Fitness School
Do you know the right answer?.
Question number 22 in our School of Fitness.
2017 came and went in a glorious display of Northern lights.
But now that we are all one year older. Let us take a look at that age-old saying that we recover worse and slower after a hard workout in the gym as we grow beyond our 30´s.
Is there any truth to this at all? Or is this just one more thing that people got wrong in the name of lacking insight, age-related fears, and youth-obsessed peer pressure?.
To put it simply.
Will the 22-year-old you recover better after a kick-ass weight lifting workout in the gym doing intense deadlifts than the
50 year old you will be able to do, or can you safely go at it just as hard knowing that you will recover and improve just as good?.
2050AD
[ Oceans run the risk of having more total weight of plastic than fish.]
Make up your mind, and once you have made your pick click the "And the Correct Answer is" label down below to reveal the right one.
1.
You know, it might feel as if you recover much worse,
or perhaps a little less as you age, but there is no truth at all to that.
You can lift as hard and intense in your 50´s knowing full well that you will recover just as good from that delicious training related muscle
fiber damage no matter if you are 50 or 22.
2.
I am a complete wreck at 47 and there is no way that anyone can tell me that my out of shape 40-year-old will recover even half as good as the super fit 22-year-old me used to do after a hard gym workout.
Option 1 is 100% the correct answer.
There is absolutely no difference between the 50-year-old you and the 22-year-old you when it comes down to recovering from training related muscle fiber damage and inflammation.
Train consistent every week, train hard, eat healthy and enough ( but not too much ), rest, recover, sleep and all things will be equal.
But since that is the actual reality, why is it that so many claim that they are 40 and too old to be fit?.
Well, people are complex and we should never underestimate the obsession of youth and the peer pressure it has created throughout all our human history, and also never underestimate the lack of proper scientific knowledge, nor the way that misinformed peer pressure makes you evaluate and feel towards your own capacity as you age.
The scientific truth is that you can blast your ass and legs just as hard and you will recover just as good.
Unless you are a 25-year-old world class athlete today you will absolutely not lose strength or recovery capacity and you will not grow fat and out of shape by 55 ( unless you desire to stop training and keeping fit and healthy, or take it down a few notches since our body will adjust and assess the level you demand from it on a daily basis, all life long ).
Your body and your fitness level will progress and adjust to what you demand out of it and if there are real differences for you, that is simply telling you something about your fitness consistency or the lack of it ( real injuries can, of course, prevent you from training hard enough to keep progressing and maintaining ), and not at all related to your biological age.
And in the case of far too many pro fitness athletes, coaches and media and everyday people selling the message that the pro athlete absolutely had to retire in their mid 30´s due to being too old. Never, ever confuse the unhealthy and incredible amount of wear and tear that is constantly building up due to a pro athletes lifestyle with the healthy fit lifestyle of normal hard training fitness people that train hard but healthy and never stop doing so.
When people talk about pro athletes being old in their 40´s, that's not the actual birth age or the real biological age they are talking about, its the unhealthy wear and tear of competing and training at a world-class level that makes pro athletes retire at such a young age as they do.
We are all made to train hard, and to stay physically active on a daily basis, all through life.
That is a healthy daily choice, but we are absolutely not made to compete at world-class levels, doing so will wear anyone down and it will cause real injuries ( as opposed to the normal & healthy muscle fiber damage we all cause by training with every single workout we do ) , and that wear and tear and those injuries is what prevent those athletes from performing at the same level after 10-20 years of pushing through those injuries and obstacles.
But for everyone else that's simply keeping fit & healthy in the gym and daily life without doing it at that unhealthy and unsustainable world-class level, the scientific truth is that you will be able to stay as fit and healthy and capable, as hard training and kick ass in your 50´s as you did in your 20´s.
Zero difference in fitness related muscle damage and muscle inflammation recovery ladies and gents.
Take that father time. And keep on killing it with those squats and deadlifts people.
Quote.
"Results revealed no between-group differences for PKT, AVGT, or rate of torque development at 200 ms (RTD200). No between-group differences in myoglobin, creatine kinase, C-reactive protein, or interleukin-6 were observed.
Although BL differences in muscle performance were observed between YA and MA, no between-group differences were noted in performance recovery measures from high-volume isokinetic exercise in recreationally trained men. These results also indicate that the inflammatory and muscle damage response from high-volume isokinetic exercise is similar between recreationally trained, young, and middle-aged adult men."
And a tiny note on that quote, the only tiny difference they found, the BL muscle performance, could be related to the 1 minute recovery time between sets. Or, just as likely that the more mature men in this study just was not as gung-ho about giving it their all in their normal fitness life outside of this study. Because you will always get the top performance that you bring with you to your workouts on a consistent basis. There´s no way to cheat the consistency of your workload, so never, ever be afraid of giving it your all every single workout.
And as far as that one minute rest time in between sets.
We already know that as we grow more mature and capable in our fitness regime, we do need to slightly increase the amount of recovery time between sets ( during the workout ) in order for our body to keep on growing even stronger ( and more muscular ).
Which is a mechanism ( hypertrophy ) that has nothing to do with biological age, nor does it tell us anything about the amount of recovery we are capable of doing between workouts, instead, the progressive capacity of hypertrophy is heavily influenced by the amount of time, we have already spent training hard and improving.
