I grew my butt too big. And I don't like it.

[lreidgreen]

Originally Posted by rhbrand

I think this is why I want as much muscle as I can. I've worked as an RN in long term care aka nursing homes, long enough to see that besides dementia, just being to damn weak to get yourself on and off the toilet, a chair, your bed, etc is the main reason women end up in nursing homes. If lifting heavy and gaining muscle will keep me from ever ending up in a nursing home with someone else holding me up and wiping my butt, I'll gain as much muscle as I can! Yes, any exercise will help, but well, if heavy squats now mean in 40 years I can lower myself on the toilet and stand up off it, I'll do it!

My mom is in a nursing home and yes, 95% of the residents there are not ambulatory including my mom. She was never active although she wasn't overweight. I love to exercise anyway but avoiding being totally dependent on others as I age is a huge motivator.

Originally Posted by PhyllisG

I am with you on this. Cathe talked about this in her most recent newsletter. She claims to gain and keep strength without building mass use heavy weight keeping to fewer reps like five and doing like 3 sets. Heavy as you can go.
.

Yes I believe the information I read from experts in the strength training community is that you work the low reps/high weights to gain strength and the high reps for hypertrophy which is what the bodybuilders use. When I was lifting pretty heavy with relatively lower reps, my legs were muscular but not bulky.

[Sara1000]

Great thread! I would love to have a bigger more muscular rear but have always had much difficulty building bulk anywhere. So I content myself with building/maintaining strength and flexibility into older age and don't forget aerobic capacity - maintaining strength of heart and lungs. Every aspect of fitness is important!

[lreidgreen]

Originally Posted by PhyllisG

I wanted to add another thought.....flexibility. As you age this becomes just as important as strength. I find myself concentrating on this more and more. When I was younger I did a lot of yoga and then concentrated more on Cathe strength and aerobics...lots of step. Now I found myself really wanting and enjoying doing yoga again on a daily basis. First thing in the morning actually. Yoga really does combine flexibility and strength without the use of weights. I can especially feel it in my legs and glutes. I also feel that staying fit as you age involves more than just how much you can lift but on how physically active you are each day. Nutrition becomes even more important.
Personally for me bigger muscles are not the only answer. You need flexibility too.

Funny I was just thinking about this the other day. I was working out in my home gym and couldn't motivate myself to do my usual strength training for some reason, probably boredom. I have been doing the same thing for months and haven't had enough time to plan another rotation. Anyway I was doing some mobility exercises and "fun" kind of stuff like rolling, and crawling and getting up from sitting etc. Kind of playing around like a kid (research Original Strength to see the kind of things I was doing.) At first I felt bad about being "lazy" but then I though how I really need to work on flexibility and how that really was as important as strength. I have definitely been neglecting working on flexibility. And yes, yoga can build strength too. If you follow Katy Bowman she says exercise is good but "movement" and lots of it is more important. Walking, getting on the floor in different positions, being able to get up, hanging from trees/monkey bars/ pull up bars etc. She calls this "nutritious movement." I am trying to add hanging from my pull up bar to my routine. I would like to progress to swinging from monkey bars.
Regarding yoga. Think about that 96 year old woman who teaches yoga Tao-Porchon Lynch. I bet you she is plenty strong.

[Jeanne Marie]

As someone who has a tough time putting on muscle, I agree with those who are saying "embrace the muscle". However, I understand that we all have preferences of how we want to look.

As I age, I see so many contemporaries who are weak, women who have low bone density, etc. It makes me very happy that I know the secret.... weight training! I try my best to tell younger women that it really is a sort of "fountain of youth". It keeps us strong and able to be functionally fit as we age. It keeps us from having weak bones. It makes us look better. There are so many positives.

I have a friend who is my age (late 50s) and she recently told me that after a bone density scan she was diagnosed with osteopenia. Her doctor immediately put her on one of the super calcium supplements. She has had horrible side effects. He never once suggested to her that she try weight training. I just don't get it.

[lreidgreen]

Jeanne, I agree. I go in and out of osteopenia. My first test at age 40 showed low bone density. I started weight lifting and the subsequent test showed an improvement and I was no longer in that osteopenia range. Several tests after that I was below "ideal" but not by much.
I am proud to say that the last bone density test I had in May showed that the bone density in my hip improved to the point that I no longer have osteopenia. My doctor was very impressed and a bit surprised especially because I do not take calcium supplements. I think doctors do not even know about the benefits of strength training or tend to think that supplementation or Rx drugs are more effective. Drugs and vitamins certainly are a more "convenient" treatment. Maybe doctors don't want to tell patients they have to move because they expect push-back. I don't know but they need to be educated about the benefits.

[Tugger31]

I know how you feel when you say you don't care for your bulky frame. I've done alot of research on that topic and it is definitely hard to find info on reducing size while maintaining strength. I found plenty of articles on reducing size alone. Simply stop lifting and let your muscles atrophy. From my research, what I found was to accomplish size reduction AND maintaining strength is to do mod/heavy weights, but only 3-5 reps per body part with log rests between sets. Go just short of failure. The article said that it's high volume and lifting close to failure (whether failure by weight or by rep count) not necessarily heavy weight alone that causes muscle hypertrophy. And, by high volume the author of the article also said that even light-moderate weights can cause bigger muscles if done with enough reps, though you may not necessarily gain strength.

