How Does Aging Affect Your Size, Strength, and Training?

hey folks dr mike israel here for renaissance periodization i think that's the most i've ever abbreviated my last name israelite size strength and aging let's figure out how to train for size and strength what to expect at the different levels of human age what are they we're going to talk about general differences and principles of training if you're from anywhere between 15 and 30 years old like if you're less than 15 years old that's another special topic of how to train teens i'll cover years from now or something we have a laundry list of things to cover so don't worry that's coming at some point but 15 to 30 years old general category next one is 30 to 40 years old then 40 to 60 years old and then 60 years old plus at the end we'll have some really good take-home messages for all of that stuff so 15 to 30 years old you can expect your best responses to both size and strength training this is where you make your best absolute gains there's no huge difference within this range there are some differences but generally speaking if someone's like 17 years old and they're like what kind of gains can i expect if i start training or if they're like 27 years old what kind of gains can i start when i uh or can i expect when i start training there's not a huge difference between those answers it's not like oh 27 you're a fucking old man you had amazing gains that entire time or as amazing as your genetics allow you recover really quickly generally from joint stress so you can repeat back to back pretty heavy no problem if you get hurt the injury recovery process is what i've turned uncomplicated usually like you get hurt your muscle gets pulled or torn the surgeons stick it back on or just heals on its own you come back you rehab you go you live for a while then a few months later it's like it never happened or pretty close nothing too crazy nothing to worry about so this kind of rewards going hard and heavy because even if you get hurt of course you do your best not to but even if you get hurt it's not the end of the world if you're not if you've never been hurt by the time you're 30 there's a good chance you did everything completely awesomely and there's also a decent chance you just never trained hard enough so it's not that we want injuries it's just that if injury risk has to happen with some powerlifting and stuff like that it does it's decent this is the best time in your life to accept that risk is what i'm trying to say if you want maximum lifetime gains that is at some point in your life reach your absolute zenith of genetic potential or whatever starting to train early or middle of this range is critical so if you want to be the best possible bodybuilder you could ever be if you start training at like age 28 or 29 that might still happen not super likely if you start training at age 18 or 19 very likely right and if you're if you're age 15 and you're like i want to be as jacked and strong as possible who fuck knows what's going on in your head when i was 15 i had all kinds of fucking bologna in my head if you're really intent that's actually a good time to start working on basic size and strength what you want to do in this age range especially is focus on the basic mass and strength building the construction of raw mass and strength a lot of times with compound heavy basics not on details of strength and physique as much so if you're age 15 to 30 especially in the early years if you're like yeah i got to bring up my forms to balance out my biceps shut the fuck up just get big once you're big you can bring up performs and other small muscle groups no problem don't you worry too much about the details inner chest and shit like that if you want your maximum lifetime gains now if you just want to be age 25 and have the best inner chest at the club so all the girls are like ooh and the boys are like ooh and both boys and girls tons of people having sex with your chest or whatever what kind of shit you're into by all means specialize early but if you want to be the biggest and strongest you ever be don't worry about specializing earlier and through the middle of this range next up if you're age 30 to 40 years old what's going on what can you expect you get good responses generally to size and strength training once you get closer to 40 many people start to see a lowering of responses that doesn't mean you get worse it means you get better notably slower so if you're gaining muscle your whole life from let's say you started training at age 15 by the time you get to 35 36 37 you can still gain muscle but it's going to be noticeably slower than it was uh even if you uh you know compared to like age you know 17 18 19 or something like that and if you start lifting at 35 36 37 you're not going to get 18 or 19 year old kind of growth rates you're just not versus if you start uh you know in your early 30s you can get actually really comparable rates to when you start in early 20s so on and so forth so especially towards the end of that range there's a bit of a meeting on there it's not the best responses through that range anyway joint stress recovery is decent okay so it's nothing too crazy your joints are going to be super fucked up it's not super high risk um on average if you get hurt during this age range recovery is decent nothing to write home about but it can be lengthy and might not always be complete like sometimes when you hurt yourself when you're let's say 37 38 39 the shit might never feel a hundred percent again even if the doctors reattach it or even if it wasn't a full evolution or something it's just that it's not something you play with nearly as much when you're young a lot of times you get hurt and it's