Masters level bodybuilders and weight trainers over forty make up a huge percentage of people in gyms every day all over the world. They also sport quite a bit of muscle and are putting impressive physiques on stage at bodybuilding competitions. Though some picked up weight training in their thirties and have only been training for five to ten years, there are many guys who started during what I consider the golden era of bodybuilding in the eighties and have been training for twenty and thirty years. Being forty-three myself, it is crucial to be smart about your training and diet because when you fall off the wagon at this age, it's much harder to get back on than it was in your twenties.
If you plan on training into your forties and beyond and want to remain injury free and in the best condition possible, there are three important factors that you'll need to understand and embrace.
1. Forty-something joints aren't twenty-something joints.
Many bodybuilders can continue to train relatively heavy as they age, but the joints and everything that connects the muscle to the bone aren't in the same shape that they were years ago. Warm-up sessions need to be methodical and routine, and there isn't any room for error. The muscles being trained must be properly warmed up before hitting the heavy stuff. If that means taking longer to warm up the muscle that you're going to train than actually training it, so be it.
Accept that there will be exercises you shouldn’t be doing if you're having issues with a certain joint or if you've had past injuries. Being big and strong is important, but it won’t do you any good if you won't be able to train because you need three months off to heal from an injury. There isn't any single exercise that makes you big or strong, so if you struggle to do leg presses because of knee or back pain get rid of that exercise. There are many different exercises that you can use to still hit that muscle hard and heavy with less risk of injury.
The more years you accumulate under your weight belt, the more tweaks and nagging pains you'll have. If we took time off from the gym every time that we felt a ping, we would likely never get any training done. If you've trained for years, you should know your body well enough to know when to push through and when not to. Training hard is important, but training smart keeps you injury free and in the gym training.
2. You have a forty-something metabolism, not a twenty-something metabolism.
You might still eat the same foods as you did when you were younger, but the carbs and calories will almost always have to come down. As we age, our metabolisms slow even if we remain relatively active. Just because you've spent twenty years in the gym doesn't mean that your metabolism will be what it was twenty years ago. We're different hormonally than when we were younger, and our testosterone and growth hormone levels are considerably lower. In my opinion, aging is due in large part to declining hormone levels.
Many people become more sedentary as they age, especially when it comes to their daily work schedule. While you may have been running all over and on your feet quite a bit in your twenties, many of us are now supervising others from behind a desk or in meetings on our asses all day making decisions. Clearly, weeks and months and years of this will cause most people to carry more body fat.
Gaining body fat as we age is two-fold—you'll find your body fat creeping up because you aren't as active and because of the changes in your hormones over the years. To maintain the same level of leanness now as you had in your twenties, you'll need to work quite a bit harder than you did previously. You'll likely need more cardio to keep your body fat lower, which will also depend on how active you are during the day. Keep in mind that thirty minutes of cardio a day will have a considerably different impact on someone who sits at a desk all day compared to someone who is on his feet working in an emergency room for twelve-hour shifts.
3. You'll carry and store body fat differently as a forty-something.
This is important to note whether you compete as a bodybuilder or just want to be in the best condition possible. I don't make any excuses as I age, but the reality is we carry our body fat differently than when we were younger. Even if you're able to keep your body fat low, you'll find that your waist will get larger as you age. In most people, their faces get bigger, their necks get bigger, and so on.
As a bodybuilding competitor, I've found it harder and harder to get into great condition for a show. I now have more body fat in areas that I never used to have to worry about like my glutes and hips. I can be ready for a show from the front but still need to drop another eight to ten pounds to be ready from the back. I still get into great condition, but it takes a lot more effort with the diet and much more cardio.
It certainly doesn’t get any easier as you age in this quasi sport of ours. I guess the alternative is to throw up your hands, sit on the couch eating Cheetos while drinking a few beers every night, and tell your kids that you “used to have muscles.” As hard as it sometimes seems, I know I would rather fight the good fight and do what it takes to stay in great shape. Yea, there are aches and pains and sometimes you feel like you're fighting even to maintain your muscle and low body fat levels, but we're all a little nuts and we'll all continue to do it as long as we can. Accepting these inevitable changes is a big part of keeping yourself in great shape and in the gym training hard into your fifties and sixties.