Strength coaches will tell you that strength training programming for us older guys and gals can be difficult. If we’re not careful, excess volume or intensity can wear us down very rapidly.
Since we don’t recover as well as 25-year-olds, the danger of over-training for us masters lifters (45 years old and up) is always something to be critically aware of.
However, under-training can also be problematic as it often leads to stagnation or regression.
Finding the proper balance between overtraining and undertraining requires experience and self-awareness.
If you’re a member of a gym that has a good coach, that’s great. Your coach can analyze your progress and seek feedback from you on how your body is handling the stress.
However, most of us who have realized that healthy aging is strong aging are probably working out in our basement or garage. That means we’re our own coaches. We, 
therefore, have to be the ones who evaluate what our bodies and progress are telling us.
During the novice phase of lifting, this is not as critical for a masters lifter, but it is once you enter the intermediate phase.
The weights get heavier, we get a little older, and programming gets a lot trickier and more crucial.
Over the last month, this realization forced me to take a harder look at my own programming.
My Body Told Me Something Was Wrong With My Programming
Three weeks ago, my body told me that I may have been over-training. While deadlifting an easy weight, I suffered a pretty painful back spasm.
It was the first I had gotten during lifting, but the third and worst one in the last two months. Obviously, my back was telling me something was wrong. See here.
So far, my back seems to be holding up pretty well. However, even though I’ve had no new back spasms and my back hasn’t hurt during training, I still believe I’m in need of an adjustment in my programming.
There are only a few variables that can be adjusted in weightlifting programming. These include volume, intensity, diet, and recovery time.
Let’s look at diet first.
Programming Diet
Diet is a highly subjective programming variable. While it seems that younger lifters need huge amounts of calories to maximize gains, I don’t think most masters lifters can get away with that.
Most of us come to the sport already needing to lose weight.
I myself am on a low-carb healthy-fat diet. It works for me. When I feel I need more carbs, I’ll add in half a sweet potato.
One thing that masters lifters do need is adequate protein. Protein is absolutely necessary to maintain and build muscle mass.
Individuals over 60 don’t metabolize protein as well as younger people. The 
recommended daily allowance of protein is at least 1 to 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight per day.
However, we can also err on the side of too much protein.
There are some in the health community who caution about the overconsumption of protein. Dr. Joseph Mercola suggests using this formula to estimate your protein needs:
100 – % of body fat = % of lean mass X actual weight X 0.5 gm protein = total grams of protein recommended
Me: A 170 lb individual with 20% fat mass
100% total weight – 20% fat mass = 80 % lean mass
0.80 X 170 = 136 X 0.5 = 68 grams of protein recommended
Since I’m lifting weights regularly, I keep my protein intake to about 80 – 90 grams per day.
My diet is pretty fixed. Besides adding more carbohydrate in from time to time, I can’t really adjust it radically.
Programming Recovery
As I mentioned before, recovery is important for all lifters but especially us masters lifters. We simply need more of it.
Since I perform each major lift once a week on non-consecutive days (see below) I have plenty of recovery time.
I also deload once a month. This consists of performing the major lift at warm-up weight only. The deload week has been important for me of late.
Because my total weekly tonnage is starting to get significant for my body weight and age, my body really appreciates the deload week.
Programming Sleep
Proper sleep is an important part of the recovery process. Many physiologic repair 
processes take place while we’re asleep.
Cultivating good sleep habits has always been a struggle for me. See here. However, remember, if you don’t sleep well, you won’t recover well.
Let’s now look at volume and intensity.
What Are Weightlifting Volume And Intensity?
Perhaps the most important programming adjustments for masters involve volume and intensity.
Volume in weightlifting terms is measured by sets, reps, and frequency. Frequency is the number of times you lift during the week. So the more reps you do over a training period, the more volume you incur.
Intensity is the weight that you work out with as the percentage of your maximum resistance for that particular exercise. For example, if your 1 rep max for the bench press is 200 pounds and you use 150 pounds for repetitions in your training sets, you work out at a relative intensity of 75%.
Adjusting Volume
As a novice lifter, my volume was constant. I performed each lift for 3 sets of 5 reps. The only factor that changed each week was intensity. If I were to stall on a lift, I’d cut back the intensity 10%, but keep the volume the same.
As I’ve written before, the volume demands of the Starting Strength novice program fit my needs perfectly. Even though I was a beginning lifter at 57 years old and recovering from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), I experienced very little fatigue on the program.
I’m currently using the Wendler 5/3/1 program with some accessory lifts. In this program, volume is basically constant. More volume can be added if desired. But I’ve stuck to the basic routine to avoid fatigue.
Therefore, on the basic program, I technically can’t reduce volume. If I did want to increase volume, I could add in more sets on the day I do a particular lift.
If I was 25 years old, I would definitely go for it. But for me at my age and because I’m recovering from CFS, there’s no way I’m even going to attempt it.
In order to increase my volume without suffering severe fatigue, I’d have to add in another day of an exercise. More on that later.
Adjusting Intensity
Most strength coaches will tell you that for masters lifters maintaining high intensity is important. If intensity is too low, we can regress very quickly.
