn't feel good, and they just stopped, and they had to reduce weekly volume. You cannot run a high-volume program for more than six or eight weeks at a time.

It's been my experience. It doesn't matter what you're taking. It doesn't matter what you're taking. It doesn't matter what you're on. It doesn't matter how much you're eating. It just beats the shit out of you. Yeah, it does. At a certain point, the inflammation is going to accumulate faster than the gains are, and then you've got to quit.

And that's just the way shit is. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know anybody that's been able to sustain an extreme training regimen like that for i mean i've come across guys that are on a lot of drugs that run those kind of programs for uh longer periods of time that's for sure but you know i don't know if oh that's yeah they they're they're wonderful for that. Yeah. You know, that is their primary function is to deal with the effects of overtraining. Yeah.

They help you recover. Yeah. Once again, stress, recovery, adaptation is the cycle. Yeah. If stress is inadequate, you don't make progress. You don't adapt. If recovery is inadequate, you don't adapt progress. You don't adapt. If recovery is inadequate, you don't adapt. Both factors must be there. The older you get, the easier

it is to provide the stress and the harder it is to provide the recovery. It's just biology. Makes sense. Cool. So then for the listener, just as a simple takeaway here is to understand that that's just how it is. And in my experience, I know it's a few that you have to kind of listen to your body. You have to see how your body responds, but you do have to know that your weekly volume, how my program is laid out is it's the same principles as yours, heavy compound lifting. The split is just a little bit different.

the same principles as yours, heavy compound lifting. The split is just a little bit different. You're doing upper-lower work, and you're doing a bit extra upper each week because most guys, for instance, are like the number one complaint is not enough chest. Their chest is too small, and chest is a bitch. I mean, it's just, you know, if you don't know. Yeah, it's just, you know, if aesthetics are your deal, you're going to have to bench twice a week. Yeah. You have to bench twice a week. Yeah. You have to bench twice a week.

Exactly. So that's what I have. And it's just working that weekly volume to make sure that you're not, like, how, and just for the listeners, and how Bigger Leaner Stronger has laid out that weekly volume you should be fine with, but don't get overzealous in trying to, like, I'll get people that write me, like, hey, I'm doing two of these workouts a week. Do you think that's a good idea? trying to, like I'll get people that write me like, hey, I'm doing two of these workouts a week.

Do you think that's a good idea? No, it's not a good idea to do 25 heavy sets, 80-85% of one rep max per week. Not a good idea. It's hard to recover from that unless you're taking a bunch of drugs. Exactly. If you're going to take a bunch of drugs, everybody's going to respond a little bit differently to that. See what you can recover from. Just like if you're not taking a bunch of drugs. There is a point in your training where you have to push the envelope to find out where the edges of it are. And that is something that pretty much everybody that's committed to their training does anyway.

But just be aware of the reality of the fact that there is an edge to the envelope. You know, if you mash on it too hard, you're going to get hurt. And injuries set you back. Yeah, injuries suck. Injuries are games. Number one, avoid injuries. Avoid injuries. Go right up to the point where you're going to make an injury and then don't do it.

And yeah, and that, and practically speaking, that means like, okay, you're going to go for that heavy pull and you're, you're creeping up and then you feel your, you know, you feel your back starts rounding. You feel things are not, you know, where they need to be. Put the weight down. Don't try to show off and, you know, do something stupid. Absolutely. That's not how you get. Getting injured is not how you get stronger. Not getting injured is not getting injured but still pushing the envelope.

Yes. And this is a good segue into my next question here, which relates to heavy lifting. And this is a good segue into my next question here, which relates to heavy lifting because many people, guys, you know, I've even had guys in their 30s worry about this, but maybe more so in the 40s and beyond are kind of scared of certain exercises, especially when we're talking about heavy weight like, you know, bench press, deadlift, squat, military press, the most important exercises really because they're afraid that, you know, if they try to push any sort of weight, even if they work up to it, they think they're going to get hurt. What's your take on this? What are your alternatives to the major exercises? Machines. Which you can't train.

Yeah. You can't train the non-major exercises. Here's the, this is, and I think you and I talked about this in our original conversation. What's the difference between training and exercise? Right. Training is a process by which you can affect change in the physical capacity of a system over time. of a system over time. It is the process that you design to produce changes in physical capacity over time.