like nothing ever happened right uh if you started lifting in the 15 to 30 age range 30 to 40 is when you usually hit especially in the later 35 to 40 is when most people usually hit their absolute peak of strength and size right some people hit it in their early 40s we'll talk about that in the next category but this from a practical perspective age 30 to 40 is where you start really focusing on details like if you need to bring up your forms or something like that that's when it's time to focus on the small details uh because you need them to squeeze out progress it's also when you start focusing on the details of sort of exotic programming you might do very high frequency for bicep because that's a you know two to four sessions a week for biceps aren't just cutting it you need really advanced routine all kinds of crazy periodization this is where you shoot all of your guns off if you want your lifetime best because this is where your lifetime best is happening if you wait until your 40s to do all your best techniques your lifetime best might have already passed you by right 40 to 60 years old so here is where we on average see significantly lower responses to size and strength training than you did in your 30s to 40 and then you did from 15 to 30. so almost everyone's going to see lower to average responses which is to say if you start lifting in this age range so someone starts lifting when they're 40 and they're like let's say their training partner and this actually happens a lot dad starts lifting his 42 he starts lifting with a son who's 17. like this shit happens all the time you see gyms all the time it's nice it's nice to see um if your dad do not and let's say it's the first time for both of you don't expect the same rate of gains as your son don't because it's almost not never going to happen very rarely and it does if you gave your son shit dog shit genetics you got to blame the wife what the hell honey right so generally speaking you you just won't see nearly as good of growth rates as you did when you were younger there is a big difference in this range however ages 40 to 50 you can see some pretty decent gains especially if you started training that range 50 to 60 you still see gains but much much lower on average so there's a big sort of bifurcation in that range the joint stress recovery is now longer notably longer which means heavy sessions should be less frequent okay you're not gonna do monday five by five wednesday five by five friday five by five heavy like you used to do back when you were 17 years old that shit is fucking gone you might need to do is more lighter sessions sets of 10 to 30 reps a little bit more frequently interspersed between heavy ones and the light sessions now make up a bigger fraction of your total volume than they used to because the joints just don't handle chronic recovery nearly as well as they used to if you get hurt there are potentially much more complicated avenues of recovery from those injuries that you sustain so you want to make sure if you're age 40 to 60 and you're training with weights and you want your best results that injury avoidance is huge in your training like you don't do stupid shit anymore when you're 40 to 60.

you're like fuck it i feel like a 1rm ah that shit died when you turned 30. and when you once you were 30 you stopped doing stupid shit like that once you turned 40 you for sure started not doing super shit like that anymore because that'll cost you potentially all kinds of function and they're like well we actually wanted to reattach your pack but it's so calcified we can't do it anymore like oh my fuck i just tore my pack and i'm never getting it back you don't want any of that nonsense so you really want to make sure you're training extra safe which does mean not as effectively as you used to but there's a huge trade-off do you want to keep trading training and making some gains or keeping some gains on your body or do you want to risk it all for pretty much nothing right if you have started training in your the in this range itself okay if you're 42 and you started training you'll see really really big changes for sure because some people have this misconception hopefully this video refutes if they're in the 40s or 50s uh they don't bother with weight training because like oh that's a young guy's game you know i'm not going to make gains you will for sure make gains if you start training and you're 42 fuck you're gonna make crazy gains for the first five years and for the next 10 years you're going to consistently still make gains they won't be incredible but like you can get stronger into your into your 50s and maybe even your 60s and even bigger too right so if you start late you can still have awesome progress here if you started lifting in the 30 to 40 age range you'll peak in that 40 to 60 age range if you started lifting in the 15 to 30 range and have been serious you'll probably peak between 30 or 40 or in your early 40s and after that in your 40s and 50s and especially 50s and 60s you may be able to hold your size and strength and or reduce it slowly some that's depressing as fuck to some people but think of it this way if you got up to benching 400 pounds when you were in your prime and you know age 35 to 45 by the time that you're 60 you could only be benching 330. how many 60 year olds you know a bench 330 holy shit that's crazy so at that point it starts to psychologically at least be really beneficial for you to compare yourself to your age cohort and that is awesome and also you know sometimes people at age 60 are having trouble whether it's tough to get out of chairs or what the fuck i'm not young anymore fuck that if you still squat you used to squat 400 now you only squat 300.

