Bodybuilding after 40 years of exercise program. Training after forty. pay more attention to warm-up

Over the years, the human body wears out, no matter what the right way of life he leads. Bones and joints become more fragile, the cardiovascular system is no longer as hardy, and muscles respond less actively to stress. But this does not mean that sports life ends in the fifth decade, you just need to be more attentive and rearrange your workouts a bit.

What happens to the body after 40 years

After the age of 40, men experience a sharp decline in testosterone production. If at 35 the level of this anabolic hormone is only 5% less than at 25, then after 40 it drops by about 10% every 5 years. In this regard, it becomes more difficult to maintain and even more so build muscle mass. Helps slow down this process. proper nutrition, healthy sleep for at least 8-9 hours a day and the intake of zinc, magnesium and vitamin D, which stimulate the production of anabolic hormones.

But the problem of age athletes is not only in hormones - over the years, the human body gradually loses water, and with it a significant part of minerals. By the age of 50, the volume of water in the body is reduced by about 15%. Water is lost not only in the muscles, which no longer look as full, but also in the bones, which makes them more fragile.

Joints also work worse with age, because due to a lack of fluid and minerals, cartilage is gradually worn down and salts begin to be deposited in the joints.

How to change training after 40 years

Warm up

Based on the problems with bones and joints that we talked about, the warm-up becomes almost the most important part of the workout, because without joint gymnastics, stretching and warming up with small weights, the risk of injury is very high.

Eduard Gavrilchenko (48), three-time champion of Moscow, vice-champion of Russia in bodybuilding, world record holder in bench press, coachAlex Fitness "Kolomenskoye":

- After 40 years, you need to pay more attention to the warm-up. Even young guys often neglect the warm-up, they think that they will get tired faster. But this is important, because it is the prevention of injuries, and at the age it is even more important. Suppose a person once worked out, lifted some weights, and now resumes training in gym, and he is already over 40 - you don’t need to focus on the weights that he lifted at 25. You need to select the weights more carefully, according to your feelings. If there was a break, in no case should you try to lift something at the very first training. You have to retrain your muscles. Otherwise, it will be fraught with injury.

Power training

Firstly, if you are not a professional athlete, then after 40 it is better to reduce the frequency and intensity strength training. Three classes a week will be enough. Studies have shown that heavy weights destroy cartilage tissue, while light weights, on the contrary, contribute to its restoration, so every second workout should be with a light weight in a multi-rep mode. It is still not worth completely abandoning heavy basic exercises with a lot of weight, as they help raise testosterone levels.

: Maybe someone will disagree with me, but I would exclude deadlifts from training for people over the age of 40. A very dangerous exercise. I just think that it makes no sense to work at half strength in that exercise, and you shouldn’t work at full strength, because the joints after 40 are no longer the same - there is a very high probability of injury. You can do without this exercise. As for the scales, I do not advise you to immediately go to the maximum, to engage in a gentle mode. But there are no clear restrictions on weights, it's all very individual. Treat training with a lot of weight more carefully, do not work to failure, so as not to get injured.

Cardio

A decrease in testosterone levels is bad for the heart, so aerobic exercise after 40 years of age becomes an integral part of training. Moreover, the best type of cardio will not be running, but swimming, since it allows you to load the heart and lungs without harming the ligaments and joints.

In my opinion, at an age it is very important to pay attention to training. of cardio-vascular system. This is very important not only for sports where endurance is required, but also for power sports. That is, include more cardio in your workout. A lot of guys don't do cardio in the gym at all. If in young age it still somehow rolls, then when you are over 40, you need to include cardio sessions at least 2 times a week. The intensity should be 60-70% of the maximum. The maximum is calculated using the formula 220 minus age, 60-70% of the figure obtained is the limits of the normal heart rate during cardio for a person over 40 years old. The duration of the cardio load is 30-40 minutes, no more.

Probably, the average middle-aged man will find it amusing to read the arguments of an ordinary youngster about age-related bodybuilding and sports in general. But do not rush to close this page! Of course, it is always better to listen to the advice of experienced people, to those who have experienced all their wise parting words on themselves. True, it will not be so easy to find seasoned people if we consider such an occupation as bodybuilding for 40.

