Strength losses in mid 40s

[Fiend]

Hi folks. Probably been asked before but what are folks thoughts about making genuine strength losses in your 40s?

I've noticed an accelerated decline in my strength over the last year - worryingly more than I'd expect.

Obviously I expect a general, if steadier, decline due to age. I've noticed myself being more susceptible to injury, more stiff and creaky overall, and a bit more tired in general - this has been at a fairly steady rate for several years and feels in line with that I might expect.

Obviously any climbing strength declines are going to be considerably excerbated by being BMI 26.5 (no, that's not lean, honed, LiamHutch98-style climbing relevant muscle, it's a DVT-hampered weightbelt around my waist), and also by relentless climbing-related injuries. I would except climbing strength losses to be fairly large or hard to measure (I did have some indication of those testing on the Depot 30' Board: In March I had a session that was equivalent to TWO of my best 2022 sessions added together, whilst in June / July I had a few sessions where I was having to work my previous casual middle warm-ups and was the worst I've ever been on it).

What is interesting / concerning is that in my weight-independent tests, of, well, weights, I've noticed a larger and seemingly irreversible decline. Every gym session since spring has been weak, sometimes with added weak, occasionally with a garnish of weak on top.

Examples:
Deadlift: 140kg max, down from 160kg max. 120kg now feels like 140kg used to.
Bench press: 70kg max, down from 80kg max. 60kg now feels like 70kg used to.
OH press: 40kg max, down from 50kg. 30kg now feels like 40kg used to.
Lat pulldowns: hard to tell due to injuries but I guess about: Comfy on 80kg max, down from 100kg max.
Bicep curls: hard to tell due to injuries but definitely weaker.

I was doing okay at the gym earlier in the year, especially bench (was comfy on 80kg max, also squeezed out a 160kg DL but it felt well risky). I know full well since then that I've had shoulder issues BUT they've started feeling better in recent months, and I've noticed that my left, UN-IMPINGED shoulder is feeling the weaker, especially on overhead press. AFAIK I've done nothing to inhibit lifts otherwise. Other than that - digestion is okay, am sleeping okay, eating okay, a bit of stretching and self-care means my body is feeling okay overall apart from TE and crunchy shoulder.

I also know full well that I haven't been going to the gym as regularly, but have generally kept active and conditioned with climbing / exploring / cleaning, and...

My previous experience is: If I go to the gym sporadically, but maintain a good level of activity with climbing days out, indoor walls, and other stuff, I can get back into gym lifts pretty quickly - I don't progress nor get near PBs without more regularity, but I regain previous norms well with just a bit more regularity.

My current experience is: That ain't happening.

I have wondered if I'd picked up some low-level virus at 3 night's raving at Bangface weekender in May, because I generally felt like there was a more notable decline since then. In fact in early summer I felt I had so little power and general muscle contraction (despite not feeling fatigued nor low on energy), I actually got some blood tests done, with no obvious deficiencies spotted. It feels like much the same now I'm back at the gym regularly - contraction just ain't happening.

Any ideas?? Apart from the "you're just getting old, accept it" - please re-read the 3rd line that yes I obviously know, and yes this is something different to the general decline I feel. Ta.

 

[JamieG]

From reading on here I know you have also had a tough time with your mental health too. I suspect that also affects your strength. Quite literally not just in a motivation sense. Definitely will also contribute to feeling run down and tired. Be kind to yourself Fiend.

 

[Johnny Brown]

I’m 46. I have noticed accelerating declines over the last couple of years, however it’s very hard to separate aging from lifestyle - my wife broke her ankle then I buggered my elbow. Common sense would suggest strength vs age probably plots with a curve peaking in your thirties, the change in angle over the top barely perceptible but the slopes either side more so. Genetics and lifestyle no doubt play big parts in how steep the decline is, but I suspect it’s only going to get harder. On the plus side stamina seems to peak later and decline slower (I have done no reading on this but that’s my general impression).