So marathon training is different than strength training. Now, how do you make long-term progress on the leg extension machine? You max out the stack one day and hurt your knees. The fact is you don't. How do you make long-term progress on the pec deck? The answer is

you don't. You cannot make long-term progress. In other words, you cannot train isolated muscle groups because they won't train. You can exercise them. You can work them real hard, but they won't train you can exercise them yes you can you can work them real hard but you can't train them but you can make progress on the main movements that you and i both advocate the deadlift the squat the press the bench press you can make progress

on those movements for years years yeah at a Therefore, those are the ones that the program must be based on. Now, if you want to use some of the machines for assistance exercises, I don't do it anymore, and I don't even program it. But I understand that a lot of people do, and I understand that a lot of people like doing that. A lot of people have gotten some stuff out of it. I think there's probably, I think probably for the vast majority of people, a giant waste of time.

But let's assume that there's a reason to do squats and then some other legs. The stuff you're going to use for other legs is not going to be trainable in the absence of training the squat. Now, what about safety, though? Because that's the concern that I run into. They think that squatting is unsafe because the guy is 45 or something. I don't know what you do about that. If a guy doesn't understand that squats are safe,

then maybe his coach hadn't showed him that squats are safe. Yeah, or what about the common thing? Squatting down and standing back up inherently is safe. I mean, we use the toilet. But what if we're adding – The movement pattern itself, Mike, is perfectly perfectly safe and all we're doing is loading it and that's where people have a misconception they think that because they're adding 200 pounds in their back all of a sudden now their knees are going to blow out right which is hilarious

because we don't all of a sudden add 200 pounds do we sure why even working up to it i mean that's i'm not i'm playing devil's eye i'm just saying this is why we have a view. But my take on it would be that any trainee that doesn't understand that these movement patterns are perfectly safe has not been educated about it. And that's the coach's job. The coach's job is to make them understand, make a new client understand. No, I'm not going to hurt you. I do these movements myself. I do them with all my other clients.

Nobody's hurt. There's nothing unsafe about it. Squats don't hurt your knees because squats are a hips exercise. Squats don't hurt your back because your back gets strong when you're squatting. That's why we squat. No, it's not an unsafe movement. Now, if you do something wrong and your form is incorrect, then yeah, you can get hurt. But my job as your coach is to keep that from happening. Yes. And that's the key there is that proper form. Technique is the key to not getting hurt. A lot of people have plotted 800 without getting hurt.

We're not going to take the personal training class. You get a guy after these guys that are paying you by the month to train them. Hell, they're happy with 405, 505. You don't get hurt doing weights that are that light. You don't get hurt doing weights that are that light. By the time you get to the point where the weight on the bar is more important than your ability to do the workout that day, you're a competitive frame of mind with any athletic endeavor. Then winning becomes the primary concern and safety becomes secondary. Yes. And that's what happens when you're a competitor.

You know, if you're a competitive tennis player, the same thing is true. You're not concerned about getting hurt. You're concerned about winning. Yeah. This is what it means to compete. When we train people for fitness, we're not doing it in a competitive way. Our emphasis always must be on technically correct execution of these movements. technically correct execution of these movements.

If the movement's technically correct, then the potential for injury is very, very, very, very, very low. Yeah. It's not zero. Yeah, it's just that I talk about that. It's not ever zero, but it's very, very, very, very, very low. Yeah. Weightlifting is just not a very dangerous activity when done correctly. It's not a dangerous activity because the stress is distributed in these major exercises we advocated.

The stress is distributed over a whole bunch of different joints. This is completely different to the leg extension, isn't it? Where all of the stress is just on the knee. And not just the knee, but the anterior knee. You know, that is dangerous. Squatting is not. And if a guy doesn't understand that, then he hadn't had it explained to him correctly by his coach. That's his coach's job.

Now, when the lifter, when the trainee, when your personal training client decides he wants to be a lifter, he wants to be a competitive lifter, then things are different. Yes. in front of the judges at the meet, and he either wants to beat his personal record that he set himself under similar conditions, or he wants to beat somebody else. When you want to beat somebody, the emphasis is now not on safety. It's on winning. But for clients, what we do for clients is we show them the correct way. We teach them why it's correct. We explain to them that which they need to know.

