Training days per week for 40+ year old. This article made me think about it.

[emeric delczeg]

Emeric, do you think 50+ year olds somehow recover better than a younger person? I rarely hear of any younger people training legs 7x per week, so what is the mindset of doing it when you are older, but not when you are younger? Curious to hear your stance on it. Thanks.

Depend on genetics and nutrition. If you supplement with growth factors and low doze of TRT and HRT yes you can recover as fast as a normal young person. I do and I am almost 69.

 

[emeric delczeg]

Squats ?

Yes, on non leg days body weigh squats, high reps 50 to 100, 2 x50 or 1 set 100 reps.

 

[MAD_SCIENTIST]

Yes, on non leg days body weigh squats, high reps 50 to 100, 2 x50 or 1 set 100 reps.

Hi emeric...how about just squatting 135 for as much as I can till failure?
Ok also?


MS

 

[warlock]

Yes, on non leg days body weigh squats, high reps 50 to 100, 2 x50 or 1 set 100 reps.

Emeric, would it be possible for you to share what you do for legs each day of the week as far as exercises, sets and reps?

 

[emeric delczeg]

Hi emeric...how about just squatting 135 for as much as I can till failure?
Ok also?


MS

Yes. Almost to failure.

 

[emeric delczeg]

Emeric, would it be possible for you to share what you do for legs each day of the week as far as exercises, sets and reps?

Normal leg days Mondays and Thursdays: Start with seated leg curls 3 sets 20 reps with negatives, next leg press 3 x 20 reps with negatives, next leg extensions 3x 20 reps finish with 1 set 20 reps Sissy squats. Tuesdays , Wednesdays and Saturdays , after upper body 2 set leg extension (for the tear drops) 20 reps and 2 sets standing 1 leg leg curls 20reps.

 

[warlock]

Normal leg days Mondays and Thursdays: Start with seated leg curls 3 sets 20 reps with negatives, next leg press 3 x 20 reps with negatives, next leg extensions 3x 20 reps finish with 1 set 20 reps Sissy squats. Tuesdays , Wednesdays and Saturdays , after upper body 2 set leg extension (for the tear drops) 20 reps and 2 sets standing 1 leg leg curls 20reps.

Thanks Emeric for sharing. Great info.

Are the all the sets on Mondays/Thursdays taken to failure?

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, do you just for for a pump? A few reps shy of failure?

 

[qbkilla]

Next mesocycle im going to try and focus on arms, keep it as simple as possible

Chest
Arms
Legs
Back
Delts

Then on chest, back, and delts day do 2 sets at the end of arms, higher reps (or maybe 1 set of 20-30RP). This will be the first time ive hit a body part 4x a week. Low volume for all other parts to accommodate he high arm volume and frequency.

 

[emeric delczeg]

Thanks Emeric for sharing. Great info.

Are the all the sets on Mondays/Thursdays taken to failure?

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, do you just for for a pump? A few reps shy of failure?

With the negatives I go beyond failure.

 

[emeric delczeg]

Next mesocycle im going to try and focus on arms, keep it as simple as possible

Chest
Arms
Legs
Back
Delts

Then on chest, back, and delts day do 2 sets at the end of arms, higher reps (or maybe 1 set of 20-30RP). This will be the first time ive hit a body part 4x a week. Low volume for all other parts to accommodate he high arm volume and frequency.

You going to love it.

 

[emeric delczeg]

Thanks Emeric for sharing. Great info.

Are the all the sets on Mondays/Thursdays taken to failure?

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, do you just for for a pump? A few reps shy of failure?

Also after legs I do a light pump type of exercises for my chest, back, shoulder , biceps and triceps.

 

[xpoc]

Normal leg days Mondays and Thursdays: Start with seated leg curls 3 sets 20 reps with negatives, next leg press 3 x 20 reps with negatives, next leg extensions 3x 20 reps finish with 1 set 20 reps Sissy squats. Tuesdays , Wednesdays and Saturdays , after upper body 2 set leg extension (for the tear drops) 20 reps and 2 sets standing 1 leg leg curls 20reps.

If you were 30 years old trying to build mass, would you do the same workout? Or is this something specific to 50+? I guess what I am getting at, is this something for an older guy to BUILD mass or simply maintain what you already built?

