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Wednesday, October 13. 2021

Do Older People Need Longer to Recover from Exercise?

Here's an addendum to my past post about recovery: Do Older People Need Longer to Recover from Exercise?


What is "older"? But anyway, generally the answer is no, especially once you are into a month or so of a daily fitness program.  Nobody can benefit from heavy deadlifts every day, or HIIT every day. For general fitness (maybe not for master athletes in training), mixing it up for an hour or so daily works best.


At any age, get your 20 gms or so of protein after a workout. It can't hurt. 

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Physical Fitness at 13:29 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

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> What is "older"?

The definition that people involved in seriously competitive sports uses as "older" is different from what the general population would consider "older". In my early 50s I am considered "older" in most traditional amateur sports, and there are almost no profession athletes in that range.

In swimming "masters" starts at 25 years old. In Track and Field, bicycling and weight lifting it starts at 35.

OTOH, I'm about in the middle of folks who I see at the gym where most are in their 60s to 80s.

So when you're reading studies about "older" athletes you really need to sort that out.

> But anyway, generally the answer is no, especially once you are into a month or so of a daily fitness program.

The answer is "yes", for for broad age ranges.

Males in their late teens, fed a proper diet, recover like crazy from hard exercise and many actually can benefit from heavy deadlifts daily. Probably not 7 days a week, but more often than 2-3 times a week.

It's different for everyone, but sometime between 25 and 45 your body stops rebuilding as well, flexibility starts to go, recovering from injuries takes longer, and as the article you reference notes:

QUOTE:
Muscle biopsies done over the following days revealed that the older participants had significantly lower muscle protein synthesis than the younger ones. Some other studies have yielded similar findings.


Not only is muscle protein synthesis slower/lower than in younger athletes, so is amino acid absorption in the gut.

For the vast majority of people they simply cannot exercise as hard or as frequently in their 60s as they did in their late teens.
#1 William O. B'Livion on 2020-01-24 16:22 (Reply)
This topic is way too nuanced to address in this type of forum.

What I would suggest, is to visit the Barbell Medicine website, and read their well researched material on training, as well as nutrition.

Most people, of all age cohorts, are under trained. It's not just a matter of eating more and working harder. It's training efficiently, and eating appropriately in furtherance of your goals.

The material is very approachable, and definitely of benefit to this community.
#2 browndog on 2020-01-24 19:34 (Reply)
That site is not set up well, unfortunately.
#2.1 Bird Dog on 2020-01-25 08:58 (Reply)
I will grant you that.

Try the videos on YouTube.
#2.1.1 browndog on 2020-01-25 20:26 (Reply)
I am 61. Do I recover slower now after a heavy set of deads than when I was 20? I do think so. But, also I have more past muscle tears and tendon injuries that I am dealing with than when I was 20. From everything that I have read lately I do think recovery slows as we age. Our muscle protein synthesis slows so it would stand to reason that recovery from lifting stress would slow as well. I have been following the work of Dr. Ted Naiman and Dr. Gabrielle Lyon(who worked in geriatric center). Dr. Lyon recommends adults over 40 eat at least 50 grams of high quality(beef) protein to get the leucine for muscle synthesis. https://drgabriellelyon.com/blog/ Stan Efferding, Mark Rippitoe and Dr. Sullivan also addres lifting for the older athelete. https://www.greysteel.org/
#3 Brad on 2020-01-25 09:50 (Reply)
If it's appropriate for Bliss to ask, "What is 'older'?", it is equally appropriate to respond the the assertion by Bliss that 'nobody can benefit from heavy deadlifts every day' by asking "What is 'heavy'?"

In response to the question of whether older people need longer to recover from exercise, the answer is that once we get past a certain age (somewhere between 25 - 35 for most people), we do need longer to recover...if we are engaging in a program where we are pushing ourselves. If you're just taking a leisurely stroll around the block and not really taxing yourself, you probably don't need long to recover....but you probably won't make much progress, either.

As you get older, you can beat yourself up as fast as the young guys, but the recovery slope isn't as rapid. If a 18-25 year old guy is lifting total body 3X each week, a 60 year old guy can do a "similar" workout, but should reduce the volume (volume is the enemy as we age) and may need to add in an extra recovery day periodically.

Ideally, you want to maintain the frequency of workouts, but guys tend to push themselves and overdo the volume resulting in a need for extra recovery.

HINT: If you find you need extra recovery days, you might make better progress is you reduce the volume while maintaining intensity and frequency of workouts.

OLD FARTS:
Intensity and frequency: GOOD
Volume: BAD
#4 mike on 2021-10-13 22:50 (Reply)

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