And teach patience, that it takes time to build strength. You teach them about training. Training's a process. Yeah, we're going to squat every day you train for a long time because that's what works. because that's what works. Now, if you're not up for the boredom or if making progress bores you, then perhaps you're not cut out for this. Not everybody needs to be training.

Some people need to do CrossFit. Yeah, or just exercise. Just exercise. Eat 90X. Do something different every day. Yeah, move your body. Burn some calories. Wiggle around. Get hot, sweaty, and tired.

Whatever you want to do. But when you've graduated to the idea that a process must be invested in in order to achieve a goal, then you're training. And you, the coach, direct that activity. And if you don't know how to do it, then you're not a coach. You're just a trainer. Yeah, I totally agree. true just to train. Yeah, I totally agree. And just a last point on this safety thing is, for instance, so we talk about the squat, the bench press, right? Because the line out there is that bench pressing is bad for your shoulders or military pressing is bad for your shoulders.

And again, just so this understands, regardless of, and this is regardless of age, right? And this is like you have, it's not that bench pressing is only for 20-year-olds. And then even with proper form, all of a sudden, if you're 40 and you're starting working out, that you can't bench press or you're going to blow your shoulders out. You know what I mean? Because that's a definite – that's an area that people are concerned about, at least that I hear about, that the shoulders in particular. And if you keep your form in and you don't flare your elbows out, you don't roll them, you don't do all the stupid things that people do, and you use the weight that you can handle, would you agree, Mark,

that it's just like any other movement, it's a safe movement? Yeah, I mean, the way we describe the bench press in basic barbell training is a safe way to bench press. I would add that if you are doing both the bench press as a lift and the press as a lift. And we recommend for our strength training emphasis people, not competitive power lifters, obviously, strength training emphasis people, not competitive power lifters, obviously, but we recommend that a one-to-one emphasis, bench press to press, be observed. Yeah.

Under those circumstances, no, you're not going to have any trouble with your shoulders. People that have trouble with their shoulders were competitive power lifters with an anterior emphasis on the bench press. Because of so much pressure. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, we don't see shoulder problems with people that do one-to-one bench and press. Yeah, and the pulling probably helps too, right? So you don't get your posture all messed up and see your back muscles do what they're supposed to do. Right.

Yeah. I mean, there's a reason we've carefully chosen the five basic exercises that we use. Yeah. And there's a very good reason why we teach them precisely the way they're taught. And I mean, believe it or not, we've thought about this really hard. hard. And what we've arrived at is a way for people who are interested in general strength and conditioning to perform these exercises at their optimum efficiency for long-term progress. And that's, you know, it works. It works. Yeah. And it's sustainable for your entire life. Sustainable for decades. Yeah.

Decades. The great thing about it. So do you think that any sort of special measures should be taken to preserve joint health as you get older? Like maybe things like, you know, that reduce inflammation, you know, fish oil, spirulina. Oh, I think you probably should take fish oil. And glucosamine, chondroitin work for probably half of the people that take them. Yeah. I've seen different numbers on that. That's what the research shows, that it's kind of.

Yeah, I think some people are able to absorb that molecule and transport it, and other people are not. I don't know why. I don't know if it's digestive environment, transport environment, receptor side environment. I don't know if it's digestive environment transport environment receptor side environment i don't know yeah but uh everything i've seen shows that uh glucosamine chondroitin work for a percentage of the population and they don't work for me and uh like msm i i don't know anybody that works for but it you but there may be somebody that claim they get an effect out of that

there's all kind of these supplements the vast majority of supplements are a waste of money best I can tell they're a waste of money I think everybody needs to be taking some fish oil not a bunch but a little bit of fish oil everybody probably should take

anywhere from a half gram to a gram of vitamin C every day. I think occasionally a strong multiple vitamin is useful every three or four days. I think creatine is probably a good idea for most people. Probably the only true. Jordan Feigenbaum, our nutrition guy, has recently convinced me that BCAAs are a real good idea. Uh, after you train, but I don't,

I just, I think a lot of people spend a lot of unnecessary money on supplements. Yeah. Uh, I think training and enough calories to recover, uh, quality of sleep, all of these things are, are very, very anabolic.