You can, in other words, reach that need to go from 1 minute to 4 minutes of recovery time between sets no matter if you are 25 years of age or 50, but chances are higher that a 50-year-old who has trained hard and smart for 15 years will start to see better results by increasing the rest time in between sets from 1 minute to 4 than a 22-year-old who´s only trained progressively hard for a couple of years.
Now, that is just my own scientific reflection on this study.
And I am only mentioning it since everything else about muscle damage and inflammation recovery turned out to be perfectly equal between the two fitness groups. And that is the simple truth that you should take with you as far as your own and others workouts go.
Age will not influence how good you will recover from that kick ass leg workout, so go at it, without fear, rest, recover, eat and benefit all life long.
You can find a link to a study showcasing exactly this down below.
There is absolutely no difference between the 50-year-old you and the 22-year-old you when it comes down to recovering from training related muscle fiber damage and inflammation.
Train consistent every week, train hard, eat healthy and enough ( but not too much ), rest, recover, sleep and all things will be equal.
But since that is the actual reality, why is it that so many claim that they are 40 and too old to be fit?.
Well, people are complex and we should never underestimate the obsession of youth and the peer pressure it has created throughout all our human history, and also never underestimate the lack of proper scientific knowledge, nor the way that misinformed peer pressure makes you evaluate and feel towards your own capacity as you age.
The scientific truth is that you can blast your ass and legs just as hard and you will recover just as good.
Unless you are a 25-year-old world class athlete today you will absolutely not lose strength or recovery capacity and you will not grow fat and out of shape by 55 ( unless you desire to stop training and keeping fit and healthy, or take it down a few notches since our body will adjust and assess the level you demand from it on a daily basis, all life long ).
Your body and your fitness level will progress and adjust to what you demand out of it and if there are real differences for you, that is simply telling you something about your fitness consistency or the lack of it ( real injuries can, of course, prevent you from training hard enough to keep progressing and maintaining ), and not at all related to your biological age.
And in the case of far too many pro fitness athletes, coaches and media and everyday people selling the message that the pro athlete absolutely had to retire in their mid 30´s due to being too old. Never, ever confuse the unhealthy and incredible amount of wear and tear that is constantly building up due to a pro athletes lifestyle with the healthy fit lifestyle of normal hard training fitness people that train hard but healthy and never stop doing so.
When people talk about pro athletes being old in their 40´s, that's not the actual birth age or the real biological age they are talking about, its the unhealthy wear and tear of competing and training at a world-class level that makes pro athletes retire at such a young age as they do.
We are all made to train hard, and to stay physically active on a daily basis, all through life.
That is a healthy daily choice, but we are absolutely not made to compete at world-class levels, doing so will wear anyone down and it will cause real injuries ( as opposed to the normal & healthy muscle fiber damage we all cause by training with every single workout we do ) , and that wear and tear and those injuries is what prevent those athletes from performing at the same level after 10-20 years of pushing through those injuries and obstacles.
But for everyone else that's simply keeping fit & healthy in the gym and daily life without doing it at that unhealthy and unsustainable world-class level, the scientific truth is that you will be able to stay as fit and healthy and capable, as hard training and kick ass in your 50´s as you did in your 20´s.
Zero difference in fitness related muscle damage and muscle inflammation recovery ladies and gents.
Take that father time. And keep on killing it with those squats and deadlifts people.
Quote.
"Results revealed no between-group differences for PKT, AVGT, or rate of torque development at 200 ms (RTD200). No between-group differences in myoglobin, creatine kinase, C-reactive protein, or interleukin-6 were observed.
Although BL differences in muscle performance were observed between YA and MA, no between-group differences were noted in performance recovery measures from high-volume isokinetic exercise in recreationally trained men. These results also indicate that the inflammatory and muscle damage response from high-volume isokinetic exercise is similar between recreationally trained, young, and middle-aged adult men."
And a tiny note on that quote, the only tiny difference they found, the BL muscle performance, could be related to the 1 minute recovery time between sets. Or, just as likely that the more mature men in this study just was not as gung-ho about giving it their all in their normal fitness life outside of this study. Because you will always get the top performance that you bring with you to your workouts on a consistent basis. There´s no way to cheat the consistency of your workload, so never, ever be afraid of giving it your all every single workout.
And as far as that one minute rest time in between sets.
We already know that as we grow more mature and capable in our fitness regime, we do need to slightly increase the amount of recovery time between sets ( during the workout ) in order for our body to keep on growing even stronger ( and more muscular ).
Which is a mechanism ( hypertrophy ) that has nothing to do with biological age, nor does it tell us anything about the amount of recovery we are capable of doing between workouts, instead, the progressive capacity of hypertrophy is heavily influenced by the amount of time, we have already spent training hard and improving.
You can, in other words, reach that need to go from 1 minute to 4 minutes of recovery time between sets no matter if you are 25 years of age or 50, but chances are higher that a 50-year-old who has trained hard and smart for 15 years will start to see better results by increasing the rest time in between sets from 1 minute to 4 than a 22-year-old who´s only trained progressively hard for a couple of years.
Now, that is just my own scientific reflection on this study.
And I am only mentioning it since everything else about muscle damage and inflammation recovery turned out to be perfectly equal between the two fitness groups. And that is the simple truth that you should take with you as far as your own and others workouts go.
Age will not influence how good you will recover from that kick ass leg workout, so go at it, without fear, rest, recover, eat and benefit all life long.
You can find a link to a study showcasing exactly this down below.
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