PS I can’t imagine going on a three day bender, I’d be fucked for months. Some years back I was so fucked after a stag do I tried to get tested for Lyme (I’d had multiple tick bites that summer).

 

[Hoseyb]

+1 for what Jamie said.

I know that in the past ( you know, when I was your age) I also went through the mill regarding my mental and emotional health flipping my prowess up and down.

For me personally, if I'm not consistent with my training ( ie most of the time) it's only when I'm mentally and emotionally up can I apply any force to any thing.

Be gentle with yourself, and if you can stomach that gym thing ( you know I struggle with all that) then aim for turning up consistently. I have an inkling turning up is the key. You can adapt your session from there

 

[Serpico]

I climbed my hardest route at 46. It’s not age that’s making you weak, it’s Trad.
Knock the ledge-shuffling on the head and you’ll be fine.

 

[petejh]

For the physical side of things, you could do a lot worse than listen to this podcast with Matt 'tory boy' Roberts about the ageing male and performance.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p077b4mj

 

[webbo]

I’m well past 40 year old decline but my experience with ageing is that you can no longer drop something for a month or two and expect to get to your old PB ‘s in a session or two. If I stop doing weights for 3 months but continue climbing. It will take me 3 months of regular weights to get back to where I was and it has to be regular not just once a week.
I can get climbing and cycling strength back much quicker and don’t seem to lose as much with a lay off.
Also what the others have said.

 

[mrjonathanr]

From reading on here I know you have also had a tough time with your mental health too. I suspect that also affects your strength. Quite literally not just in a motivation sense. Definitely will also contribute to feeling run down and tired. Be kind to yourself Fiend.

Excellent post. The body is definitely not immune from the mind.

Whilst age does slow us all down, I don’t think your woes are a necessary consequence of your age Fiend. They weren’t for me at your age and I don’t believe they are for you either. As Webbo says, I do believe the ability to quickly pick up where you left off fades in middle age, so you have to work in a much more patient and sustained way to regain previous performance levels. Like JB says, I also feel fatigue more deeply and for longer than I used to, it’s something I just have to ignore patiently work around now.

Might you’d be better off choosing the areas where you want to excel and not stressing so much about the others? Does bench matter much if your goal is to keep your head together on some gnarly sea cliff route? Maybe some consequence-free limestone sport ticks would be good to get a bit of a momentum without too much head stress?


Don’t get too despondent; you can definitely get stronger and perform better in the future than you have in the past. It’ll just take more patience to build up to things than it used to.

Edit- one thought: everything you do contributes to an overall load on the CNS. Whereas a 25 year old might have the recovery to push hard on a range of fronts and bounce back from each one, a 45 year old might need to be more selective?

 

[Liamhutch89]

At 34, I'm clearly not qualified to answer, but I think I would lose gym strength doing the amount of low intensity exercise/activity you do.

From my reading of sport science, high volume low intensity seems to produce more injuries than the opposite too.

Why not try something different? Drop your volume in half for a month or two, cutting out all or most of the low intensity stuff and see how you get on. I think you've mentioned you do well on high volume, but maybe that has changed. I really like the day on day off routine and can do that continually without needing to deload (even with the odd 2 days on here and there). However, if I go for the full 2 days on 1 off routine, I can only sustain that for so long before excess fatigue accumulates and I need to deload.

 

[kac]

I'm 48 and think Liam is spot on. Not that I had much in the first place but I've not seen a loss of strength pretty much doing what Liam is suggesting. It definitely takes longer to recover these days though especially after an outside session. If I did the kind of volume you seem to do pretty sure I'd be broken most of the time!

 

[Fiend]

Thanks for the replies.

