2657: The Over-50 Fitness & Health Plan

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1:22Adam Schafer:Wayfair, every style, every home. If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode is for those of you over the age of 50 who want to be fit, healthy, lean, and strong. In this episode, we give you the workout, the diet, how to sleep. We even talk about supplements. You have everything you need in this episode. We know you're going to love it. By the way, this episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Masszymes.

2:04Adam Schafer:These are digestive enzymes that help break down those proteins, carbohydrates, and fats for better digestion and better nutrient absorption. Go check them out. Go to Masszymes.com. That's M-A-S-S-Z-Y-M-E-S.com forward slash MindPump. Use the code MINDPUMP10, get 10 % off. We also have a sale on a workout program this month. MAPS 15 is 50 % off. Now, this isn't some random quick workout routine. It's a fully structured program that solves the number one fitness problem, staying consistent. With MAPS 15, you'll get short 15-minute daily workouts that you can stick to. They build muscle. They burn body fat.

2:45Adam Schafer:It's just 15 minutes a day. and you can do them at home with minimal equipment or if you want to use barbells and dumbbells, there's a version in that for those as well. Head over to mindpumpmedia.com forward slash maps dash 15 dash minutes and use the code muscle50 at checkout for the 50 % off. Back to the show. Fitness and health over 50. Workouts, diet. Look, if you do it right, your body will respond. You'll get incredible results. The problem is most people do it wrong. They mess up. And then they blame it on age. It's not age. It's how you're doing it. Today, we're going to talk about the right way to work out and eat to get great results if you're over 50 years old.

3:29Adam Schafer:I looked ahead here. We're going to put together a legit plan for people. Let's give them a plan. I want people to leave with something they can actually practice. Concrete. That they can do themselves. I like it. I want to start off by saying, and there's many studies on this. In fact, there's studies on 70 and 80-year-olds around this. Your body never loses the ability to build muscle and improve its fitness. Now, the difference is the potential, right? The max strength and fitness for a 70-year-old is going to be different than when they were 20. That's true. That being said, your body still adapts.

4:05Adam Schafer:And it's remarkable at how it adapts. There was a recent study with people in their 70s, and they built exceptional muscle and strength in a very short period of time. The reason why I'm saying that is there are challenges as we age that if we apply exercise wrong, we don't respond. We get more aches and pains. It feels like we're just working out for no reason. This is not making me feel great. Why isn't this body fat coming off my body? And it has more to do with the methods and how you're applying them than it does your age. It really does. and a majority of our clients uh back in the day when we used to train people this is it do you they were in the stage room yeah do you think the misconception out there is really because of a lot of the marketing for like let's say like asper cream or like advil or you know like they're always like highlighting these pain points of your aging they scream give up yeah exactly it's like give up take this instead for all these eggs and instead of like realizing there's still a lot of potential left for you to still build muscle and improve.

5:07Adam Schafer:Yeah. I can't tell you how many clients I had in this age group, uh, in their fifties that, uh, they didn't really have a fitness lifestyle in the past. Um, and then, you know, after training with me and applying it the right way, this is so important, everybody. Like if you do it the right way with considerations, which we're going to talk about, cause there are general considerations for people in this age group. If you do it right, you respond great. And many of these people would tell me I'm in the best shape of my life. And I never thought this would happen.

5:34Sal Di Stefano:There's another way to reframe this too, for that person who feels discouraged or, oh my God, I'm so out of shape or I've never lifted weights. And this seems like it's so far away. The positive side of that is, man, anything we do is going to be a novel stimulus. And in the game of adaptation, that's a huge win for us. The fact that you haven't done anything. So I have to do very little to get your body moving in the right direction, which I think that's a very positive way to look at that. You look at it like, oh my God, I had this long mountain to climb, but it's like, hey, but you know what's cool is that you haven't done any of these movements I'm gonna teach you and the body is gonna right away start going, oh my God, this is new, this is different.

6:19Sal Di Stefano:And that is such a, the game of novelty when you have been doing this for a really long time, it gets difficult. You've been lifting for 20 years. One of the challenges of being consistent, yes, you may be healthier, stronger, a higher ceiling than that person, but also getting this novel stimulus and always having to kind of progressively overload the body to see more results versus the person who's deconditioned, out of shape, this is all new, scary. That's actually a really good thing because we're going to start seeing change relatively quick.

