October 8, 2024

8 Mistakes Men over 40 make that prevents Muscle Gains.

Melvin Cooper age 64 – photo Kelly Shimoda NYTimes 4/3/2008

This blog draws heavily from a video by James Cavaliere at Athlean-X. I thought these were great ideas to help you prevent muscle loss and help you increase muscle mass.

  1. Warm-up before your workout, but don’t turn warm-ups into a workout. Do some light jogging or jumping jacks to get the blood flowing. Boom, you’re done!
  2. Pursue”responsible” strength. Don’t just whip the weights around. Control them. Command the weight you use. Pause at the bottom of every repetition of bench press or squat.
  3. Train the mind/muscle connection. Focus on the quality of the repetition. Remember quality throughout the exercise. More muscular control is better. It creates stability. It’s OK to lighten the weights.
  4. Use metabolic training for gains. This is imperative when you get older. How do you do this? Use lighter weights to accumulate metabolic stress. Get through the burn. The benefit is far less stress on joints and ligaments and you recover faster.
  5. Train like an athlete. Have a plan. Use other muscles via plyometrics. Adding athletic movement (jumps) into your workouts. Looking for balance.
  6. Perform corrective exercises. Prioritize these exercises in your workouts. This creates longevity because you can avoid muscle imbalances in the future.
  7. Do the right kind of cardio. Doing cardio for hours can mess you up. And, too much cardio can destroy your recovery. It’s a hormonal thing. You deplete clickread https://www.cyclepathbicycles.net/ your Human Growth Hormone with long bouts of cardio. Try High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT,) Battle ropes or carrying 45 lbs plates for a distance. I think that deadlifts are really great, too!
  8. Nutrition and supplementation. This is super important. As you age, your ability to absorb and metabolism protein decreases. So you should supplement you diet with 1 gram of protein per kilogram of bodyweight. And, as your metabolism slows down and you can’t handle the low-quality foods rich in sugar. Wait, did I mention, that nutrition is super important.

The last bullet is probably the most important. Sugar seems to play a huge role in inflammation. I’m trying to cut it out, too.