A lot of our clients are over 60, and many of them are early retirees. They often hear how good strength training is for folks over 60, because:

  • They have ambitious retirement plans, and they need the strength and energy to be able to carry them out whether thats helping out with the grandkids, travelling, taking care of a sick spouse or parent, volunteering for things that are meaningful to them (church, entrepreneurship, charities, etc.), gardening, or something else.
  • They want to avoid chronic pain that some of their peers experience.
  • They know that now its their time they can take care of themselves better.
  • It improves their physical and mental health.
  • Greater upper body strength, so that your activities of daily living don’t take too much out of them.
  • They want to put on (or at least maintain) lean muscle mass, to prevent age-related deterioration in their health.

But there are a few problems:

  1. They believe a lot of myths that simply arent true about strength training (like building muscle, and so on).
  2. They dont know where to start.
  3. Most resources on strength training (AKA “resistance training” AKA “weight training”. The 3 terms will be used interchangeably here) are written for the under-60 crowd, so even if they were to follow the advice in those resources, they might either get hurt, or get sub-optimal results.

Thats why I decided to write this article to be one of the most comprehensive resources around on strength training for people over 60.

strength training over 60
Original source: here.

In this article, Ill cover:

  • Can 60-year-olds build muscle? And if so, how much?
  • Does aging affect your speed of muscle gain?
  • How much muscle is lost due to aging vs. disuse?
  • How building muscle is different after 60.
  • Is there a higher injury risk for people over 60?
  • Actual resistance training exercises.

But if you want less theory, and something specific designed personally for you, we have a special program called Strong After 60. If you want to see whether you qualify to take part in this program, just fill out the application form on our home page.

Can 60-Year-Olds Build Muscle?

                Unlike most of my answers, which are it depends (not satisfying, I know), this one is an unequivocal yes!

                However, there is one caveat, and that is this how close a person is to their genetic potential in terms of muscle.

                In other words, your chronological age matters a whole lot less than your training age. A 60-year-old who has never strength trained before can put on way more muscle than a 30-year-old with 10 years of correct and progressive weight training under his/her belt. Why? Because the 30-year-old in this case has a training age of 10 years. The 60-year-old has a training age of well zilch. The less trained you are, the greater your potential to gain both strength and muscle.

                Thats one of the reasons why many of our over-60 clients gain muscle and strength so quickly because theyve never done it before.

                In one study that went on for 6 months, there were 2 groups of people:

  • Group 1: men and women between ages 20-30
  • Group 2: men and women between ages 65-75

Both groups did the exact same strength training program, and after 6 months, both groups gained the same amount of muscle.

And this is not just one isolated study. Study after study after study show the same thing: people over 60 can gain just as much muscle as people under 60. So lets lay that myth to rest.

However, we need to dissociate muscle size and muscle strength they are not the same thing. Muscle size can increase virtually identically between younger people, and those over 60. But muscle strength increases to a greater extent in younger individuals.

I can hear some readers thinking so why dont you see many folks over 60 with appreciable amounts of muscle? There are a couple reasons:

  1. Fewer folks over 60 deliberately try to gain muscle in the way that someone in their 20s and 30s might.
  2. People over 60 dress more conservatively than kids in their 20s and 30s so you might just not notice the muscle that they do have. Though nowadays, with the advent of social media, you can see more and more people 60+ who are showing off some good amounts of muscle, especially on Instagram the narcissists social network

Does Aging Affect Your Speed of Muscle Gain?

                You might be thinking people over 60 can put on the same amount of muscle as those under 60. But does it happen slower?

                No again. Their rate of muscle gain is virtually identical to their younger counterparts. In the previously-mentioned studies, the over-60 crowd built the same amount of muscle in the same period of time as the under-60 crowd. So lets lay this myth to bed as well.

How Much Muscle is Lost Due to Aging vs. Disuse?

                At this point, the savvy reader might be putting some pieces together those over 60 can put on the same amount of muscle, with the same speed as younger individuals. So how much muscle loss is actually due to aging vs. disuse?

                Theres no denying it aging does play a role in muscle loss, but a whole lot less than simple disuse. If you dont use your muscles as you age, you lose them. If you use your muscles as you age, you keep them. Case in point Gord, who started working with us when he was 70, was featured in my blog at 76 (when he was stronger than he was at 70), and now, at 82, hasnt lost a step.

                How do we know that disuse is far more responsible for muscle loss, compared to actual aging? From studies on people who never stopped exercising from age 40-81. The 81 year olds had very similar amounts of muscle mass as 40-year-olds if they never stopped exercising.

                Here again, we must dissociate muscle mass from performance. Of course, sport performance declines between 40 and 81. These 81-year-olds ran slower, lifted less weight, and didnt go as far in terms of distance as the young punks. But they maintained their muscle mass.

How Building Muscle is Different After 60

                Hopefully what youve read so far is encouraging to you, but you must be thinking surely, there have to be some differences between the best way to build muscle after 60, compared to before 60.

 Well, my friend, there are a few differences.

                One of the things that happens with age is something called anabolic resistance. Just like you can get insulin resistance, where the body ignores the message of insulin, you can get anabolic resistance, where your body ignores anabolic stimuli. What does the word anabolic mean? Simply muscle-building.