Let's start with the fact that both "age" and "young" bodybuilding are not essential different types sports. Aging, a person does not turn into an alien, he still has the same two arms, two legs, meat, fat, bones and ligaments. Of course, general condition of the body and hormonal background are no longer the same as in 20 years, but this does not fundamentally change the essence of the matter. But what really changes with age is motivation. More precisely, it does not change, but simply goes somewhere. Calculate how many young people train in your gym? How many people are at least 30? Although in terms of common sense everything should be a little different.

A young body looks pretty good even without large muscle masses, while a significant part of middle-aged men and women would do well to put themselves in order. This is especially true for excess body fat. In addition, classes with iron can really enhance the natural hormonal background, as a result, there is a high probability of getting rid of problems of an understandable nature. It would seem that there should be more than enough motivation. But it doesn't exist... The average citizen, apparently, is quite satisfied with the routine life of an inhabitant, embellished with a Friday mug of beer.

But enough of the sad stuff. If you are reading this article, then you have already decided to change and have taken the first step! Then it's up to the small - start competent training, improve nutrition and do not forget about high-quality recovery. Let's go in order.

Workouts for 40

Usually, when they start talking about sports loads over 40 or 50, they start to grunt: the muscles are no longer the same, the ligaments are no longer the same, the bones are more fragile, the tendons are not elastic, the heart is weaker and blah blah blah. Yes, everything is not the same, really, but only if the body has not received any regular power load for years. And even if it didn’t, it doesn’t mean that the body has lost the ability to adapt to external stress. A few months of competent training and your ligaments and your heart will receive complete software update.

Following sound logic, I cannot single out any significant differences between people's training in principle different ages. Of course, a young man can easily chase working weights, without exception violating technique, and not get serious injuries at the same time. For a person over 40, such an approach is unlikely to work, but think about how rational such an approach is in general? The pursuit of crazy strength indicators will quickly lead the young to stagnation than to real achievements. It is much more profitable for such a racer to slow down and progress the load gradually. In the long run, this tactic will be much more effective. So what stops an older athlete from following a similar training plan?

Of course, there are some nuances when training for 40. First of all, it is necessary to choose such a set of exercises, in which the "mistakes of youth" will not be felt. I'm talking about different injuries and injuries received for long life. But it is necessary to prioritize heavy basic exercises (of course, to the extent possible). Your testosterone will thank you for it. And do not abuse the amount of exercise. One or two movements for a small muscle group and two or three for a large one will be more than enough. By the way, I give the same recommendations to young natural bodybuilders.

Further, I advise you to pay more attention to the warm-up. There is not much of it in our sport. General warm-up, dynamic joint movements and specialized warm-up should be yours best friends in the first 10-15 minutes of training. Read more at the link at the beginning of the paragraph.

How do you feel about cardio? Of course, few people like aerobic exercise among jocks, but with age, its need increases many times over. And it's not about excess fat. Running or swimming are not the best fat burners. Cardio stands for heart training. Agree that this type of load should be present in you on a voluntary-compulsory basis. Unless, of course, you want to live happily ever after;) 20-30 minutes of moderate exercise while maintaining a heart rate of 110-130 beats per minute after the main workout is enough for the eyes. Remember to focus on feelings. If during cardio you experience discomfort or extreme fatigue, then stop the load or reduce the intensity. In order to test the body for strength, there is still youth :)

Also, be careful when working with positive rejection. Refusal for progress is certainly necessary, but within reason. There should not be a situation where the bar will crush you. The last repetition in the working set you must do yourself. You will have to learn to catch this fine line and feel your capabilities. I have already said that mistakes are more forgivable for a young jock. At an advanced stage of training, you can use load periodization principle, thanks to which you will not have to work in failure at every workout. Although, again, periodization is also used by many young athletes.

Meals for 40

Well, everything is very simple here. Healthy and competent nutrition is necessary for a person from infancy to old age. The important thing is that it's never too late to start! Start changing your life for the better! By completely overhauling your daily diet, making this a breeze! In order not to increase the size of this article to unimaginable sizes, I will simply give you a link to a whole section of our site called Healthy Eating. Read, study, put into practice :) Well, it goes without saying that bad habits need to be said “Fuck you!”

I would recommend that you prioritize burning excess body fat before muscle growth. The easiest way to start this process is through nutrition. Fat is not only not beautiful and tasteless, but also dangerous. In the world there is a huge mass of people suffering from diseases of the cardiovascular system. Guess how many of them got their problems because excess weight?