300 squatter is no problem getting out of a chair unless it's leg day and then that's a real problem all right 60 plus years old our last group here real talk vastly lowered responses to size and strength training you just don't see the same absolute or relative responses in people like if you have people who are older than the 60 jurors training program they get some responses but it's not nearly like 15 to 30 year olds so forget about that there are big differences within this range 60 to 75 you can see some pretty great responses 75 plus is tough you still get some stuff but it's much tougher much bigger difference your joint stress recovery times are now much longer heavy sessions need to be much less frequent lighter sessions more frequent probably most of the work should be light so if you're lifting for sustainability in this in this age category if you're over 60 i think most of your work should probably be in that 10 to 30 rep range some can be in the lower rep ranges especially if you're pretty strong but there's a trade-off there there's a balance because you're not gonna be able to do workout after workout after workout it's a five to eight it's just not gonna work in most cases your joints are just not gonna agree with that sort of thing there is a lot of potential for complicated recovery from injury and you want to make sure that injury avoidance is huge in your training more to the point you may want to do sort of like an anti-injury an injury prevention checklist is kind of the core foundation of your training and this is a weird way to think about it i don't want any of you younger folks to think about it this way because this would be a bad way for you to think about it when you're older job number one in the gym don't get hurt job number two get results right the thing is for younger people it's flipped the other way job number one is get results job number two is okay but don't get hurt doing it if you're older the last fucking thing you want to do is tear some shit up in the gym fuck that because you could recover it could take a year to recover you could never recover it could start uh unlikely but possible a series of events where you just never leave the hospital and you just fucking die there like you're not gonna you know you evolve your quad or something under the squat bar and then on the way down your femur shatters and all the fucking icu and you're 77 years old you don't want to be part of that injury management first so for sure all the dumb shootery in the gym should be out of your body by the time you're this age range and if you're still a dumb ass when you're 75 i don't know if i know i would say to you you had to come in your whole life quite literally if you start lifting in this range a lot of people start lifting in their 60s and 70s and 80s you will see the most life-altering changes that anyone else will look if you're 15 years old you start lifting great you get bigger your pecs pop out girls notice a little guys notice a lot your life fundamentally doesn't change you know usually you don't get laid much more anyway whatever sweet you're muscular yahoo or slow clap you had no problem going to a fast food place and ordering a burger putting it in your car in the bag driving home feeding like part of the bun to your dog sitting and watching tv you could do that when you're jacked you could do that when you're skinny it doesn't fucking matter when you're 75 years old or 80 years old if you start training with weights you can upgrade yourself to just like a normal 40 year old's abilities physically and then you can take care of yourself until the fucking day you die and if you don't do that you could be in a place where you don't you are physically not strong enough to get up out of a chair anymore you may not be strong enough to reach for normal objects like a thing of milk or something like that you're in a bad way so these changes it's super like we you know if we're looking at public health of the world you know does does the you know do the various agencies responsible for that tell young people to lift weights like not really because you're fucking young whenever fine you're fine but older people absolutely should be lifting weights in almost every circumstance because for them that sir that alteration is huge so here's the thing yes the first part of the slide here says vastly low response to size strength training you may look at it and say like oh fuck that why the hell would i train you know my grandma wants me to train her she's 62. fuck would i do that like come on grandma you're fucking too old like you know the gym's not your place anymore the gym is mostly for grandma she belongs to you more than the rest of us do we're just doing this for our creation she's doing it to sustain her independent way of life really really really big deal make sure we have to start saying that if you started lifting in the 40 to 60 range you might peak here especially in your early 60s but begin to reduce size and strength in your 70s and 80s it's not realistic to be benching 400 pounds or 80 years old and all the other groups folks that started much earlier started in 30 start in their 20s and teens they'll get smaller and weaker through this range however big point i'm going to make this point again in the last slide smaller and weaker is relative and if you're 70 years old and you only bench 150 pounds where you used to be you know 350 pound bencher back in your prime yeah it kind of fucking blows right i wish we were all immortal and infinitely strong but if you're in your 70s i mentioned 150 you fucking think anyone needs to help you the fucking jug of milk fuck that you fucking 150 you're overqualified right that's a big ass jug of milk you have to get out of the out of the fridge right so it's a huge dividend still awesome to keep lifting weights in a matter of fact