6:47Adam Schafer:If you follow what we're about to say, so long as it's appropriate, because of course we're doing a general episode, this should be appropriate for about 80 % of the people watching this. If you follow this, you're going to see really good results and you're going to feel good. And it's not going to feel like you're beating the crap out of yourself. One of the big mistakes people make in all age groups when they start a workout is they over-apply everything, thinking that that's going to get them faster results. That's not true at all. Some of the considerations that we need to take when constructing a routine around somebody over the age of 50, well, one, joint issues and pain is a bigger consideration.

7:25Adam Schafer:Okay. That's a fact. So we pick exercises or we pick movements where that becomes less of an issue. There's going to be exercises in here that are effective, that give you great results, that build strength and muscle and speed up the metabolism and help balance out your hormones, that tend to be easier on the joints. And we picked exercises where we're not trading results for safety. Sometimes that's what happens, right? The best exercise is over here. but I have to really take away the, in order to make it safe, I'm also taking away its effectiveness. That's not necessarily true with a lot of movements.

8:00Adam Schafer:So we picked exercises that are safer, less likely to cause pain. Many people watch this. Most people watching this, so long as you don't have major injuries are going to be able to perform these movements and get phenomenal results. Here's another truth, by the way, as you get older. I did say that your ultimate potential definitely reduces as you get older. I don't think I need to make that case. However, this is also a fact. A fit 25-year-old is only this much different than an average 25-year-old. There's definitely a difference, but it's not a huge difference. When you're 50, 60, 70 and you're fit, the difference between you and your peers is massive.

8:41Adam Schafer:It's massive. A 55-year-old that does things right, that exercises, that takes care of themselves in the right ways, like we're going to talk about, is so different from their 55-year-old peers who don't do these things. They almost appear to be in a different universe. And that's the thing that you need to consider here is when you start to do this and you start to become more fit, watch what happens over the course of six months and a year. Look at yourself versus your peers who aren't doing this, and they're going to be blown away.

9:09Sal Di Stefano:A fit 55 to 60-year-old is in better health and condition than an average 30-year-old. That's right. I mean, that's - The evidence shows that. Think about that. You could be 55 years old or above and be healthier, fitter, stronger, better shape, all the markers than the average 30-year-old. That's right. And you can control that. That's right. And doing the - I love the exercises you picked. I looked at the stuff that you did. And it does really open it for everybody, right? But you hear on this podcast a lot, we talk about the benefits of barbell back squats and barbell deadlifts and just how that's such a great movement, the biggest bang for your buck.

9:50Sal Di Stefano:But in reality, when you go back to our list of clients that we've all trained, there was a big percentage of them that I couldn't start there. We had to work to that. And sometimes it took years to even get to a place where we could do that. And so the plan that you put together right now looks more realistic to the average beginning program that I started a lot of people on before I could ever get them to ultimately those things.

10:16Adam Schafer:Right. So the workout is going to be, uh, consist of two days of strength training, full body. Now you might be thinking, is that enough? Yes. In fact, it's more than enough. Two days a week of full body, effective strength training. By the way, effective doesn't mean you beat the crap out of yourself either. Effective just means effective. two days a week of, in combination with daily activity, which we'll get to as well, but two days a week of structured strength training, full body, done properly, will build phenomenal muscle, will build phenomenal strength, will help your metabolism move in a faster position or place so you can burn more body fat.

10:52Adam Schafer:It's full body, two days a week. And if you're listening to this and you don't think it's enough, trust me, try it yourself. Try it for 60 days and see what happens. You'll get stronger on a regular basis, on a consistent basis following this program.

11:04Sal Di Stefano:I want to comment on something I'm sure you'd get around to saying, if so, I'm going to beat you to it. Because I know one of the questions that people get after we lay out the exercises and kind of the program is, well, what weight do I choose? What do I do? Approach it with just practice. Do not overthink the amount of weight you need to do. And like, is that important? It's like, if we haven't been doing any of these movements, pick a very light and easy weight and just go practice the movement. Go get good at the movement. that especially in those first couple months is going to take you so far if you're not doing any of these things and i start you off really light and easy and it's really just go there and practice these movement you're going to see so many you're still going to build muscle just from that that's just from that without because i know that that's the next hurdle that people get is like okay got it here's the exercises well how much weight do i do and how hard do i have to push it's like don't think like that this is one of those situations too where yeah you pick the lighter weight, but also you can control your effort with that movement.