The article also went into the importance of working the Posterior Chain in particular since more people tend to focus on the muscles they see, ie. front of the shoulders, chest and quads. Neglecting the posterior chain (back, glutes, hamstrings) leads to muscle imbalance and problems with posture and mobility as we age. Take notice of how many older/elderly people have stooped shoulders and totally flat butts!! I never realized how common it was. There is a high correlation with this psosture and weakness as we age. The more ambulatory, fit elderly tend to have better postures and rounder behinds.

[Jeanne Marie]

Originally Posted by lreidgreen

Jeanne, I agree. I go in and out of osteopenia. My first test at age 40 showed low bone density. I started weight lifting and the subsequent test showed an improvement and I was no longer in that osteopenia range. Several tests after that I was below "ideal" but not by much.
I am proud to say that the last bone density test I had in May showed that the bone density in my hip improved to the point that I no longer have osteopenia. My doctor was very impressed and a bit surprised especially because I do not take calcium supplements. I think doctors do not even know about the benefits of strength training or tend to think that supplementation or Rx drugs are more effective. Drugs and vitamins certainly are a more "convenient" treatment. Maybe doctors don't want to tell patients they have to move because they expect push-back. I don't know but they need to be educated about the benefits.

My first bone density scan at age 40 also showed osteopenia. I do take regular calcium, but not the heavy duty calcium that cause so many problems for women. (Boniva, etc.) I haven't gotten to the "non osteopenia" stage, but in 19 years I haven't gotten any worse, so I figure that's a testament to my weight training success. And I agree with you... maybe doctors know that many women would rather take a pill than do something that involves hard work (weight training). I know when I made the suggestion to my friend that she try weights instead of the medication that is giving her problems, she said she "didn't have time". Sigh.

Originally Posted by Tugger31

The article also went into the importance of working the Posterior Chain in particular since more people tend to focus on the muscles they see, ie. front of the shoulders, chest and quads. Neglecting the posterior chain (back, glutes, hamstrings) leads to muscle imbalance and problems with posture and mobility as we age. Take notice of how many older/elderly people have stooped shoulders and totally flat butts!! I never realized how common it was. There is a high correlation with this psosture and weakness as we age. The more ambulatory, fit elderly tend to have better postures and rounder behinds.

YES! This! I see it too... such bad posture of so many people in general. I've noticed it seems to be the very young or the very old. I see so many young girls who slump. I don't know if it's supposed to be a statement... like I'm "slouchy" because I'm cool (LOL!), or if they really don't understand how important posture is. My mom was adamant that my sister and I "stand up straight". She was always telling us how important it was. Thank goodness for her. I am conscious of it to this day, 50+ years later. I do not want to be a little old lady with rounded, humped over shoulders. I'm pretty close to being a little old lady, but at least I am standing straight.

[Tugger31]

I agree, I see it much more commonly in the youngsters too. I'm sure some has to do with the less fit trend going on with this country and probably alot to do with slouching over cel phones and gadgets!

[gladgirl]

Originally Posted by PhyllisG

I also feel that staying fit as you age involves more than just how much you can lift but on how physically active you are each day. Nutrition becomes even more important.
Personally for me bigger muscles are not the only answer. You need flexibility too.

I was just talking to an exercise instructor who mentioned it is "more important for the 50-80 yrs old crowd to exercise than the 20-40yr crowd" and I am finding this to be sooooo true. Overall move more, overall eat less but more nutritious foods and exercise for muscle and flexibility. I find that even though I am more muscular...with age it seems to disappear quicker than in my youth. It sure gets replaced with fat at a much quicker rate than in my younger days when muscle memory seemed to be in my favor. Flexibility is something I always meant to fit in somehow, but usually never did. I always preferred weights to cardio. Now the ignoring flexibility part is biting me in the butt...literally pain there and in my back. I am relearning how to workout and stay strong and flexible.

[Chomper]

Originally Posted by PhyllisG

I wanted to add another thought.....flexibility. As you age this becomes just as important as strength. I find myself concentrating on this more and more. When I was younger I did a lot of yoga and then concentrated more on Cathe strength and aerobics...lots of step. Now I found myself really wanting and enjoying doing yoga again on a daily basis. First thing in the morning actually. Yoga really does combine flexibility and strength without the use of weights. I can especially feel it in my legs and glutes. I also feel that staying fit as you age involves more than just how much you can lift but on how physically active you are each day. Nutrition becomes even more important.
Personally for me bigger muscles are not the only answer. You need flexibility too.

I am going to quibble with this statement a bit, but with the admission that I am basing my objections on having read Gretchen Reynold's The First Twenty Minutes, a book about recent scientific studies on fitness and health. So, I am not a scientist with a sound knowledge of the basic literature in this field. if you have links to educate me, please share them. But from that book, I walked away with the decided impression that muscle mass and strength is the most important factor for longevity and quality of life into old age, and has indeed been described as the fountain of youth. (i am sure there is a point of diminishing returns with muscle, and that the bodybuilders have no more benefits than someone with an athletic body type).

Flexibility is considered mostly genetic, and while a lot of people would benefit from making the effort to increase their flexibility a little bit, it was mainly to prevent injuries and bad backs, etc. I'm just reporting what I read in the book. I would not be surprised if very little research is done on flexibility vs. strength and cardio, so maybe there are interesting discoveries waiting to be uncovered. But I feel like the science is not there yet. I like to think of flexibility as part of mobility, which a lot of fitness people do now, and I do consider mobility very important to daily functioning as well as to strength training and cardio training safely. I also think yoga is awesome, and as you say, combines flexibility and strengthening work. I have always taken time to stretch thoroughly after strength workouts, so I have pretty good flexibility and mobility. That's probably why I am having trouble seeing strength and flexibility as an either/or situation.