Jamie G: Good point and I was going to mention that as it was something I considered, and I'm aware there can be a correlation. I personally don't feel my correlation is strong enough: Firstly I got to my strongest with lifting around 2018 when I had some increased depression (from post-norovirus nausea bouts). Secondly my mental health is marginally better and more stable than it was last autumn / winter, even if the strength is lower. Thirdly, it seems to be a very physiological thing - I don't feel I like motivation or commitment or effort at the gym (and definitely not at the wall). I feel good to try hard, and then the muscles just don't do as much as they could/should/have. Not ruling it out but I'm not sure TBH.

Other things I forgot to mention: I generally feel slightly achier than usual, in non-injury areas. I'm wondering if I might have a bit more inflammation than usual (no changes that could cause that tho).


HoseyB: Cheers and as mentioned I am going to try to get a bit more of gym stuff done.


Johnny Brown: Ahhh, it wasn't a bender. The most substances I took were I think 2 small bottles of Pepsi Max for the caffeine! Late nights and lots of raving but also lots of sleep and rest. I did feel pretty tired for the next week tho. It's possibly the only event that has any vague correlation but then again the systems seem different: sleep/energy deprivation vs. short bursts of pure strength / power remaining affected months later.

The other aspects to mentioned are interesting - maybe the decline is a bell curve and it will start slowly and suddenly taper off abruptly. Disappointing if true. And if fitness / stamina (hardly my specialist subject) lags behind that, then maybe that's still in the shallow gradient of the bell curve, hence declining at a more expected rate.


PeteJH: Cheers, will check that.


Webbo: That's another interesting aspect to factor in - the rate of rebound also declining. So that could be a double whammy that might explain it - strength declining, but compounded by the speed of getting back some previous form when getting back into a strength activity also declining. So the first decline might not be as bad as it seems but initially it's going to be exacerbated by the second.


MrJR: Also some interesting points as I'd expect. Okay, I've remember the other thing I forgot to mention in my initial post - why care less about weights performance?? Well.... It's a good compliment to my climbing (supportive and balancing out exercises), it's good for my physical health (due to CV being mostly off the cards), good for my mental health, good to work around whatever the current injuries are. And the last time I had a really solid confident season trad climbing was in the midst of my most productive / strongest time of regular gym going in Glasgow in 2018. As for CNS and fatigue, I am trying to factor in more deliberate rest days, and keeping up with the physical, errr, self-care too.


Liamhutch89: Well, the volume works for me (including less injures / healing injuries) in terms of climbing volume - based on previous experience, recent experience, and TheKettle's advice (I tend to break if I try high intensity). For gym volume or climbing training volume (the latter not really happening at the moment), I have it the other way around - low volume high intensity (taking care ofc). It might be possible that fatigue from the former is affecting the latter - that would be a relatively new effect for me, but I can see the logic of it.

 

[webbo]

I don’t know whether I’ve understood correctly your reply to Liam where you say high volume is good for you but high intensity breaks you. However it sounds like you are trying to high intensity weights amongst your high volume.

 

[Oldmanmatt]

I’m 53 and have always been strong.
Whilst my climbing has gone to shit, due mainly to arthritis making climbing shoes a torture fest, knackered shoulder/rotator cuff making life hell and an old spinal injury making my left leg cramp up unexpectedly at inconvenient moments…
Generally I’m hitting PBs at the gym in weights and Callisthenics /gymnastics.
I have completely changed up my training regime.
While I owned the climbing wall, I was training almost every day, switching up which bit I was working on a strict rota and getting steadily weaker and more dispirited. Bear in mind I was supposed to be a coach/trainer.

So I sold the wall and went back into the military. Within six months, of military style PT, I was back on form.
At 51 years old, I came second in a strength/fitness challenge/competition amongst the lads of 42 Commando, winning the Callisthenics but coming second in the 300 mtr ocean swim to a 27 year old Sgt.

Because I dropped down to a maximum of 3 sessions per week, never more than an hour long, mostly strength. I only go to the wall once a week now and I only climb problems and fingerboard at home a couple of times a week.

I also switched to pure strength with the weights, so 3 reps at 85% 1RM, one set of each exercise per session.