12:03And what I mean by that is really increasing your tension, your contraction of your muscle, you can intrinsically create a bit more effort and output that way, which is a safer way to do it, which then also increases your strength and then naturally will allow you to then pick a heavier load.

12:20Adam Schafer:Right. So what it's going to look like, so here's some metrics for you. Number one, you should feel better at the end of the workout than you did in the beginning. Okay, so when you're doing this workout, if at the end of the workout, you feel like you survived it, you feel like you beat yourself up, you went too hard. You should feel good. At the end of it, you should feel like, man, you know what? I feel energized. That means you had a good workout. Now, the workout will be challenging. You should challenge yourself, but don't go beyond challenging yourself. Pick weights that are kind of hard, but ones that allow you to, like Adam said, practice the movement and have good, perfect technique.

12:54Adam Schafer:Okay? Both workouts are full body. We're going to go through day one first and both workouts start with a lower body exercise. And typically what you do when you train full body is you start with the larger muscle groups and you move to the smaller muscle groups. Now, why is that? Well, one of the reasons is small muscle groups are involved often in the larger muscle group exercises. You don't want to fatigue them before you need to, number one. Number two, you want to do the harder exercise at the beginning when you have the most energy and end with the ones that require the least amount of energy.

13:27Adam Schafer:So let's start with day one. So day one, we're going to do a leg exercise, and you're going to start by pushing a sled. Pushing a sled is an exceptional way to build strength and muscle in the lower body. It's also simultaneously incredibly functional. It's one of the few lower body exercises that doesn't just involve the upper leg, but it involves the lower leg and the foot. You're extending all the way through. You're on the balls of your feet and you're pushing. There is no negative portion of the rep. So when you're lifting a weight, the positive portion would be me curling a weight. The negative is me lowering it with resistance.

14:01Adam Schafer:Lowering a weight causes more damage and soreness. Pushing a sled - More stress around the joint. There is no negative. It's just pushing. So what you want to do is you want to get yourself a sled. Most gyms have them. Load it with some weight. You want to challenge yourself a little bit. And you want to push it for about 20 to 30 steps. That's how you do this exercise. And it's a great lower body exercise. and you want to do it for three sets, three rounds. By the way, in between each set, you should rest around two minutes, okay? You're not trying to go through every exercise one after another.

14:31Adam Schafer:This is strength training, not cardio training. We're trying to build muscle. The rest in between sets is what makes it strength training. It's what builds the muscle. If you don't rest, what you're going to get is stamina, which is okay if that's what you want, but you're going to miss out on the muscle building, metabolism boosting, hormone balancing effects that strength training provides.

14:49Sal Di Stefano:And to emphasize what Justin said, as you go through choosing the weight. Again, don't overthink that. Choose a weight that's somewhat challenging, but what you can do is do long, slow strides to emphasize the intensity. Then you also get the extra benefits of really kind of challenging your mobility, priming yourself nice and slow and controlled. You can intensify it without adding more load to it, so don't overthink. How much weight do I put on this sled? You can always slow it down and take longer, deeper strides. That's how I would approach this slow push.

15:21Adam Schafer:So three sets of that. Next, we're going to move to a chest exercise. I chose incline dumbbell chest press. I like the incline because it puts the shoulders in a better position than a flat bench. A flat bench is fine as well. It's just a little bit more technical. Some people have issues with that, especially when they first start exercising. And laying flat on your back can be an issue for beginners sometimes. For sometimes laying on your back can cause issues where you need to get back up. Getting down with dumbbells can be difficult. Incline is a little bit more, a little easier. And so with an incline dumbbell chest press, you are working the shoulders, the triceps, and the chest.

15:56Adam Schafer:And again, you want to do three sets. Rep-wise, I think if the reps are anywhere between 8 to 15, we're perfectly fine. I don't care if it's 8, I don't care if it's 15, but keep it within that range. Lower than 8, higher than 15. Now we're moving out of what I would be considering effective at this point with the repetition.

16:14Sal Di Stefano:And just so the audience knows, every single exercise that we talk about or describe today, you can go to the Mind Pump YouTube channel, put in on YouTube, put in Mind Pump and then the exercise, and you will see us teaching and performing this exercise. So if you need a video demonstration of what the form and technique looks like with coaching cues, it's on our YouTube channel. It's absolutely free. You literally would just put in Mind Pump and then the exercise that we are mentioning right now, and then you'll see the breakdown. Yeah, I love that you picked the incline especially because one of the biggest problems we see is this protraction of the shoulder, which causes some pain there to occur.

