Old Guy Recovery

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Thank you for providing this great resource.

I am male, 65 years old, 6’ 0", ~192 lbs. I work out 2-3 times a week (two days rest between lifting days). My diet is good, I take a couple of protein shakes most every day to ensure I get adequate protein. And I sleep well most nights. I have been “training” for over 10 years. I am in much better health than most people I know who are my age.

My workouts are very simple. I do squats, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press, pullups and some prowler work (not all in the same day). I lift to live (not live to lift). I keep my RPE in the 6-8 range most all the time. After warmups, I usually do 3 sets of 5 at my “working” weight. On my off days are usually active (walking, gardening, fishing, etc.)

Over the last 6 months or so my ability to recover seems to have degraded. I’ve taken some weight off the bar and still have more soreness the next two days than I care for. Mostly my back and legs.

I recognize that I am “old” and will not recover like I did when I was in my twenties.

I have Googled and read some of the material you have already posted on this topic. Your answers seem to center around “programing” (which is a broad brush to me).

My next step is to keeping reducing the weight on the bar until I no longer have as much soreness. Then start slooooowly adding weight back.

What do you think?

Thank you for your time.

Tony

PS. If you ever have a seminar in the Portland / Seattle area I plan on attending.

2

DC,

Thanks for the post and the kind words. I appreciate it and hope that our paths cross next time we’re in the PNW.

Regarding the case of increasing soreness (duration and incidence) alongside worsening performance in training, that tells me that the training dose is currently too high for you. Whether that’s due to changing “extra” gym stress due to altered sleep, recent illness, life stress, dietary issues, or otherwise I cannot say, but the Training Troubleshooting Algorithm™ leads to “too much training stress” in my eyes.

So, what do? There are a number of things that can be done to reduce training stress: 1. Reduce training volume
2. Reduce average intensity
3. Train further away from failure
4. Pick less fatiguing exercises In my opinion, #1 is a short-term solution that doesn’t really address the “root cause”, which is needing more training tolerance and fitness to support the amount of training needed to improve. Therefore, I favor using options 2 through 4. Specifically, I’d consider the following: 1. Target RPE at 6 on all compound lift, e.g. aim for 3 sets of 4-6 reps @ RPE 6
2. Include variations of exercises that will make you lift less weight and vary the rep range to improve breadth of adaptations
3. Improve conditioning As a practical example, this would be a sample program:

Day 1

  1. Squat (regular) x 3 sets of 4-6 reps @ RPE 6
  2. Press x 3 sets of 5-8 reps @ RPE 6
  3. RDL x 2 sets of 6-10 reps @ RPE 6
  4. 30 minutes of steady state conditioning (RPE 4-5 brisk walk, cycling, or similar)
  5. optional arm stuff

Day 2

  1. Bench Press x 3 sets of 4-6 reps @ RPE 6
  2. Deadlift x 2 sets of of 4-6 reps @ RPE 6
  3. 2ct paused squat 2 sets of 6-10 reps @ RPE 6
  4. 30 minutes of steady state conditioning (RPE 4-5 brisk walk, cycling, or similar)
  5. Optional rows Just my 0.02
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