Recovery for 40

Many people think that with age, the restorative abilities of our body weaken, but this is not entirely true. It all depends primarily on you and your lifestyle. The enslaved office plankton and at the age of 25 can be knocked down by a ten-minute run down the street. Constant practice allows us to work wonders with our body. Remember the main principle of sports specialization - what we train is what we develop. Regular and competent training at any age can positively affect the adaptive capabilities of our body. On the Internet, you can find thousands of people who succeed in the most various types sports, while having an age well over 50. Bodybuilders, marathon runners, swimmers, all of them are distinguished by one thing - They train, which means they develop!

I will add that, regardless of age, any newly minted bodybuilder will benefit from information on the methods of competent recovery and rest between workouts. The link is given, it's up to you to read it or not :)

We draw conclusions, gentlemen. Bodybuilding is an age-related sport, or rather multi-age. This is proved by modern champions and participants in Olympia, average age which aspires to 40. How you will look, most of all depends only on you. The right attitude will help break any genetics at any age. Never early and never too late! There is only now, which can radically turn your life into right side!

READ FROM OUR COLLEAGUES:

A chapter from Fitness After 40 by Dr. Wright, orthopedic surgeon and global authority on active aging.

Age factors

The first step to getting fit is understanding the many age factors (such as heart, lung, and muscle strength) to help you take care of yourself and your family, and make an active life.

These factors include:

• the ability to intense training, reaction speed and joint mobility;
• skeleton size;
• the amount of fat in the body;
• anaerobic and aerobic nutrition;
• ability to recover;
• strength, endurance and coordination.

According to Wojtek Jan Chodzko-Zajko, professor of kinesiology at the University of Illinois, “some physiological changes not enough to stop an older athlete from achieving the highest results. It cannot be said that at the age of 43 all forces suddenly disappear from the body.

Let's look at some of these factors.

Endurance: it's all about oxygen

As you read these lines, hold your breath. It will be easy at first, but as you turn the pages, you will feel a strong need for air - it is initiated by the brain stem. The sensation will intensify, and then the body will literally demand that you breathe in. The brain makes sure that the body receives enough oxygen. If you do not inhale, you will lose consciousness: in this way the body is saved from voluntary oxygen starvation.

That's How Important Oxygen Is to Everything human body. Without oxygen, cells cannot produce energy. And then you, a powerful energy generator, weaken 16 times and begin to produce a large amount of lactic acid (it is this that accumulates in the muscles and causes pain). With a lack of oxygen, productivity drops significantly.
In order for oxygen to enter the cells, the lungs, heart, arteries and muscle cells that they feed need to work together. Over the years, the efficiency of oxygen delivery changes, as does the physical capabilities of a person. These changes are associated with a decrease in mobility, a decrease in lactate threshold and VO2 max. The last of the factors is the most important.

As we have already said, VO2 max is the maximum amount (V) of oxygen (O2) that the body is able to absorb. VO2 max depends on heart rate, cardiac output, and how much oxygen is taken up by the tissues.

The age-related decrease in VO2 max is considered the main reason for the decline in endurance levels.. Interestingly, scientists attribute this decrease to a decrease in the duration and intensity of training.

How do years affect the efficiency of oxygen exchange? Let's find out.

The heart is an oxygen pump

What an amazing device - the human heart! It is made up of complex "pumps" that regulate blood pressure, blood flow and volume to provide blood to the entire body.

For 50 years with a pulse equal to 80 beats / min. (average) the heart has time to contract 2.1 billion times. No wonder things change with age. As you age, your heart adjusts to change, but it becomes more vulnerable to disease.

Maximum heart rate, cardiac contractility (the ability of the fibers of the heart muscle to contract), and the amount of blood the heart delivers to the body in one contraction (systolic volume) all decrease with age.

As a rule, if you do not take action, over the years the heart will work worse and worse. Here are some statistics:

• Death in people aged 65-74 years in 40% of cases is caused by heart disease. In people over 80, this figure is 60%.
• As a rule, at the age of 20, the maximum heart rate during exercise is 180-200 bpm. At the age of 80, it decreases to 145 bpm.
• As a rule, the heart of a 20-year-old person “throws out” 3.5-4 times more blood during exercise than at rest. In an 80-year-old - a maximum of 2 times.