relatively speaking much more awesome to lift weights in this age range than at any other time so if you're watching this video and you're like getting into your 40s and shit you're like fuck i should stop lifting don't do that keep lifting keep lifting all right lastly a few important take-home messages so a lot of people ask this super common so hopefully you folks are tuning in i started lifting at xyz age can i still get amazing results can i still have my ultimate potential the answer is no so you're very unlikely to reach your ultimate genetic potential if you start lifting after age 30. okay and the later after age 30 you have started lifting the less likely you are to reach that maximum genetic potential it's just it's just a statement of fact it sucks i wish it wasn't that that way but you can still get jackman strong absolutely and relatively way more jacked and strong than you would have ever been without lifting for sure now point number two huge point if you're not in your 20s or teens anymore do not lift like you did in your 20s and teens youth rewards the bold so someone's like what do you think five more pounds pr like fuck yeah load that shit boom age 25 let's do it if you're older age rewards the cautious and the patient okay so if you have if you're 55 years old your training partner's 52 and he's like what do you think five more pounds jim shut the fuck up put a regular weight on the bar let's not die here today so we can come back tomorrow and the day after and the day after right huge huge thing one of the things that i wouldn't call as a pet peeve is just kind of fucking sad pet peeves annoy you but i don't know what this is like it's just like a depressing thing when i see older people older older doing bro gym fuckery swing curls and round back crazy cat like kind of deadlift where you're like are you a cat getting scared on halloween are you dead lifting i can't tell it's like what are you doing like you can't afford to get hurt why are you doing this dumb shit needs to stop when you're younger ideally wouldn't happen when you're younger but at the very least it should happen when you're when you're older it should stop happening when you're older as you get older especially than 30 we'll say 30 is kind of the general cutoff here you want to put more emphasis into the following things these should always be things you put some emphasis into but really start to basically grow up for actually as an exact perfect term for this listen to your body more warm up more and more slowly take your time rushing warm-ups when you're in your 20s whatever shit happens right you got fucking hoes to being at the club you can't take 30 minutes to warm up when you're you're 36 years old like i am in this video you're gonna warm up otherwise you're gonna get hurt and then you're really really fucked like you just can't afford to rush things anymore ramp up volume and load slowly in mesos again you should still be doing that but when you're older you especially should be doing that because you're gonna fuck yourself up if you don't accumulate fatigue goes like this and injury risk goes like that as well next one don't risk it all he's about to risk it all isn't that like a a joke about like uh hitting on someone in any case i'm not i'm not much in the instagram generation so risking it all for big pr as often is a fucking stupid idea like look when you're like 19 years old and you just pulled 405 and it went way fast and that's the most you've ever pulled you look around your friends are like 4 55 and you're like fuck yeah it doesn't come up whatever shit happens or how it comes up halfway and you tweak your back whatever three weeks later you're fine i'm not saying it's a good idea it's just not the worst thing in the world now when you're 55 years old and you hit 370 for the first time ever in the deadlift and someone's like we think 405 you're like yeah you're a fucking idiot don't do stupid shit like that work up to it over the couple weeks don't risk it all because you could be like oh sweet i just herniated my fucking discs in my back and i can't control my bladder anymore and i'm gonna spend three months at the hospital that none of that shit is for you right so don't do anything dumb anymore and you can still train close to failure but you probably want to train more with lighter weights and you want to train a little bit less with sets of one to three for strength and you want to keep it more in the sets of three to six range if strength training is your thing and for hypertrophy training stay a little bit outside of the five to ten range for most things other things you can and go a little bit more on the 10 and 20 and 20 to 30 range because you still get a hyper fee but it doesn't risk with a high absolute forces injury just as much now here's the thing point number four last point the super bright side about lifting through the aging process it sucks flat out to get older uh or sorry to get weaker as you age it fucking blows i'm level with you guys i agree there's a lot of people trying to paint like this happy picture there's one lecture i was listening to about uh anti-aging medicine and potential future stuff this guy like refuted the concept of like aging gracefully he's like aging fucking blows there's no way to do it gracefully just look less like shit than you thought you would have so i'm totally on board with that it fucking blows but if you stick to hard lifting throughout your lifespan you have a very good chance of dying with the strength of an average untrained 30 year old now none of us here watching this video wanna have the strength of an average untrained 30 year old if that fucking blow some fucking like computer programmer guy who's never lifted you're like oh great i'm as strong as this guy even though i've been lifting weights my whole life ah but you're 85.

he's 30.