Any other things for joint health? Do you find, for instance, I like when I'm squatting, not knee wraps, but I like knee sleeves. Sleeps. Yeah, that's what I was going to recommend. A lot of people, especially if they've been training a long time, can benefit from either a knee sleeve or a light wrap that just provides a little compression around the joint. I'm not talking about power lifting tight five meter knee wraps that act as an exoskeleton, but a little bit of compression. And it keeps the joint warm. It keeps the joint warm. It keeps the joint warm.

It just holds the tendons in place. It just makes it so that you can squat without pain. Yeah. If your knees are bothering you, first step to do is a sleeve. If they continue to bother you, the second step would be to put on a light wrap. This, of course, assumes correct technique. Right. This assumes correct technique because the number one cause of knee pain

when you squat is front squatting your squats. Right. The squat properly performed is a hips movement. It won't bother the knees at all. Now, if you've been squatting for years and your knees are chronically inflamed and that happens with a lot of people then or from like a bunch of running I've run into that yeah God Almighty running is much worse problem for knees than squatting yes you know

lots of but once you start getting a tendonitis accumulated in the joint, it's real difficult to control. Yeah. It really, really is. And you can take all the anti-inflammatories you want, but changes have started to take place in the connective tissue and it's just real bad. So the thing to pay attention to is technique. Stay out of your knees when you squat. Put it on your hips where the stress belongs. Put it on your back where the stress belongs. Stay out of your knees and you won't have any knee trouble. I found that some mobility and type work can help too. I don't know if you

found that. I haven't found that, no, but i know it's very very popular and i know people are not going to pay any attention to me when i say that but i know i i don't i think stretching is highly overrated and a giant waste of time in fact i just had an article uh appear in uh at our friends at pjmedia.com about this the the three best ways to waste time in the gym and way number one is to you know do 30 minutes of stretching before you yeah yeah no i'm talking about that i'm actually not a fan of stretching either i mean more like i've i've gotten uh help in my own like my vmo is very very tight my right leg, and it would mess my knees sometimes. But like doing foam rolling, and it doesn't feel good.

I don't know. I've got my problems with foam rolling. Yeah, I can explain my problem with foam rolling here in just a second. But the second way to waste a bunch of time in the gym is with excessive warm-up. If you're doing 20 minutes on the rower before you squat, you're doing two minutes of warm-up and 18 minutes of conditioning, and we're here to train. We're not here to do conditioning.

Yeah, you're wasting energy. You're wasting energy, and you're wasting time. Yeah. And the third way to waste time is to come in and do the same weight every time you come in. It's just you're not making progress when you do that. Now, I am a big believer in the effectiveness of active release therapy. I have had it done myself. I know too many people who have, in the hands of a competent therapist,

released, say, an IT band. Yeah. And knee mechanics were immediately improved and pain went away. There are lots and lots of examples of this. Shoulder flexibility is much, much more quickly and positively affected by an active release type massage than it is for all the stretching in the world. People are much more effectively increasing their flexibility in their shoulders with the hands of a good therapist.

But here's the problem with foam rolling, as I see it. As I see it, if you do not have an element of sheer force being applied to the tissues by the skin into the connective tissues that actively stretches and breaks loose adhesions, that sort of thing. Yeah. Moves things in relation to the underlying tissues. You understand what I mean by that? Sure. I hope I'm expressing myself clearly. Mm-hmm. Foam rolling is compressive only.

Yeah. It feels like the same thing, but it's not. It feels like the same type of pain. Yeah, there's the mashing component, but it completely eliminates the shear component. And as a result, it just mechanically doesn't do the same thing as an active release treatment does. I've found that. I actually see a massage therapist that she worked on olympic rowers for many years and then worked on cyclists so she understands

uh anatomy understands also it's not a feel-good massage necessarily she kind of just beats the shit out of me but uh i definitely get more out of that than anything i can do on myself but i have noticed using you know like have noticed using a lacrosse ball or certain muscles that I was able to apply enough force to with a foam roller, especially on my quads and stuff. Maybe they were just so tight that that was just the way it was. Well, it could be. A lot of people report a lot of positive stuff with foam rolling.