With exercise, blood pressure control, diet, and stress management, many heart changes can be prevented or minimized. Helping the heart is one of the main reasons to continue or start exercising after 40.

When the pressure rises, the heart, adjusting, begins to pump blood more actively. This is because the arteries - the blood vessels that carry oxygenated blood from the heart to the rest of the body - lose their elasticity with age. Scientists have noticed that the wall of the left ventricle in the heart becomes thicker over the years. Thanks to this, the heart can pump blood despite the hardness of the arteries.

However, adjusting, the heart becomes more vulnerable. Arteries begin to react worse to changes in blood flow volumes. Therefore, older people often have higher blood pressure than younger people..

Over the years, the heart begins to respond more slowly to brain signals. As a result, a person gets tired of physical activity much faster than in youth. One of the manifestations of this is shortness of breath with a relatively small load, indicating that oxygen-rich blood moves through the body too slowly.

In the heart of a healthy 70-year-old person, there are 30% fewer cells than in the heart of a 20-year-old. When some of the heart cells die, the rest of the cells have to stretch and grow. Therefore, heart cells in an elderly person can be 40% larger than in a young person.

In fact, it's not all that bad. Sports can rejuvenate your heart and improve its performance. If we take an average heart rate of 80 beats per minute as a criterion, then at rest the heart of my 75-year-old father beats like a 50-year-old. The better your physical form, the lower your resting heart rate will be, because the heart is working actively and “throws out” a large volume of blood with each beat. Even in old age, dad helps his heart through sports.

Is your heart healthy?

In order to check if your heart is in good shape, you need to find out what the maximum amount of oxygen (VO2 max) your body can absorb and process. After 25 years, oxygen consumption for each decade of life is reduced by 10-15%. This is largely the result of changes in cardiac output.

When physical activity drops, so does VO2 max. (In men and women, this figure decreases in approximately the same proportions.) This does not mean that the hearts of older athletes do not adapt to the loads: for example, participants in the triathlon championship who have reached 58-71 years old experience the same changes in the heart ( decrease in heart rate at rest, thickening of the walls of the left ventricle, increase in the volume of reverse blood flow), as in younger athletes. (Please note: the maximum heart rate is associated with age and after ten years begins to decrease by one beat per year. The older we are, the slower the heart beats: its rate of contraction decreases, and the pauses between beats increase.)

But I also have good news: sport helps to stabilize cardiac output, promotes the supply and absorption of oxygen. Whether this help will be significant depends on how much time you devote to the exercises. As it turned out, intense and regular training halves the degree of VO2 drop. If you start training in old age, there is a chance to “slow down” the slowing of the pulse.

The bottom line to take away from all of this is that keeping the heart in “good shape” through regular aerobic exercise ensures that the volume of blood that the heart pumps out with each beat and sends to the body’s tissues is stable.

Arteries: line for oxygen

To understand why aging is so closely associated with cardiovascular disease, and ultimately to understand the causes and find treatments for this group of diseases, it is important to understand what happens to the arteries during “normal aging” (that is, in the absence of diseases) . According to Richard Hoads, director of the National Institute on Aging, many discoveries have been made in this area over the past decades.

Here is what he says: “While we already know a lot about cardiovascular disease and its associated risk factors, new research is shedding light on the relationship between aging, the onset of the disease and its development. For example, scientists at the National Institute on Aging closely monitor certain age-related changes in the arteries and their effect on heart function. Many of these changes, once considered an integral and normal part of aging, can significantly increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.”

Arteries are a kind of "tube" through which blood is transported from the heart to the lungs and to all other tissues of the body. Arteries are made up of muscles and also lose their elasticity over the years. This process accelerates the frequent consumption of fatty foods and smoking. In addition, over the years, blood vessels narrow. This increases the pressure as the heart has to work harder to "push" the same volume of blood through a narrower "tube".

To compensate for this constriction, the heart expands. Hardening and narrowing of the arteries prevents the heart from pumping blood. Soft, elastic arteries do not show up on x-rays, while hard ones look like dark bones. Often, when I take a picture of a patient's knee, I see their outlines. Hardening of the arteries can be avoided: numerous studies show that exercise helps keep them elastic. It is important not only for heart health, but also for brain function and maintaining sexual function.

Lungs: the gate through which oxygen enters the blood

Every athlete begins to choke when they run fast. The speed with which this moment comes is an indicator of the level of your physical fitness.

