Lesson 2: Some Common Misconceptions Regarding Ageing

Now, you may say that everything in Lesson 1 sounds pretty amazing, but you may still need some more information… I understand.

Often, society hands us a script that treats aging like an old smartphone. We expect the battery to drain faster every year and the hardware to become officially obsolete. But here, in this course, we flip that narrative together and put the controls back in your hands: you aren’t looking at obsolete hardware, but a high-performance machine that has simply been running on terrible software.

That “bad software” consists of deeply ingrained limiting beliefs—like “it’s too late to start” or “my knees are too damaged”. To fix this, you must adopt a new analogy: your body is a classic car.

If a vintage Mustang has creaky hinges or a temperamental engine, you don’t haul it to the scrapyard. It’s just a little rusty and has character. It simply needs a strategic tune-up and maintenance to run better than it did off the showroom floor. Once you uninstall the “faulty software” of your beliefs, you clear the runway for the actual physical operations because, as Dr. Wayne Dyer explains, your thoughts come before your feelings and ultimately dictate your biological reality.

Till around 1980s scientists generally believed that loss of muscle and strength were inevitable as people got older and that neither could be restored. Then the myths about ageing got shattered one by one by new experiments and findings.

So, the concepts that we can build muscle and restore bone density at any age are pretty new.

Probably, one of the first things that would spring in your mind when you think about ageing would be the word “sarcopenia”. Wikipedia helps us with a definition: “Sarcopenia is the degenerative loss of skeletal muscle mass (which starts around the age of 30 – 3%-5% per decade; and it accelerates to 0.5–1% loss per year after the age of 50), quality, and strength associated with aging.”

End of it – the verdict is delivered! How can we train with weights if we are going to lose so much muscle every year?

What I can tell you, is that it would be silly to advise Sly Stallone not to lift heavy because he is 70+, and I have seen him on YouTube training damn heavy. Well, you might say here that he is in a great shape because he used to train in the past. And, probably – you didn’t. I didn’t.

So what? I can do as much strength training as I want and I can cope with, according to my present fitness level. And who knows my exact fitness level? I DO.  Stallone trains according to his fitness level – it’s just an advanced level, that’s it. Has he lost much muscle after the age of 50+? I wouldn’t say so.

Another common misconception is that our metabolism slows down as we age. What’s the truth? Studies show that the metabolism doesn’t change between the age of 19 and 65 years old (I have attached the research document here).

What changes is how active we are. So, we should eat according to what we spend as calories during the day. In short, if you train with weights – you’ll burn more calories – and you will need to eat more. I love this one🙂!

Yet another common “rule” I love to rebut is that you can only increase your metabolism, in order to lose weight, by doing cardio. Nope. Your metabolism will gradually speed up once you start lifting weights. If you want to improve your cardio-vascular system, cardio (I mean running, HIIT workouts,  etc.) is good for that purpose. Otherwise, some 20-30 minutes’ walk a day is enough healthwise.

Next “old paradigm” is that our hormonal levels change with age, meaning we should eat certain foods less and I avoid others (so that we won’t get fat); we should take some medications, or hormones, or whatever to improve our hormonal levels. I can’t disagree with the fact that our hormonal picture changes… throughout all our lives. I can’t disagree that we might need some medication for a certain period of time.

However, the simple rule here is: if you start doing workouts with weights, slightly twitch and tweak your nutrition and supplementation; then your body will start getting back to balance. Strength training will give your body that anabolic kick, which estrogen (women) and testosterone (men) did while we were young.

I learned, through my own experience. that training with weights 40 / 50+ is not a problem but a must:

1. If we train, the muscles will be rebuilt. There will be no more looming sarcopenia on the horizon; it can be delayed or even stopped. Why? After you work with weights, your body “cleans the mess” after you – in terms that it repairs and replaces the damaged muscle fibres and your muscles are built back stronger in order to meet the new strength demands. This happens at ANY AGE – you demand, your body rebuilds. PERFECT!
2. Subsequently, we don’t need to have been athletes or have trained anything in the past, to get into a good physical shape healthwise.
3. What’s more, we don’t need a lot of time to get into fitness routine. It will take some 2-3 months to adjust your nutrition, supplementation and workout regime. The workouts themselves should take about an hour a day. You can start with as much as 3 or 4 days training per week.
4. The next good news is that we don’t need much or any cardio to burn calories and speed up our metabolism. Resistance training regulates the production of the hormones that control our metabolism and speeds it up.
5. Respectively, we don’t need to be on a very restrictive diet to lose weight, (provided we want to lose weight), only to watch our calorie expenditure, which will get higher when we train with weights.
6. What about osteoporosis – can we say goodbye to it? Why not? Strength training puts stress on the bones, which in turn stimulates bone-forming cells to spring into action. Bone is living tissue that responds to exercise at any age, by becoming stronger.

To sum it up, age should not stop people, both men and women, when it comes to weight training. Training over 40/50+ should not be any different from training before that age – it should depend on your fitness level.

Respectively, if you want to train like a bodybuilder or a power lifter, you can always do so. It is not necessary to go and compete, but if you want to, there aren’t many competitors aged 60/70+, and you can always SHINE in your age group 💪🙂.

In case you need real life examples, I will happily provide some:

I first came across Ernestine Shepherd (@shepherdernestine) in 2019. I saw a YouTube video called: “The 81-year-old Bodybuilder Who Inspires Others to Get Fit.” The description read: “Ernestine began her fitness journey at age 56, and at age 71 she won her first bodybuilding competition. Now she inspires others to get into fitness – whatever their age.” I was awe-struck, Ernestine looked amazing on stage. She is a fitness coach at present.

I discovered my next hero not so long ago. I watched a YouTube video called: “This 78-Year-Old Can Squat More Than You.” Nora is a power lifter and she, in fact, squats more than me (for now 😀). The description read: “Nora Langdon (@noraliftsheavy) is not your average 78-year-old. She is #1 in her age group for powerlifting — a strength sport that tests how much a person can squat, bench press, and deadlift. Watch Nora as she prepares for the 2021 World Powerlifting Congress World Championships, and learn about what motivates her and what she hopes to do next!”

The last amazing person I will mention is Phyllis Sues who wrote the book: “My Trip to Healthy, Active 96.” When she was 86 she stepped into her first yoga class. I came across a YouTube video: “Meet 96-Year-Old That Stays Fit with Yoga and Dance.” Believe me, I don’t think I will manage any time soon to get into that yoga peacock position she is showing in the video.

Phyllis says that your life can be a beautiful journey and I can’t agree more!

Hopefully, we are now done with the age related misconceptions and ready to move on 🙂.