                And what are these anabolic stimuli?

  • Protein
  • Strength training (whether that’s lifting weights, your own bodyweight, resistance bands, etc.)
  • Testosterone for men, and testosterone, estrogen and growth hormone for women

How do we overcome anabolic resistance? There are a few different strategies that can be used. In no particular order:

Eat More Protein

                Whenever I talk to clients or audience members, I feel like a broken record, because one of my most common recommendations is to eat more protein!!!

                How much protein do you need?

  • A sedentary individual under 60 needs about 1.2 grams/kg/day
  • Someone under 60 who does only cardio (no strength training) needs about 1.2-1.6 grams/kg/day
  • Someone under 60 who does strength training (or a combination of cardio and strength training) needs 1.8-2.2 grams/kg/day.

Someone over 60 needs 50% more than someone under 60. Why? Because their absorption of protein is lower, so they need more of it.

The great irony is that despite their protein requirement being higher, their desire for it is lower. Yeah, life is cruel. If youre wondering what are the best sources of protein?, I cover those in this article.

Have Larger Meals

                Instead of having 4-5 small meals per day, after 60, its better to have 2-3 larger meals per day, so you can get in more protein per meal.

                Once you cross a certain level of dietary protein, muscle protein synthesis begins. In younger individuals, that level is 20 grams of protein per meal. According to this study, in those over 60, its 45 grams/meal.

                So youd need to have more protein per meal, in order to hit the 45 gram/meal minimum.

More Sets Per Muscle Group

                When youre lifting weights, because theres less of a response to muscle-building stimuli, you need more sets per exercise/muscle to cross the threshold of whats required to build muscle.

                Yep you have to do more when you get older not less, according to this meta-analysis.

                But Igor, my ability to recover from exercise isnt the same as a 25-year-olds, I can hear you thinking. Au contraire.

                This was a commonly-held belief, until it was put to the test. In one study, researchers divided participants into 2 groups:

  • Group 1: ages 18-30
  • Group 2: over 70

Both groups underwent the exact same workout, and the measures for recovery were analyzed afterwards, and heres what they found:

  • There were no differences in hormone levels (cortisol, testosterone, etc.) between the 2 groups after the workout.
  • There were no differences in markers of inflammation (strength training is designed to induce inflammation in the short-term).
  • The most important one: there were no differences in force production after exercise.

Another study gave the same workout to 20, 50, and 70-year-olds, and they measured how long it took each of the 3 groups to recover their ability to produce force. All 3 groups took the exact same time.

The overall lesson of all of this: those over 60 have an almost equal recovery capability to younger folks. A lot of the things that we attribute to aging are more correctly attributed to disuse.

Injury Risk for People Over 60

                So far, youve learned that those over 60 can to a great extent retain a lot of their muscle mass, as long as they continue strength training, and eating the required amount of protein. You also learned that they can recover basically just as fast as younger individuals.

                So should they lift weights the same way as younger individuals? To a great extent, yes, but with one small exception dont go as heavy.

                Heavy is really relative to your own abilities. In strength training, how heavy something is is defined based on percentage of someones maximal weight they can lift for one repetition.

                So if the maximal amount of weight that someone can lift for one time is 100 pounds, they should stay below 80 pounds the majority of the time. They can occasionally venture above 80% of their max, but not very frequently.

                Why avoid going as heavy as younger individuals? Because although muscle mass can be maintained to a great extent, tendons and ligaments do lose their strength, according to this study. In general, tendons and ligaments are a lot stronger than muscles. But with age, they become just a little stronger than muscles, creating a greater risk of injury.

                The solution is simple: dont go as heavy, as often.

                Any adjustments to exercises themselves should really be based on joint pain, not on age. A 30-year-old with joint pain would get different exercises than a 70-year-old without joint pain. Age and joint pain are not synonymous, hence the need to individualize exercise programs.

                Having said that, there does tend to be more joint pain in older individuals, and if you want to learn how to modify exercises to make them hard on the muscles, but easy on the joints, check out my article on joint-friendly strength training. After all, there’s more than 1 proper exercise technique for each exercise. There’s no real “textbook proper form”, because bodies are different.

Strength Training Over 60: The Exercises

                Ill bet that you probably decided to read this article, where the first (and maybe only) question on your mind is what strength training exercises should I do if Im over 60? Yet, you got so much more than that.

                But I have to make you wait a little longer, before giving you the exercises (dont worry, theyre coming).

                Lets put the exercises themselves in the proper context. I get that its called an exercise program, but yet, exercises are only the 4th most important variable in an exercises program. There are 3 variables even more important than the exercises themselves, but I discuss those in my article on the most important factor in an exercise program, so if youre curious, go check it out.

                And now, drumroll please!

                Its time for the best strength training exercises (both upper body and lower) for people over 60 to use in their exercise routine. This is not a comprehensive list, but they are:

If all of this sounds too complicated for you, and youd like to have something personalized designed for your body, we have a special program called Strong After 60. If you want to see whether you qualify to take part in this program, just fill out the application form on our home page.