I remember one very buxom patient named Donna. She hardly performed the exercises that we taught her - she was prevented by shortness of breath. But after a few weeks, the body got used to the new conditions, and it became much easier for Donna to train. Every week she slightly increased the distance of her run and after a while she was able to easily cover a kilometer, then two, and then three.

The supply of oxygenated blood to the heart is essential to nourish the tissues, but first you need to inhale to get oxygen into the blood. This is the task of the lungs. Having entered the lungs - into small alveolar sacs - oxygen is "sprayed" - sent to where it is most needed. Once in the body, oxygen, as it were, "sees" where it is lacking. It attaches to red blood cells, which transport it to the tissues. Therefore, anything that robs the lungs of elasticity (such as old age, smoking habits, or asthma) prevents the delivery of oxygen to the lungs, which means that less oxygen enters the bloodstream.

Over the years, breathing requires more and more energy. This is because the volume of air that the lungs can hold decreases by about 250 ml (about a teacup) every ten years. For the period from 20 to 70 years, the vital capacity of the lungs decreases by about 40%.

In addition, the elasticity of the lung tissue decreases, the number of pulmonary capillaries (small blood vessels) decreases, and the quality of oxygen exchange deteriorates. As a result, the lungs become “harder”, hold air worse, remove carbon dioxide from the body worse. The most important thing that can be done for "older" lungs is to stop smoking.

Muscles: machine strength

It's good that there is efficient system delivery of fuel (oxygen), but how the body disposes of this fuel depends on the condition of the muscles. Age-related changes in muscles and tendons have a huge impact on both daily activities and the ability to play sports. They affect both the strength of the muscle (its ability to move quickly) and its endurance.

The changes that occur in muscles over the years are usually the result of muscle cell loss, reduction in muscle fiber size, and increased muscle stiffness. Most age-related changes in muscles are caused by the loss of lean muscle mass (sarcopenia). This process begins at about 50 years of age.

By the age of 80, we already lose about 50% of lean muscle mass.. Sedentary people aged 50–70 lose 15% of lean muscle mass every ten years, and 30% after age 70.

Age-related muscle atrophy occurs due to a reduction in the volume of so-called type II muscle fibers (fast-twitch fibers responsible for explosive powerful effort). These fibers responsible for muscle strength can shrink by as much as 30%. This is probably why the stride length of older sprinters is noticeably (40%) shorter than that of younger sprinters, and they need to take significantly more steps to cover the same distance.

Not only do we lose lean muscle mass, but studies have shown that the muscles of sedentary people aged 70-79 are actually replaced by fat. So it will be with you if nothing is done.

As we age, muscles become stiffer and lose mobility. Dehydration and thickening of the structural components of the tendons and ligaments cause hardening. It occurs due to changes in the structure of the muscle and due to the intersection of individual muscle fibers in the process of contraction. Rigid muscles are more likely to be injured.

If you need more stimulus to keep your muscles active, I can talk about a study done by Swedish and Finnish scientists. They took biopsies of the vastus lateralis muscle from male sprinters aged 18–84 years. Experienced sprinters showed a typical age-related decrease in the size of fast-twitch fibers, which negatively affected the explosive power required for sprinting. However, even in the most elderly runners, the muscles have not lost their functions, and this proves that running is very useful for “aging” muscles.

Fortunately, over the years, the muscle does not lose the ability to increase in size (this is called hypertrophy). In a classic study of frail and ill older adults, Maria Fiatarone, then at Tufts University, found that through strength training (eight barbell lifts three times a week; the barbell was 80% of the maximum weight a person could lift) ) for the day of training, the subjects became 5% stronger.

Other scientists have found that after two weeks of moderate-intensity strength training, untrained older subjects gain more muscle mass. If even frail 90-year-olds can get stronger, so can you.

Another reason why we lose both Type I (slow twitch) and Type II (fast twitch) muscle fibers over the years is dysfunctional atrophy. Intense training in older athletes causes muscle hypertrophy (or growth) and an increase in the size of both types of muscle fibers.

By observing people who play sports to keep fit (running and swimming without strength training), scientists have found that their muscles have approximately the same structure as the muscles of their sedentary peers, while those who, among other things, engage in strength sports (for example, weightlifting), the condition of the muscle fibers is about the same as that of younger (40 years younger) members of the control group.

