3 Progress Killers for Older Lifters by David Denis

I started my strength journey about three years ago at age 54.

I simply became fed up with semi-annual back tweaks that just kept happening no matter how careful I was. Most solution were just temporary. I couldn’t seem to find a way to prevent them. Then I had an epiphany. The body is an adaptable organism, self-adjusting to accommodate the activities it needs to perform. So what if the problem isn’t that I work my back too hard? What if the problem is that I don’t work it hard enough? Can I make my back stronger by training it in a rational progressive manner?

Turns out, the answer is “Yes!” A book called Starting Strength showed me how to get started using a barbell. I started assembling a crude home gym, and I got to work. I’m now 57, and I have not any significant back problems since about 6 months after I started training. I enjoy it so much that I continue to train. I’ll never be a top competitive athlete (and I don’t want to) but I am certainly above average strong for my age and I continue to get stronger. I cannot say, however, that the pathway was straight or smooth. Getting started is always the hardest part, but once you get going the problem becomes how to keep it going. I have learned that continued progress relies more on your response to obstacles than on the obstacles themselves. Here are some of biggest challenges I have noted, and what I have learned about making continued progress in the gym.

Inconsistency

I am no longer the young fella with more time than money. I have a very full life – just as most men and women my age do. So, sometimes negotiating the path to the gym door is like dodging a mob of timesucking zombies. But if I give in to those zombies, pretty soon I’m spending more time out of the gym than in it. We all know that inconsistent work leads to inconsistent results. Consistency happens when training becomes a rote automatic habit. It doesn’t happen by accident; it must be intentionally built, along 2 complementary axes: systems and rituals.

Systems

A system is a way of organizing time and resources to reduce or eliminate obstacles. That’s the key idea – eliminating obstacles. Rather than going up to each time-sucking zombie one at a time, you build a pit that the zombies fall into so that you can focus on training. For instance, block off training time in your schedule before anything else. Schedule appointments around training. A coach is a powerful element of a training system. If you know a coach is expecting me to do the work (and you are paying him to expect it!) it shifts the center of gravity of your decision making. Pre plan your breakfast, your workout gear, your music – polish your routines to make them smooth and snag free. Of course, a home gym is a powerful part of this system. It simply eliminates a whole bunch of obstacles and excuses.

Ritual

The second part of the equation is ritual. Systems are about how we organize our external world. Rituals are the building blocks of internal habits – kind of like emotional systems within us. When we carefully choose our rituals, we can intentionally install helpful habits. Rituals forge our habits. Our habits build our results. So once you set up your systems, then commit to using them repetitively, over a period of time. It won’t take long before the awkward becomes familiar, and the familiar becomes automatic. It is that automatic part that you want to achieve. That is what will carry you through on those days when you don’t feel well, but you go train anyway because it’s just what you do. It is a habit. Systems smooth your rituals. Rituals build your habits. Habits are what guarantee consistency. Consistency is what yields results.

Accumulated Fatigue

Early in my intermediate phase of strength training, I went through a period of just feeling like I had been dragged-through-a-knothole. I didn’t know what to call it at the time, but I have since learned that it was the monster call Fatigue. Vince Lombardi is famous for saying, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” Fatigue makes us feel like not training. Fatigue tempts us to take shortcuts in our training. I knew that if I did not address my fatigue, my progress would be endangered.

This is a special issue for older lifters. As we get older recovery takes longer, and we have to adjust our plans to accommodate that. There is no use pretending otherwise.

So the first step is to set aside the ego and accept reality. It is like Donald Rumsfeld said during the buildup to the first Gulf War. “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” In the same way, we have to train with the body we have, not the body used to have, or the body we wish we had.

The second step is to remember that your program serves you, you do not serve your program. Just because some guy at a computer threw a bunch numbers on a spreadsheet does not mean that you have to slavishly follow those numbers. Older lifter must make intelligent rational changes to program templates to adjust for fatigue and recovery. The technical term is auto-regulation. Some lifters auto-regulate use an RPE scale for each lift. Others adopt an approach called Minimum Effective Dose programming, or Stress-Based programming. It boils down to paying attention to your physical state and adjusting training variables to create the margin your body needs for recovery. Don’t worry – that template you paid for is useful, but it is not Holy Scripture, and it does not know you. Programs and templates are made to be hacked. Don’t be afraid of Finally, make whatever changes you need to make to get enough food and sleep. I know, that’s obvious, but I never said it was rocket science. The fundamentals are always fundamental.

Form Creep

About 6 months ago I was in PR territory on my squat, but things were not going well. I was pushing up the weight but barely under control, and most important I was not hitting depth – the cardinal sin of squatting. I finally had to admit that my form was terrible. Somewhere along the line I had gotten off track. I needed to fix it. So I called my coach and went down to his place for a remedial session. He watched me squat and he said, “Widen your stance and don’t bend over so much.” We practiced the changes a few times and he helped make sure I understand what he meant. Then I went back to my gym. Night and day. I have formed a few bad habits that seemed right to me. As the loads increased, however, they were tripping me up and I couldn’t figure out why. That tune up visit with my coach changed everything. I am on track now to squat 405 in the next 3 weeks. That’s a big milestone and I’m super excited.

Form creep will kill your gains. The solution is to get a coach. If you can afford to hire one to work with you all the time – great. There are also excellent online options. Or, you can do like me and just find someone you can go to a few times a year for a tune up. Just make sure it is someone who knows how to coach your game.

Universal Truth

That’s the big three: inconsistency, fatigue, and form creep. My game is strength training with a barbell. Yours might be CrossFit athlete, a runner, a strongman competitor, or a swimmer. It really doesn’t matter. These are the things every athlete has to deal with. And the same basic concepts apply across the board. Don’t let these progress killers keep you from moving forward. Take action, keep moving, and continue to enjoy the benefits that your game brings to your life for years to come.