I just haven't found it to be. I found it to be kind of a trendy deal. My natural tendency is to not be trendy. I don't see the reasoning there. Now, by the same token, I've got Theracanes laying all over the place. I get little spasms in my back and direct compressive therapy on a muscle spasm does in fact break the thing up. When I think of

foam rolling on the legs, I tend to think of people trying to do an active release type of therapy on themselves, and the mechanics are completely different. So I, you know, I, but these things are, you know. Yeah. These are, there are gray areas here. But that's just my impression of foam rolling, is if you can't figure out a way to stretch the tissues and shear. Yeah.

I found even barbell, you know, using a barbell in the gym on my quads even helped. It didn't feel good, but I was able to put enough force on it where I could. Well, you know, you might have been able with a barbell to produce a little shear. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know, man. I don't know.

I have a tendency to think of all that stuff as just kind of a trendy waste of time. Yeah, it's cool to bring in your bands in the gym and look like you're all professional. Oh, yeah, all these flossing rubber bands and all this other shit. And that very, very fashionable tape everybody smears all over themselves. The placebo tape. The placebo tape. The placebo tape. And that is really neat because you get to shave. It gives you a reason to need to shave.

And that's very trendy as well. I, of course, don't shave. It would take too long. I've never tried the placebo tape. Never had a reason shave. It would take too long. I've never tried the placebo tape. Never had a reason to. I'm just not good. Some things are distasteful.

I haven't ever, you know, I don't play the lottery either. I'm just, you know, ideologically opposed to it. All right, so now what are, you talked a little bit about this already, but what are some of the strategies that middle-aged people can use to make sure they don't overtrain or get hurt? So we talked about reducing weekly volume or making sure that weekly volume isn't too high, but have you come across any other tips like maybe some sort of periodization where they're not going heavy, heavy every week necessarily or more frequent deloading or something like that well i think that people that have been training a long time have got to use some variation in their loading cycles yeah that's just obvious that's you know an advanced trainee yep uh no matter how old or

young is will not respond to linear loading patterns you know you can't go up five pounds every time beyond a certain point at that point you have to start cycling your loading patterns. You can't go up five pounds every time beyond a certain point. At that point, you have to start cycling your loading. That's just duh. So yeah, I mean, if you've got a 68-year-old novice, no. Or even let's say a novice in his 40s.

A novice in his 40s? That's not called for. Just do the novice loading until it doesn't work anymore. When it quits working, then we'll worry about getting complicated. But until complex is necessary, simple is more logical. It's more efficient. Yeah. And if somebody is running into some issues, then I mean, I guess those are two obvious things they could do is there could be a more

frequent deload i mean i don't see any reason why that would hurt uh what are your thoughts on that well i don't see any reason for anybody to deload unless there's a reason to deload i don't oh i mean i find probably after eight to ten weeks of and i also do some real heavy like some power lifting type i work in you know some really heavy and some middle and a little bit of higher rep stuff. But, um, I found in my body and working with a lot of people, not that, I mean, you've worked with a lot more people that's an interesting point. Cause I found that a lot of people somewhere around the eight to 10 week mark, if they're, you know, every week hitting those heavy compound lifts, a lot of people start to feel maybe not so much in the novice, but more in the

intermediate after they have some experience under their belt. They start getting the overreaching, overtraining type of feelings, you know, like kind of fatigued in the gym and not able, everything feels really heavy. Sleep gets a little bit messed up. And then they, you know, a week deload, come back fresh, ready to go. Well, the first indications I have of that with people that I'm involved in training, the first things we examine before we start talking about altering training is, are you sleeping enough? Are you eating enough calories? Usually they're not doing enough of either one.

Usually they're under eating. Either protein is being undersupplied, they're trying to operate at a caloric deficit. That's the first thing you do. Rule that out. Rule that out. And sometimes that's necessary. And here's another thing about this, that the most common novice mistake is not resting long enough between sets. Yes.

Because if you're only resting two minutes between your work sets of squats, guess what? You're not going to make all of the reps of your last set. So, you know, the first thing you have to do is rule out the most common novice mistakes under sleeping, under eating, and under resting between sets. Once those things have been accounted for and we are still having problems, and it may be necessary to do a reset, but the far more common are the three most egregious novice mistakes. Yes. Now, once that's all been sorted out, yeah, it may be necessary to reset. Do a deload or, you know, move on to more complicated programming like intermediate programming.