Other studies show that differences in muscle fiber condition between older and younger runners are due to differences in training programs. If the loads are the same, then the condition of the muscles is similar.

The main takeaway from all of this research is that exercise isn't just fun and makes your muscles more beautiful. Physical activity helps to maintain or even restore youthful muscles.

I work not only with older athletes, but also in the laboratory where we study the aging of muscles and tendons in order to learn how to heal them faster. My colleague Fabricia Ambrosio and I recently discussed a number of her experiments. Apparently, it is possible to “make” aging muscle cells behave “younger” with the help of simple methods of rehabilitation, such as electrical stimulation.

Using stem cells from the muscles of old mice that had previously "exercised" under the influence of electrical stimulation (a very common rehabilitation method that stimulates the muscle fibers responsible for both strength and endurance), Dr. Ambrosio found that these old cells now lead almost like the cells of young mice. Incredible! Sport has actually changed the behavior of old cells!

Another colleague of mine, Yong Lee, found that muscle stem cells derived from the intercostal muscles of old mice also behave like young mice. And this is understandable, because the intercostal muscles are in a state of constant activity - thanks to this we breathe. It turns out, sport is a source of youth, even for cells!

A few years ago, my colleague, a traumatologist, and I were preparing to receive another patient. I read in his medical record that he is 70 years old, had a car accident and is now suffering from shoulder pain. And when I entered the room, I saw Hank - a man with muscles almost like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Hank used to run a business, and after his retirement he decided to pursue a "second career" in the field of health and activity.

I do not think that we should all look like Schwarzenegger, but a conscious and responsible approach to health issues, in this case- health of the musculoskeletal system, will help not to lose the ability to work at any age.

Treee46: Usually, doctors are very negative about weight training, forbidding it to everyone and always. Experience, however, shows that bodybuilders, weightlifters and powerlifters who, despite their age, continue to train, have excellent physical shape, and get sick no more often than their peers. Here is one of the sane articles on the benefits of athletic training.

You are over forty, and you have decided to go in for bodybuilding, especially since you have some sports experience in your youth. Then know: after forty you need to train in a special way. The way you trained when you were twenty or even five or ten years ago is impossible.
What, age takes its toll and it is necessary to slow down? No, it's something completely different.

Remember what you trained for when you were young? Of course, to please the girls. Well, today you have other priorities - you need energy, frantic performance and absolute health. In fact, after forty comes the time to fit into a career. You have a lot of ideas, great experience, ability to work with people. Well, a career is exhaustingly long working days and often sleepless nights. It's a shame when health fails. And this happens at every step in the fifth decade. Those who do not play sports, by the age of forty, have accumulated up to a dozen different kinds of chronic ailments, caused mainly by physical inactivity. The level of sex hormones drops almost by half. The level of bioenergy decreases accordingly. What kind of efficiency is there, if you always want to sleep! The best "medicine" here is bodybuilding. But you have to use it skillfully. Fight only for strength indicators no more. A completely different approach is needed. Weight training at any age will benefit your health. Here are the pros of bodybuilding compared to other sports.

Increase in muscle mass. After the age of 35, an untrained individual loses 150-200 g of muscle annually. At the same time, the fat layer grows. A large-scale survey of 1132 men and women of different ages who took up training for the first time showed that in the first two months of training, all without exception added 1.5 kg of muscle mass. Another "experience" showed an 11% increase in muscle mass under the influence of training in 90-year-old patients in a nursing home.

Decreased blood pressure. With age, blood pressure rises. Scientific research showed that weight training lowered systolic and diastolic blood pressure by 3% and 4%, respectively. It would seem not enough, but even this is enough to reduce the risk of heart attacks by 40% and a heart attack by 56%.
Improved digestion. The rate of movement of food masses through the gastrointestinal tract slows down with age. This leads to bowel cancer, hemorrhoids and other diseases. Scientists have found that after three months of bodybuilding, the speed of food advancement increases by 56%.

Andreas Kahling.
Strengthening of bones. With age, the skeletal system loses calcium. Bones become more fragile. Studies have shown that after 4 months of weight training, the calcium content in the bones of men increased by an average of 2-3.8%. Bodybuilding also increases the absorption of calcium by the female body.