16:53So to be able to naturally allow those gravity to kind of pull and set you in that better position with your shoulders, the incline bench is preferable for that.

17:02Adam Schafer:Yes. Next up are cable rows. I love this exercise for everybody. Now with a cable row, you want to sit nice and tall. And what you want to imagine is you want to bring your shoulder blades together and down, right? You want to fight the urge to shrug your shoulders, and definitely don't let your shoulders roll forward. You're pulling the handle to your belly, squeezing the shoulders back and down. This is a posture exercise. It strengthens the muscles of the back, in particular the mid-back muscles, and people benefit greatly from this, especially people in this age group. This will make you feel taller if you do this properly.

17:37Adam Schafer:You'll stand up and feel so good from doing this one. Next up, standing shoulder dumbbell press. This is just standing straight up, taking a pair of dumbbells, pressing them up nice and tall and bringing them down all the way. This is a shoulder and tricep exercise. And then we're going to finish off with some easier movements. Dumbbell curls, a tricep press down. I chose a press down because that tends to be easiest on the elbows. Sometimes overhead movements with triceps can cause people elbow pain. So pressing straight down, perfectly fine. And then you're going to do a plank. So a plank is where you hold yourself in this elevated position on your forearms, tuck your tailbone a little bit and hold this for 20, 30, or 60 seconds.

18:17Adam Schafer:What we're trying to do here is build strength and stability in the core, which is going to help support your low back. And I chose a plank because it's a safer exercise for the low back for a lot of people. I like that you're challenging the standing. I mean, to regress that though, just to be safe, if like there's any stress in the lower back and you don't know how to brace properly, You can always sit and do the shoulder press that way. You can even kneel, which I would even prefer, do a kneeling shoulder press.

18:45Sal Di Stefano:And then the plank, although probably sounds like the most basic of all these movements, I would highly recommend watching the YouTube video that Sal teaches the plank on that YouTube channel because I do think this is a commonly misdone exercise in the gym. You see people tend to arch their low back and so we tend to coach with like this tucking of the tailbone exaggerating that a little bit because i think it's not only is it it's safer it's more proper and it engages the core so you're not resting the weight on the low back which tends to be how most people do this exercise so even though that seems basic most people go oh i know what a plank is and they just get down and

19:26Adam Schafer:do it watch that video yeah next up we have a deadlift but i picked a trap bar deadlift way less potential strain on the low back. It's far less technical. It's easier to do, but it's still a deadlift. It's still a great deadlift exercise. And it's one that is exceptional at building the strength of the low back, the glutes, the hips, the hamstrings. A trap bar is just the bar that you stand inside of. Handles are at your size. Nice neutral grip, which I always love. Brace your core, stand up with it, put it down. Here's a mistake a lot of people make. They go up and down real fast. Bring it down to the floor.

20:02Adam Schafer:Let it sit on the floor for a good second or two. Pause. Brace your core. Come back up. That's how you do a rep. Three sets.

20:09Sal Di Stefano:Such a great entry-level hinge movement, right? There's no way we build a program that doesn't have some sort of a hinge in there. This is probably the safest entry-level place to take everybody from. And you can get really strong, tremendous benefit from it. And it is the natural regression to a traditional type of a deadlift.

20:27Adam Schafer:Next up is a push-up. Now, of course, you can go on the floor and do push-ups. And if you can do push-ups that way, that's great. But a lot of you might not be able to. Elevate yourself. Elevate. Elevate. On top of a bench. So what this would look like is my hands are on a bench, or I can use a bar on a squat rack or a Smith machine. I can lift it up as much as I need to where I'm not bending over quite that much. And the reason why I like push-ups is it involves core stability. I got to brace my core while I do this. Very functional chest, shoulder, and tricep exercise.

20:55Sal Di Stefano:This is actually my favorite way to use the Smith machine. I prefer it actually to a bench because it's nice to get that firm grip. And you have all the levels. So I could take a client. I mean, I could take a client who cannot. I mean, I've had clients so deconditioned that just pushing their body weight off a wall is challenging enough. So taking somebody on a Smith machine where they're this angle and then here, then here, and then you could progress them very nicely. And what a great way to show that client who couldn't do that, that progression to where they eventually can do a traditional push-up.