Go to a four-day-a-week split, something like that. But until that's absolutely necessary and that involves a correct analysis of what's taking place every day in the gym, then don't monkey around with programming that we know works for a very long period of time. Yeah. Under optimal circumstances, you have to make sure the circumstances are optimal. Yeah. And then, you know, and if it turns out that, yeah, it's necessary to change things up, then change them up.

Sure. Yeah. And sometimes, I mean, for instance, in a calorie deficit, if a person, if they need to, if they're starting out at a, you know, high body fat percentage, that's what they need to do, then, you know, they just got to be aware that that's going to affect their ability to recover and that might mean that they need to uh they might they're just not gonna be able to go as long with before they have to dial it back just give their their their system a rest you know i i'm a big fan of eating more. Yeah, we've talked about that. I'm a big fan of eating more.

I think that your training builds muscle mass, you know. Yeah. Fat can be dealt with later. Yeah, for sure. I mean, at that point, though, I mean, you're going to, no matter how fit you are, you're going to, it's going to be different, as you know. When you're in a deficit, it's not the same. No, no. Your training doesn't have to suck. to be different, as you know. When you're in a deficit, it's not the same. No. If you're in a caloric deficit for whatever reason,

the first thing you have to dial back once again is volume. The first thing that must go. It's like artificial age.

It's just your body. It's like artificial age. Yeah, I mean it's just your body's ability. It's like artificial age. Yeah, it's a good way of putting it. What are your thoughts on upper ceilings of weight in terms of – we've kind of talked about this a little in the last one, but how it relates to age. Are there any numbers – and I think I know your answer on this, but I've been asked it, so I'm going to ask you it. Are there any numbers, and I think I know your answer on this, but I've been asked it, so I'm going to ask you it. Are there certain numbers where you would say, well, someone, you know, a guy in his 40s or 50s or whatever, here's something to shoot for, but if you start going beyond these numbers and you're pulling and you're squatting and you're pressing,

you know, it might not be a good idea. It might increase risk of injury. No, there's not any way to give specific quantitative numbers for that. It so thoroughly varies on the individual. Some people are freaks. Some people are freaks. Stan Efferty, he's a freak. Guy's amazing, physical specimen. He's an older guy, big, strong.

Even he watches his volume. Every once in a while, some untrained 50-year-old guy walks in the gym, becomes a freak. He's just got that type of physical potential. He's got the genetics. He's got the ability to display those genetics effectively because of his ability to manage his lifestyle and his training and he turns into a freak most commonly if you've waited past the age of 30 to start your training you're not going to be anywhere close to the potential that you would have shown had you started when you were 19 and you, you know, I guess this is obvious to me to the point where I don't even know why we have to talk about it, but it's a popular topic.

How strong can I get? I don't know. I know. Let's see. Yeah. You know, how much time and resources and attention are you willing to devote to it? Yeah. And what's your body what are your

genetics like you said what are your genetics i see i see some of these guys in the gym i've seen this where skinny little guys uh i've seen it a couple times where it was actually just confusing this skinny dude uh was pressing uh bench pressing 315 for reps like it was nothing, and he probably weighed 160 pounds. I was just like, what am I even witnessing? How is that even? Well, I mean, anytime you start to wonder about the amazing nature of human potential and the you-can't-tell-by-looking phenomenon, just remember Mike McDonald from back in the late 70s. Mike McDonald mentioned 600 at 198.

That's insane. With a 15-inch arm. Yeah, that's... You just, you know, you can't tell by looking. Yeah. I've had my ass completely handed to me on several occasions by guys that didn't look like they could do it. You can't tell by looking. So it's just a, you know, I don't know how strong you can get.

Let's find out. And that's the point. That's all there is to it. Find out. And the age, you don't have to worry so much. How do you make it possible to get as close as you can to your physical potential? Well, you completely rearrange your life to facilitate adaptation. To the extent you're able to do that, you will express the greatest percentage of your genotypic potential. But there are so many other variables.