Frank Zane
Increasing the rate of metabolism. Metabolism slows down with age. As a result, "extra" calories are formed, which turn into subcutaneous fat. An hour and a half workout increases metabolism by 10%. The body keeps the accelerated rate of metabolism for another 5 hours after the completion of the last exercise.
Reducing the risk of coronary disease. Coronary disease is caused by a narrowing of the arteries leading to the heart. This narrowing is due to the sticking of cholesterol "plaques" on the inner walls of the arteries. Special studies have shown that after 4 months of training, the level of so-called "good" cholesterol increased by 13%, and "bad" cholesterol fell by 5%. An important risk factor in coronary disease is the age-related decrease in cell sensitivity to insulin. After 3 months of training, this figure increased by 20%.
For the sake of truth, it must be said that many age-related changes in the body is not actually caused by age at all. The real reason is a change in lifestyle towards almost complete physical inactivity. In fact, with age, a person moves less and less. By the way, the long-awaited purchase of a car does not turn out to be a boon at all, but the final retraining of the cardiovascular system. (When you walked, she got some kind of load.) Meanwhile, in a mature body, almost nothing happens that would prevent you from playing sports and getting results. If there is no training after 40 years, it is because of the accumulated "diseases of inaction" - high blood pressure, poorly functioning liver, low blood formation. That is why you should definitely see a doctor before starting training. It may happen that training will exacerbate painful symptoms, transfer a sluggish disease into a severe form. Here is an example. Suppose you have developed cholecystitis from irregular nutrition. The disease itself is not so annoying. You may not even remember her. However, intense flexion of the torso, bending forward and to the sides may well lead to an inflammatory outbreak when you have to go to bed. Hence the conclusion: before buying a subscription to an expensive gym, you need to go to the doctor and be carefully examined.

Metz Hubert at 60.
Another rule: the load must be increased gradually. It is impossible to tear into a quarry for a well-known reason - detraining. For example, the heart is able to adapt to the most extreme loads, but only if this load does not fall on it like a hammer.

D. Zolin at the age of 60.
What can you expect in the gym if direct medical contraindications you don't have for training? Oddly enough, but even at 40, you can set the highest goals for yourself. Nothing terrible has happened to your muscles over the past years. If they have reduced strength and volume, it is only because of your low mobility. Strength and volume are a thing that can be acquired for any age. Formally, with age, muscle cells lose their internal protein contractile structures. The very ones that make the cell voluminous and "strong". However, these losses in a serious way begin only after 60 years. But even among frank elders, they make up no more than 22% of the former "young" number. They are also afraid of the age-related reduction in joint mobility. Flexibility does decrease by the age of 40, but no one has yet figured out why. There is an opinion that age has nothing to do with it. The joints, as it were, adapt to the limited range of motion that is characteristic of modern man. One way or another, but the connective tissues of the joints at any age with varying degrees of difficulty can be stretched. An extreme example: the incredible flexibility of old Indian yogis.
By the way, it is worth saying that, again for reasons unknown to science, persistent stretching of the joints has a huge healing effect. Returning to itself children's flexibility, the body is almost as rejuvenated. So let's put aside any debate: after 40 years, it is necessary to do stretching exercises. The main thing is that the program is well-designed. Well, its content itself, whether it will be "tailored" in a modern way, or you will undertake to learn ancient yoga asanas, does not really matter. The end result matters. Another thing is that stretching training should be regular and conscientious.

Women, however, are unlucky in this respect. After 40 and even after 30 years, their skeleton begins to gradually lose calcium. The reasons for this, too, have not yet been reliably elucidated. It is possible that the female sex hormone estrogen is to blame for the loss of calcium. It is possible that women lose iron with menstruation, and this somehow negatively affects calcium over the years. I think you can see the danger women put themselves in when they train hard but consume almost no dairy products because they have "too much fat." In the US alone, at least 10% of those actively exercising mature women they broke something for themselves only because they aggravated the age-related “leaving” of calcium from the bones with a rigid, necessarily dairy-free diet.
Another aspect of age is that you need more rest after training. However, not everything is clear here either. Perhaps age really slows down the recovery process. But something else is also possible: we are all so overloaded with nervous stress that this negatively affects our physiology. In any case, after 40 it is difficult to find a man or woman without serious psychological problems related to work, family and children.
The trouble for those over 40 and older is that they were born much earlier than the physical culture revolution. And now it remains only to scratch the back of your head and lament: oh, if only you had known earlier!.. Indeed, if you took up training at the age of 20-25, you would look and feel completely different today. You would not have any "extra" kilograms, sagging belly and buttocks, dragged down by the force of gravity, stoop and much more, which unmistakably betrays age. But most importantly, self-esteem would be completely different. What is there to hide: the years are very, very "pressure" on the psyche. Well, if thanks to sports you don’t get worse over the years, why complain about your age?
By the way, what about the bodybuilders and bodybuilders of the 60s? Not all of them have been preserved. good shape, and all because they quit the sport, tired of it psychologically. But the one who continued to train remained a "cucumber". It is clear that they made reasonable amendments to their training. As a result of studying their experience, universal “recipes” have developed that are suitable for everyone who undertook to train after forty.