 

[opietaylor]

If you were 30 years old trying to build mass, would you do the same workout? Or is this something specific to 50+? I guess what I am getting at, is this something for an older guy to BUILD mass or simply maintain what you already built?

ask yourself have you ever seen ANYONE EVER go to failure on leg press then continue to do negatives? and not once per week but twice. bodyweight squats and leg press beyond failure, seriously. in addition to 3 more days of leg curls and extensions.

with age comes wisdom? you guys act like being over 40 means its all completely over. most guys hit their peak in their 40's. people see the moniker IFFB PRO before someone's name and absolutely loose all rational thought. wasnt it Nasser who told someone he ate dog food? i bet the dude tried it.

 

[emeric delczeg]

If you were 30 years old trying to build mass, would you do the same workout? Or is this something specific to 50+? I guess what I am getting at, is this something for an older guy to BUILD mass or simply maintain what you already built?

No.

 

[D2]

Hi emeric, will it be efficient on Non leg days to include stair climbers or sledg instead of weight training?

 

[animal eater]

Almost 53 here and have used everything under the sun. It is worth noting that I have trained people for a living for the last 20 years. While there is never a one size fits all solution, the following has really worked well for me. It's just enough without slaying me and I can eliminate a day if needed.

Monday is pull day including hamstrings and MAYBE one quad movement if I got it in me. Tuesday is push day. Wednesday is an off day. Thursday is leg day exclusively. Friday is an upper body circuit day where I hit everything but with less intensity weight wise but plenty of reps and less rest. If I am hammered come Friday, I give it a miss. I train with a fair bit of weight/intensity so this might be the case (missing Friday) say once a month. Weekends are off and then repeat on Monday. This has worked unbelievably well for me and countless clients who are 40-60 years old.

 

[N.L....M.....]

Almost 53 here and have used everything under the sun. It is worth noting that I have trained people for a living for the last 20 years. While there is never a one size fits all solution, the following has really worked well for me. It's just enough without slaying me and I can eliminate a day if needed.

Monday is pull day including hamstrings and MAYBE one quad movement if I got it in me. Tuesday is push day. Wednesday is an off day. Thursday is leg day exclusively. Friday is an upper body circuit day where I hit everything but with less intensity weight wise but plenty of reps and less rest. If I am hammered come Friday, I give it a miss. I train with a fair bit of weight/intensity so this might be the case (missing Friday) say once a month. Weekends are off and then repeat on Monday. This has worked unbelievably well for me and countless clients who are 40-60 years old.

I really like it honestly.
If I wasn’t sticking with my current 2 way split indefinitely then I’d do this.

For curiosity sake, would you break down a week of training

 

[animal eater]

No worries.

The Monday push session usually starts with an RDL of some sort. Reason is for a couple of reasons. First being, what is the first thing that you see go in older men? Their ass. While I do deads and rack deads here and there, the RDL allows me to train very heavy and hit back hams and glutes under load. For me this is a 6-8 type set. With almost every movement I work up to a working set and sometimes do a second with less weight. I usually follow with either a machine or a one arm db row. At this point, I am already warm so there isn't much need for endless warm-ups like the first movement. I will then usually rely on a machine for a one arm pulldown of some sort. I am pretty much at an impasse with traditional pulldowns. I can stack most machines and find one arm at a time is more targeted and less taxing. At this point if I try to do a few sets of Bulgarian split lunges. I finish with a few biceps movements depending on the day. Most of the time it would be incline db curls for the stretch and cable curls because I feel them well. I don't bother doing much that I can't connect with.

Tuesday is Push central. After some feeder sets on a machine (similar to John Meadows approach), I then hop onto a low incline bench press. This is my big daddy movement. For me there is too much risk with heavy dumbbells and my ego will get the better of me for flat press. I work up to a work set of 5-8 and usually a back off set of say 15-20. I often follow with a cable fly/crossover supersetted with dips or decline pushups for two rounds. Stupid pump and stretch is the name of the game here. I will follow with a shoulder press. Might be Smith Machine, might be machine press and every once in a blue moon dumbbells. I then superset set laterals on either cable or db's with facepulls for two rounds. I then finish with with a couple of rounds of cable overhead extensions and pushdowns. The prevailing pattern is work heavy on the compound and a few more reps with the isolation movements.

Wednesday is off but for sure I will walk for an hour.

Thursday is leg day and because I am old as dirt and I like to think fairly sensible, I tend to start with leg curls and extensions first. These are not supersetted. I will work up to one or two hard sets of say 10-12 reps. From there it safety bar squats or Leg Press. I don't have a hack squat in my facility which I own (might need to talk myself into buying one) so those are the main quad movements. On safety bar squats my reps tend to be around that 8-12 rep range and on leg press it's more like 15-20. Depending on time and energy, I might be done here or I might through something like a few rounds of walking lunges and back extensions back to back. In between perhaps some calf work but in all honesty, I have decent calves which is funny because genetically my legs suck so I do it more out of guilt than utility.