Intensity, however, was the one variable I could change easily. So it seemed that the obvious thing to do was reset my deadlift. This would be the first time doing so since being on the 5/3/1 program.
I’ll reduce my base weight 10% and move back up from there. This should allow my body
to get stronger and adjust to the heavier weight.
During my first deadlift session following my injury, I worked out with 65# for 10 reps. Once I found that the injury was sufficiently healed, I worked on form. I used weights that were warm-up weights from the previous session.
My son, Peter, observed that my back was slightly curved when lifting heavy weight so I worked hard to maintain a straight back.
This week I also worked on form with slightly heavier weight. I had no pain at all.
Next week is a deload week so I’ll lift only warm-up weight again. That would give me 3 weeks of rest and recovery while hopefully doing little damage to my progress gains.
Changing Volume On Bench Press
I’ve stalled on the bench press for some time even after resetting a few times. After getting up to a base weight of 215#, I don’t seem to be able to get beyond that.
Yes, I could eat more and gain some weight. But I don’t want to do that quite yet. I still have some excess body fat I want to get rid of.
I do feel, though, that I could increase volume slightly. So I have been experimenting with a light bench day on Friday. I’ve been using only warm-up weights.
So far this seems to be working well as I’ve felt stronger on heavy bench days. We’ll see what happens during my next rotation.
Stretching And Foam Rolling
I neglected stretching for 3 years, but now I’m paying a lot more attention to that. Especially where it concerns my back and neck. I’ll go more into that in the future.
That’s it for this week. Remember nothing in this post should be considered medical advice. This is just what’s been working for me. If you have any questions, feel free to comment.
Work Out – Week of 9/11/2017
Body Weight: 170.0
Monday
Off (Labor Day)
Tuesday
Barbell Bench Press (Base weight 190#)
45.0# 1 x 5 (warm-up)
75.0# 1 x 5 (warm-up)
95.0# 1 x 5 (warm-up)
115.0# 1 x 2 (warm-up)
122.5# 1 x 5 (65%)
142.5# 1 x 5 (75%)
160.0# 1 x 5 (85%)
Dumbbell Rows
37.5# 1 x 10 x 3
Cardio: 30 min outdoors walk
Wednesday
Rest
Thuesday
Barbell Back Squats (Base weight 198#)
80.0# 1 x 5 (warm-up)
100.0# 1 x 5 (warm-up)
117.5# 1 x 2 (warm-up)
137.5# 1 x 3 (70%)
157.5# 1 x 3 (80%)
177.5# 1 x 3 (90%)
Cardio: 30 min outdoors walk
Friday
Overhead Press Dumbbell
20.0# 1 x 8 (warm-up)
35.0# 1 x 8 x 3
Tricep Extensions
50.0# 1 x 8 x 3
Cardio: 30 min outdoors walk
Friday
Cardio: 30 min outdoors walk
Saturday
A.M – Stretching (back and neck)
Barbell Deadlift (Worked on form )
65.0# 1 x 10
125.0# 1 x 5
155.0# 1 x 5
190.0# 1 X 5
230.0# 1 x 5
Cardio: 30 min outdoors walk
Sunday
Cardio: 30 min outdoors walk
Tom S says
John – how is your 5/3/1 going for bench press? Are the additional “light” bench days helping you? I’m 56 and just started on 5/3/1 and I have been plateuaed at 265 bench for a couple years and was thinking about adding a second bench day every week. I had some success with adding a second incline bench day, but noticed that I had to keep reps up high or it would negatively affect my bench day.
-Thanks
John says
Hi Tom,
A 265 bench at 56 years old is pretty impressive. Is that a 1RM? Have you tried increasing intensity rather than volume?
I moved about a year ago and was only able to use a Smith machine for a couple of months and then I dropped my weight to about 164 from 170. Once I started back up with barbells my bench then stalled. But it had also begun to stall before I moved. What I did during the summer was to add in an extra intensity day for bench and OHP. So on week 1, Monday I would do Wendler bench and then on Thursday which is Wendler OHP, I would throw in some intensity bench. 2-3 sets at 2-3 reps, working probably at about a 9 RPE. The following Monday bench day I would add in the same program for OHP. Then the following week on Wendler week 3 for OHP I would add in the bench intensity program. So during the month I would get 2 bench intensity days and 1 OHP intensity day. I did this for about 3 months. I hope that’s not too confusing.
Jim Wendler makes the point that at a certain point its extremely hard to increase bench unless you gain more mass. I only want to gain mass if it’s muscle. So I reevaluated my protein intake and found that for my age it was too low. I upped my protein intake to at least 120 g/d. See my post on protein intake here.After a couple of months my bench increased by about 10 pounds. I’ll take that. My 1RM on bench is slightly more now than it was 2 year ago at 170 bw. So this 2 pronged strategy seemed to help get me unstuck.
BTW all my lifts increased once I did the above. I’ll be 63 this month. My bench max is probably around 190, DL 305, OHP 110, squat (don’t laugh) 200. Considering I started lifting at 57 after a 25 year battle with CFS I’m pleased with my results.
Blessings,
John