It’s working for me. ‍

Edit
Recovery sucks. I could keep up with with the lads, but I was useless for two or three days after. They were able to keep going day after day. I’m a civvi again now, but have kept the 3 times a week routine and it’s holding up.

 

[petejh]

What you’re describing Matt sounds very much like the routine the PT in the link I posted recommends for maintaining T levels.

 

[Oldmanmatt]

What you’re describing Matt sounds very much like the routine the PT in the link I posted recommends for maintaining T levels.

Yup.
I thought so too.
I find it odd that I don’t seem to need to train endurance so much, unless I have a specific target. I seem to plod along happily and pay the next day if I push it.
I stopped the load bearing races a couple of years ago, but can still run a quick 6k over the moors with 25kg on my back in a reasonable time despite only going out 2-3 times a year instead of the weekly 15k I was doing two years ago.
I filmed myself training on the Flight Deck at the 6 month point, just out of amazement at my recovery. I believe trying on a moving surface helped, by the way. https://www.instagram.com/p/CfyaZgYjOB9/?igsh=aHNzNmNpZ3dvMjJw

 

[Wellsy]

Have you considered HRT? Honest question.

 

[SA Chris]

One of the US podcasters did a recent interview with Eric Horst, I think, I'll see if i can find it.

My strength had been up and down like a yoyo since my 40s (nearly 55 now!) as I dip in and out of other activities, I guess there has been a decline, but pre children my climbing focus had been mostly ledge shuffling with a bit of bouldering thrown in, and i had never done any weight training. Now I try and do some at least 4 times a week Not monster sessions, just half hour targeted exercises in front of the telly with the kids. Also stops me falling asleep!

 

[Liamhutch89]

Inspiring OMM!

For anyone whose ability to recover from training has passed its peak (probably everyone in this thread, myself included), think smarter, not harder. Managing fatigue is critical.

A new study has shown that training well short of failure (as little as RPE 4-6) is better for strength gains than training either to failure or close to failure. The study appears well designed, was on trained men and the researchers are also respected powerlifting coaches. Volume has to be matched e.g. if you can do 3 sets of 8 reps with a weight to failure, instead you would do 6 sets of 4 with the same weight. You're doing the same volume, but there's less fatigue (CNS gets fried going close to failure), and your total power output is higher because the reps will be performed quicker - grinding out a rep is not powerful and this is probably the main reason for lower RPE training being superior for strength gain.

Important caveats:
1. this is for strength gains only. To optimise hypertrophy, it appears that reps should be taken closer to hypertrophy (as climbers we can probably live without maximising hypertrophy).
2. strength expression (e.g. the ability to perform a 1 rep max) is a skill that needs to be practiced. This means that if you want a new PB, then you will need to start getting closer to failure and grinding out reps to train that skill. Progress can still be tracked at lower RPE: if you can lift X amount today for Y reps and in a month it takes less effort, you got stronger. If you manage an extra rep or more weight at the same level of effort, you also got stronger...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375592977_The_Effect_of_Resistance_Training_Proximity_to_Failure_on_Muscular_Adaptations_and_Longitudinal_Fatigue_in_Trained_Men

Older studies have shown similar outcomes. My ego occasionally still commands me to power scream through that last rep, but I have to remind myself that by doing this I'm leaving potential gains on the table...

 

[Wellsy]

Also @matt incredibly impressive and athletic. Didn't you bench 170 a couple of years back too? V athletic.

 

[SA Chris]

One of the US podcasters did a recent interview with Eric Horst, I think, I'll see if i can find it.

https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/d8bf3b28-a566-49c9-9744-71aa4fc0885f/episodes/4f0d31c4-3d31-4d92-b06e-7446ec0eb895/the-nugget-climbing-podcast-ep-176-eric-h%C3%B6rst-returns-%E2%80%94-top-7-most-common-training-mistakes

I think it was this one