Friday is my athletic upper body circuit day. It might look like this order wise:
Chins
Dips
Pullovers
laterals
Some form of core movement like say ball slams
Tricep dips
Curls of some sort.

Reps are in that 10-15 zone. Rest between exercises is low. I want my heart working and a nasty upper body pump. I usually get both. It allows me to hit everything one more time, keeps my fitness in good stead and allows me to be athletic and mobile. All good things.

Saturday and Sunday will see me walk a good hour both days and if I finish training people early enough and if family life allows, I will get in additional walks before dinner. I do it more as a meditative thing and often listen to podcasts so I can hopefully come home a little smarter.

Well there you go. I ask one favour folks, please don't copy and paste. I have had that done more times than I wish to think about.

Let me know how you travel.

 

[emeric delczeg]

Hi emeric, will it be efficient on Non leg days to include stair climbers or sledg instead of weight training?

Yes.

 

[N.L....M.....]

No worries.

The Monday push session usually starts with an RDL of some sort. Reason is for a couple of reasons. First being, what is the first thing that you see go in older men? Their ass. While I do deads and rack deads here and there, the RDL allows me to train very heavy and hit back hams and glutes under load. For me this is a 6-8 type set. With almost every movement I work up to a working set and sometimes do a second with less weight. I usually follow with either a machine or a one arm db row. At this point, I am already warm so there isn't much need for endless warm-ups like the first movement. I will then usually rely on a machine for a one arm pulldown of some sort. I am pretty much at an impasse with traditional pulldowns. I can stack most machines and find one arm at a time is more targeted and less taxing. At this point if I try to do a few sets of Bulgarian split lunges. I finish with a few biceps movements depending on the day. Most of the time it would be incline db curls for the stretch and cable curls because I feel them well. I don't bother doing much that I can't connect with.

Tuesday is Push central. After some feeder sets on a machine (similar to John Meadows approach), I then hop onto a low incline bench press. This is my big daddy movement. For me there is too much risk with heavy dumbbells and my ego will get the better of me for flat press. I work up to a work set of 5-8 and usually a back off set of say 15-20. I often follow with a cable fly/crossover supersetted with dips or decline pushups for two rounds. Stupid pump and stretch is the name of the game here. I will follow with a shoulder press. Might be Smith Machine, might be machine press and every once in a blue moon dumbbells. I then superset set laterals on either cable or db's with facepulls for two rounds. I then finish with with a couple of rounds of cable overhead extensions and pushdowns. The prevailing pattern is work heavy on the compound and a few more reps with the isolation movements.

Wednesday is off but for sure I will walk for an hour.

Thursday is leg day and because I am old as dirt and I like to think fairly sensible, I tend to start with leg curls and extensions first. These are not supersetted. I will work up to one or two hard sets of say 10-12 reps. From there it safety bar squats or Leg Press. I don't have a hack squat in my facility which I own (might need to talk myself into buying one) so those are the main quad movements. On safety bar squats my reps tend to be around that 8-12 rep range and on leg press it's more like 15-20. Depending on time and energy, I might be done here or I might through something like a few rounds of walking lunges and back extensions back to back. In between perhaps some calf work but in all honesty, I have decent calves which is funny because genetically my legs suck so I do it more out of guilt than utility.

Friday is my athletic upper body circuit day. It might look like this order wise:
Chins
Dips
Pullovers
laterals
Some form of core movement like say ball slams
Tricep dips
Curls of some sort.

Reps are in that 10-15 zone. Rest between exercises is low. I want my heart working and a nasty upper body pump. I usually get both. It allows me to hit everything one more time, keeps my fitness in good stead and allows me to be athletic and mobile. All good things.

Saturday and Sunday will see me walk a good hour both days and if I finish training people early enough and if family life allows, I will get in additional walks before dinner. I do it more as a meditative thing and often listen to podcasts so I can hopefully come home a little smarter.

Well there you go. I ask one favour folks, please don't copy and paste. I have had that done more times than I wish to think about.

Let me know how you travel.

I won’t pass it off as my own or spread it around but I will definitely save it and look back on it in the future and use the lay out for myself. Thank you brother for taking the time to write it out