Except that at 63 and after decades of regular training, I imagine it would be hard to put on additional LBM. At least that's the case for me. Also, unless the workouts are quite lengthy and intense, the calories expended are not that significant. That's why I can't quite connect the pieces together. I think DTB2 should give us some more details before we can give meaningful responses. Length, nature, frequency and intensity of workouts, caloric intake, that sort of thing.
Mike "Titan" O'Hearn is 54. He was on both versions of American Gladiator. https://twitter.com/mikeohearn?lang=en https://www.essentiallysports.com/u...ying-secret-he-has-been-using-since-30-years/
I guess I'm stuck at the same old crossroads as everyone, dropping weight while retaining muscle. I guess at my ripe old age endurance training might be the way to go. Nobody wants to see a 63 year old w/o a shirt anyway! LOL
Not necessarily. In fact, resistance training is probably more important at this stage in your life than it ever was because of age-related sarcopenia taking its toll. Personally, I have no affinity for endurance training because I find it outright boring. To me resistance training has never been boring because each set only lasts a little over a minute and I take it to the limit. Going to your absolute limit can be many things, not all of them pleasant, but boring is not one of them. You might consider trying what I do. I was all about lifting as heavy as I could in my earlier days, often, but not always, at the expense of form. Lifts like the bench press, weighted dips and weighted pull-ups were staples of my routine. As I have noted elsewhere in this forum, I presently do only bodyweight lifting. However, I make it hard by lifting more slowly, doing more reps and taking shorter rest between sets. I still go to all out positive failure on every set and the workout leave me spend but my joints intact, such as they are. In fact, if you take your sets to your absolute limit in relatively slow and deliberate form, and rest only a minute or less between compound exercises, I would argue that you are also engaging in endurance training of a sort, thereby potentially getting the best of both worlds in one go. Time saved. Gee, thanks.
I am over 50 and I modified to less cardio ( it was daily) to push pull splits 5 days a week . I gained muscle surprisingly quickly after struggling to put on muscle for years. I would therefore conclude everyone responds differently and the industry just spews ridiculous mantras like people over 50 should do full body workouts only once or twice a week. What If you have done that for 10 years? Would not trying a new routine be worth a try? Most industry knowledge is based up small very limited studies. I would only listen to really smart people who are aware their "science based" advice has significant limitations.
Full body workouts 2 times per week and some sort of cardio on the off days. Yes. I did not control the variables perfectly. But I am saying I noticed the change in just a few weeks and others noticed it after about 3 months. I am now going to go back to a bit more cardio because I miss it and I desire the longevity it may provide.
So how may times a week are you working each muscle group now with your 5-day push-pull split? Also, just for context, how many total sets per muscle group per week were you doing before, and how many are you doing now? And are you working the muscle with the same degree of intensity? (And by intensity, I don't mean the amount of weight but rather the proximity to failure.)