All ages are submissive to love, as well as to sports. Even if you've never done exercise It's never too late to start being athletic, beautiful and healthy. But if you have crossed the 40-year mark, not everything will be given as easily as young and young. Therefore, it is important to know some of the nuances that will protect you from negative consequences and help you achieve quick results.

What happens to our body?

40 years is not the limit, having stepped over this age, we still feel full of energy. However, age-related changes are already beginning inside the body. And it is about them that you should know when drawing up a training plan. For example, with age, bones lose strength, ligaments become less elastic, joints become more vulnerable, and therefore you need to be wary of too much weight to avoid injury. Vessels and capillaries become clogged with toxins over the years, and therefore the blood will not circulate so actively. Endurance decreases, flexibility worsens, the amount of muscle mass decreases, and the percentage of fat, on the contrary, grows. Another nuance is that the balance between the muscle ligaments is disturbed (for example, right hand you have better control, and the left one cannot perform many movements) and because of this, the accuracy of movements decreases.

What will training after 40 give?

Naturally, they will prevent all the problems that we mentioned above, or delay the time of their manifestation. Muscle mass will increase, and the musculature, as you know, is the most reliable support for the bones and the musculoskeletal system. Even the bone tissue itself after power loads and a course of taking calcium supplements can significantly thicken. The fat layer will decrease overweight will leave. Increased endurance, flexibility, strength. Digestion will improve and metabolism will speed up. Blood pressure normalizes, the risk of coronary heart disease, strokes and heart attacks will decrease. But the training program must be built correctly, and below we will tell you how.

How to exercise after 40 years?

1. The training program should be directed not only to problem areas, but to the whole body completely. With age, balance and uniform development are very important. Functional training is well suited for such purposes, developing different qualities and forcing the whole body to work during one exercise.
2. The load should be moderate, especially if you are new to the sport. If you have been exercising before and want more intensity, increase the rest and recovery time between workouts (say, two days off instead of one). In this case, you can be more active.
3. The warm-up should be longer, as tendons and ligaments, as well as muscles, become less elastic with age. To avoid injury during the workout itself, they need to be well kneaded and warmed up. A hitch (stretching) is also required to stretch the muscles, relax them.
4. The execution technique should be in the first place - due to a decrease in flexibility, coordination and accuracy of movements. Therefore, it is better to do fewer repetitions, but in a perfectly correct technique. Better yet, work with a trainer who will monitor your movements.
5. To reduce the load on the joints, you can go the other way - on the contrary, increase the number of repetitions and reduce the weight. This will unload the musculoskeletal system, joints and ligaments, but will also give its result.
6. Avoid sudden movements, it is better to perform the exercise in a smaller amplitude. And pay attention to the so-called "eccentric phase" - when lifting the weight, lower it twice as slowly.
7. Be sure to rest between sets and drink plenty of water, especially if you feel very tired.
8. Pay attention to your old injuries, if any. Eliminate movements and exercises that affect the once damaged area. If in youth the consequences of injuries are not felt, then after 40 you will be plagued by pain and discomfort.
9. In addition to strength training, do not neglect aerobic - even two 30-minute workouts per week will be enough (treadmill, elliptical trainer, stepper, exercise bike, swimming, brisk walking).
10. It is also worth paying attention to static exercises (Pilates), body & mind programs (yoga), stretching (stretching) - they are needed to increase flexibility and improve coordination.
11. Training does not have to be too long, but regular. Try not to miss a single one - after 40 it's easier to "get out of the rut" even after one pass.

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