We don't call it genetic potential anymore because that's just one aspect of the ability to express that. It's far more than genetic potential. There are so many other factors at play. We just call it physical potential. Because you cannot at any given time, really, what would constitute the perfect example of the ability to

express an individual's genetic potential, physical potential. Well, you'd have to get him when he was nine. And you'd have to teach him the things you needed him to know. And you'd have to carefully watch what he was doing. And then by the time he gets into about Tanner stage four, when he's 13, 14, then you start loading it. And you take advantage of the fact that every month is testosterone levels are

a little bit higher, uh, higher level than they were the previous month. His loading goes up. You offer him absolute perfect nutrition, absolute perfect rest environment. No other physical distractions other than the thing that you're trying to train him to do.

And under those circumstances, you would probably approach a high percentage of his genetic quote-unquote potential a high percentage of his genetic quote-unquote potential because you managed all of the environmental effects that govern the phenotypic expression of the genotype. Right. Now, take a guy that's 50. Think about that.

Compare the two circumstances, and you'll see the problem. Yeah. I guess the takeaway on that, though, for the guy that's 50 is don't despair. You can still push yourself. The takeaway is what are you going to do, nothing? Yeah. And that you can train hard, and as long as you're smart and you keep your form in you don't do anything stupid absolutely you don't you know you don't have to

limit because basically what you know what i'll what i'll come across sometimes some guys think that you know even if they're building up strength they shouldn't go they shouldn't you know my so and so my doctor told me that i shouldn't ever bench press more than 185 pounds or I'm going to hurt my shoulder. That's a rather arbitrary distinction. Exactly. No, that's not true. Build up the strength. That's absolute stupidity.

Yes. It's absolutely silly. Look, I've been doing this for 37 years, and I can't tell you how much you can safely bench. Your doctor, who doesn't know anything about either you or the bench press, decided on 185? What the hell? You know? Yeah.

You know, I don't know. Yeah, so. Very strange. Yeah, exactly. It is strange. But I just wanted, you know, listeners to know that the point is you can train. The training experience isn't so much different but you know what the weight that you're going to be able to eventually push pull and press

is uh yeah it's not going to be in squat it's not the same if you're starting later than when you're starting younger but you still you can still go in the gym and be and put in put in work you don't have to be afraid that you, you know, I better not squat more than this number because I'm going to hurt myself. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Yeah, great. Okay, awesome. Well, those were the main points that I wanted to cover. Is there anything else you think the listeners should know about what we've talked about? what we've talked about? Well, I think probably the thing to remember about the general topic of older people training is that, A, you have to train. Your option is not training, and then there you are. You don't get strong.

You don't get strong. You don't get anything accomplished. B, if you hurt when you're training and you're old, you're going to hurt anyway. What would you rather do, hurt and be strong or hurt and be weak? Pain is just part of getting old. It's just grow up. That's just all there is to it. Just grow up. That's just all there is to it. And C, the variable you have to manage and you have to take the most trouble with is volume. Don't try to do too much.

Don't for a minute think that you're 20 and yet you're not. One of the biggest problems we see with older guys that were former athletes that start back training is the last experience they had with training was training in an 18-year-old body. You can't do that anymore. You have to listen to your coach. Your coach knows more about this than you do. He's had more recent experience training people in your demographic. Since you're older and you can afford it, point four, get a coach. Ask somebody that

knows more about this than you do to help you with it. It'll pay enormous dividends. It may seem expensive at first, but it's not as expensive as surgery. Find a competent coach. Starting Strength Coaches can be found at startingstrength.org. Startingstrength.org. We are a growing network of competent coaches. I assure you that anyone holding the certification Starting Strength Coach is competent to help you. Yeah, and that's

also then that kind of segue, so that's where people can find you and find your work and of course... Find me at startingstrength.com find a coach at startingstrength.org Okay, cool. Perfect. Starting Strength Coaches Association website is startingstrength.org Great, and then of course, I mean, people are

going to know I recommend Starting Strength among some of your other works as well, so but the book Starting Strength, of course, people are going to know I recommend Starting Strength among some of your other works as well. But the book, Starting Strength, of course, you can just buy it wherever you buy books. Amazon or on startingstrength.com. Yep. Okay, awesome. Well, thanks a lot for taking the time, Mark. I'm really glad.

Sure, Mike. Anytime. I'm glad we were able to do this, and I look forward to the next one. Okay. Talk to you soon. Cool. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If. Hey, it's Mike again.

Hope you liked the podcast. If you did, go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also, head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written. I release a new one almost every day, actually. I release kind of like four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.