During a segment of the episode, Dr Baraki mentions how conditioning only athletes or endurance only athletes are still not likely to develop sarcopenia even if they fail to lift weights since they are active regardless, even though on a dose by dose basis resistance training is more beneficial for muscle mass and strength, which is why you guys recommend doing both. While that may be true, can the same be said for osteoporosis prevention?
The osteoporosis article Dr Baraki wrote a while ago (A Basic Guide to Osteoporosis | Barbell Medicine) says that “While we often encourage people to do any form of exercise they enjoy, not all forms of exercise will provide the same benefit for bone strength” and “Bones need to experience a lot of force in order to build up and get stronger. Exercises that do not put much weight on the bones (like swimming, “aqua-aerobics”, or bicycling) will not provide the same benefit as exercises that put higher forces on the bones (like lifting weights). And for individuals who do lift weights, lifting very light weights for very high repetitions will not provide the same benefit as lifting heavier weights for fewer repetitions.” So, based on that wouldn’t conditioning only athletes be at a higher risk for developing osteopenia and osteoporosis than heavy load bearing strength athletes?
Also on topic, I recently stumbled upon this one paper: Leg Strength Declines With Advancing Age Despite Habitual Endurance Exercise in Active Older Adults | Semantic Scholar, that states endurance exercise or running alone was not enough to prevent dynapenia and resistance training might be necessary when it comes to this. I’m aware that this is just one paper and it’s also back from 2014, so it’s probably not likely to be that useful, but since I am someone without specific training to be interpreting studies on my own, I would still appreciate you guys’s opinion on this.
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Yes, the risks would differ, although this says nothing about the magnitude of such differences – or more importantly, the risk of significant osteoporotic fractures that impact quality of life, morbidity, or mortality, which are not the kinds of things we see in habitual lifelong athletes who remain active.
Similarly here, I was speaking more to a “clinical” distinction of sarcopenia/dynapenia. The kind of frailty that lands you in the hospital, nursing home, etc.
I do not have time to dissect every detail of that paper, but it is nice to see a longitudinal study of that type. it is worth noting a few caveats & limitations: 1) training volume decreased across the duration of the study, 2) running intensity was not accounted for (among other limitations described in the paper).
They report that running was sufficient to maintain muscle mass, “but not sufficient to prevent the loss in muscle strength (dynapenia) with aging”. I do not agree with use of the term “dynapenia” to describe any decline in muscle strength with aging, because over a long-enough timespan this is unavoidable in 100% of adults - even if resistance training occurs over the lifespan, although it can slow the decline. Any decline is not pathologic, nor should it be described with this terminology. There are clinical cutoffs that have been proposed in the research world to “diagnose” sarcopenia and dynapenia, just like we have specific cutoffs for osteopenia and osteoporosis, and cutoffs should be set such that meeting that diagnosis has implications for clinical outcomes (like risk of disease or death). This is why I suggested in the podcast that a habitual endurance exerciser [who maintains their training volume and (relative) intensity] is simply not going to end up hospitalized or premature death due to a complication of frailty.
Even then, the decline can still be forestalled substantially through resistance training, correct? And I’m assuming resistance training will forestall the decline quite a bit more than just conditioning training (looking at it from the perspective of trying to maintain majority of your peak muscular strength built from training despite minimal declines instead of looking at it from perspective of not crossing a threshold)? While some decline might be unavoidable, is it still feasible to maintain the majority of your peak strength throughout the lifespan? Since from what I’ve heard from you guys the decline is correlated more with inactivity and illness than just aging, or are we all just fated to get markedly weaker despite any amount of training?
Also, is there like any threshold for when decline in well resistance trained humans occur? It says it starts declining in your 30’s, and tends to accelerate in your 50’s or 60’s according to most studies, but that seems to be exclusively for inactive adults.
Also speaking about the acceleration of decline in later life, there seem to be a few studies such as this: https://serval.unil.ch/resource/serval:BIB_0F2250E382B7.P001/REF.pdf, and this: Thigh Muscle Strength in Senior Athletes and Healthy Controls - PMC, which seem to suggest that while there is a slight decline in strength overall throughout the lifespan, in well trained or active people, after about their 60’s, the decline seems to be very minimal to nonexistent, as that the masters athletes in 60-69, 70-79, and 80+ groups don’t differ much when it comes to strength. This is the opposite of what is shown in most studies in inactive adults, where the decline just seems to accelerate past 60 if anything. Of course, these studies are cross sectional in nature instead of longitudinal unfortunately, but I’m assuming most studies done on strength decline in inactive people are cross sectional too. So, do these studies have a point or does decline inevitably accelerate after 60 or so even in trained people despite lifelong training?
Yes, the context there was a 50 -year old and a general statement that just because someone is aging does not mean they will lose strength or size (or the ability to gain it). If taken out long enough, yes, people will lose strength and muscle mass at some point. We have had this discussion before, as I recall.
Even then, the decline can still be forestalled substantially through resistance training, correct?
Yes, though again- what is being discussed with respect to sarcopenia and dynapenia is not really what was is being discussed in these threads.
And I’m assuming resistance training will forestall the decline quite a bit more than just conditioning training (looking at it from the perspective of trying to maintain majority of your peak muscular strength built from training despite minimal declines instead of looking at it from perspective of not crossing a threshold)?
Yes, RT is better at preserving/gaining muscle mass and strength than conditioning, in general.
While some decline might be unavoidable, is it still feasible to maintain the majority of your peak strength throughout the lifespan?
No. You and every other person on this planet will achieve a peak strength that you’ll never surpass or live up to again regardless of what you do.
Also, is there like any threshold for when decline in well resistance trained humans occur? It says it starts declining in your 30’s, and tends to accelerate in your 50’s or 60’s according to most studies, but that seems to be exclusively for inactive adults.
We don’t really know and the onset, rate, and magnitude of strength and muscle function changes are likely to be highly variable from person to person, test to test, etc.
More importantly, this knowledge really wouldn’t change promotion of RT and AT.
Yes, I realize that, I am not saying I will remain at my peak for life or that I can surpass it again, this was more so about maintaining the majority of it, whatever that ends up being, not all of it. Yes we have had to conversation before, and sorry for bringing it up again, but since it came up anyways and this time with Dr Baraki instead of you, I ended up asking again.
At some point, not even this is possible if you get really strong, though the risk of sarcopenia is STILL exceedingly low despite this.
I think the answer you’re getting is the same. Is there something in particular that you’re concerned about here? It sort of feels like we’re beating around the bush and rehashing the same points.
Yes, and yes – which is part of why we are such strong proponents of strength training in addition to conditioning across the lifespan. However, this is separate from the clinical diagnosis of sarcopenia and/or dynapenia, which seemed to be the initial question in the original post of this thread.
I am not aware of direct, consistent evidence on this in well-trained adults. I would expect massive variation here depending on the specific nature of people’s training, in addition to usual genetic/environmental contextual factors.
No not really concerned about anything else besides strength decline, that answer was pretty much what I was looking for, thank you for taking the time to answer and being honest. Guess I just got to hope I don’t live into my 90’s or something.