Building Muscle After 50

Building Muscle After 50
Many individuals when cross 50, they start to believe that they have passed their prime time to gain muscle. They then unfortunately abandon the idea of muscle-building entirely, without realizing that at their age strength and muscles-health become even more important. Gaining lean muscle mass to your frame at this stage is even more beneficial than those who are in their early 20s or 30s because aesthetics aside, that muscle will help you to maintain an active lifestyle into the latter years. Tricks To Building Muscle Mass And Mistakes to Avoid For Elderly I am tired of hearing that you need to moderate your life and take it easy as you grow old so you don’t get hurt or throw out your back. But have you ever noticed that such advice mostly comes from other old guys with big guts and bad backs. Just because you find yourself in a state of sub-optimal fitness doesn’t mean you are condemned to a mediocre finish in life. Read on here three most common mistakes that occur about bodybuilding over 50 years of age and three most effective tricks for building muscle mass after 50. Mistake # 1: Thinking like a helpless old guy. You have to shun this attitude like the plague. Don’t listen to what the guys with guts, bad backs and skinny physique say. Neither you should act like an old man nor should you ever believe that you cannot be strong again. If you just act like old, I guarantee you that you will look and get old sooner. People who think they are old, they stop running, exercising and so slither into “bad back” mind set. Old age phobia creeps in to their head. They get tired soon and sink into whining mode. Remember it’s a classic Catch-22. Trick # 1: If you desire to gain muscle, start acting like a young guy who aspires to impress girls. Come on, this is a mental game! If you yearn for packing some muscle you have to perform strength training workouts, lifting weights or do some type of resistance exercises. It’s vital even if you have never weight lifted before, you now take the time to start doing so. You can perform any number of resistance exercises by using your own body weight such as pull-ups, push-ups, dips, squats and rows. These are typically excellent starting point to get you back into training if you are just getting going again or have not done strength training before. But make no mistake; if you aspire to step up adding muscle mass after 50 years of age, you need to lift heavy weights. The trick is to lift heavy things. And, heavy is a relative term. Heavy in the sense what you can lift for 5 to 8 reps while keeping good movement. You must try to steer clear of from the heavy weight single rep lifts. By heavy strength training here we mean to stress your muscles in a way that causes overload without injury. You can do it by using traditional means in a gym or if you don’t want to go to gym even by lifting heavy rocks and logs and carrying them around. There is an old guy (must be above sixty) in my neighborhood who never miss opportunities to flip truck tires, push weighted sleds around or car pushes. Mistake # 2: Training like an old guy. Most of aged guys (and probably you too) who have not been working out or going to gym for a few years have poor core strength. Core is a general term, meaning everything from your hips to mid-back all the way around your trunk. Thus it includes abs, obliques, back ex-tensors, hip flexors and a bunch of other small muscles. You should have a strong core to carry out many of the lifts required for muscle gaining. Some of the strength training and resistance exercises require a strong core to prevent injury. Many individuals mistake their weak back for an injured back. You may think you have a “bad back” because it is sore most of the time, but in reality you may just have a weak back that is stressed from bad posture, poor ergonomics and years of neglect. As a consequence, you have a phobia that you can’t do this and you can’t do that because of the bad back. And then you continue getting weaker and feeling older as a result. You have to break out of this mind-set. It’s dragging you down. Now let us be clear, you may in fact have an injured back (some of the ageing folks do). It might be the case with some of you. I am not diagnosing you. I am only driving a point that most of the back problems can be due to a weak core rather than an injury. However, in case you have any severe pain, you need to consult an expert to examine your condition. Trick # 2: How To Strengthen Your Core To make your core stronger, I suggest following workout: (i) Core Stabilizers: Overhead pressing, push-ups and carrying exercises such as farmers do. (ii) Compound Movements: Squats, dead lifts and kettlebell swings (iii) Twisting And Bending Moves: Burpees, T push-ups and Sledgehammer Caution: If you have back pain or other joint pains, check with your doctor before you do hard exercises. Do Sit Ups Strengthen Your Core? Total Fitness Tip: No, sit-ups don’t add anything much to your core-strength – just waste of time. Work on your core strength with stabilization exercises, compound movements and twisting/bending moves. Mistake # 3: Time Wasting Activities In Gym Avoid walking on treadmill for more than 10-15 minutes. That will be a waste of valuable gym time. Walking is for OK on your rest days. Walk around your block a few times or go for jogging. Get some fresh air. Go cycling or hiking. It’s all good. But try to avoid doing too much of all these on your training days. Don’t you notice that the guys who do too much of walking on treadmill or recumbent bicycle riders never tend to build a super physique? So stop wasting your time lifting light dumbbells, performing curls or doing overly light presses. It is nonsensical and really will neither add muscle to your frame nor burn any meaningful fat. Don’t do this crap. Be serious about your gym time to fulfill your dream to get an impressive physique. The secret to building muscle mass after 50 is to lift heavy weight using your big muscles. Trick # 3: Stop feeling and acting like an old guy. Do the big muscle workouts to build a robust physique. But take care to not get hurt. Recovery just takes too long. (i) You work on to do squat, bench, military press, power clean and dead lift. (ii) Power cleans are an excellent workout, but proper technique is very important. It is not a simple movement. Aim to work up to power cleans but don’t go for it in first few weeks. Build super muscle physique and get well-built by concentrating on the basic movements. As always is true, go slow to make sure you do not get hurt – Slow and Steady and win the race! Conclusion: So don’t mistake to accept that you cannot increase your muscular strength, power, and degree of muscularity after reaching 50. By avoiding the above mentioned mistakes and applying the above tricks, you can really make a difference in how you look and feel and have an impressive muscular-physique even in old age. Original article and pictures take http://justfitnesshub.com/building-muscle-after-50/ site