A question of strength Accuracy of fitness trackers
Q: How accurate are those watches where you can see how many calories you've burned during a training session?
A: They are not really accurate. A friend of mine recently told me that she did a training session with weights in which she burned 960 kcal. And even though I would really like to believe that - because it would make training with weights the best fat loss tool known to man - it's simply not realistic.
It's hard to know exactly how many calories you've burned during a training session. This depends on the exercises (squats use more energy than deadlifts), the number of repetitions completed, the training methods and the amount of muscle fibers recruited during each repetition.
For upper body exercises, a hypertrophy set lasting 40 to 60 seconds will burn perhaps 7 to 10 kcal, while a set of squats lasting one minute can burn up to 40 kcal (Victor M. Reis, R. S. 2011. Energy Cost of Resistance Exercises: J Hum Kinet. 29A: 33-39).
If you do four sets of this, we are talking about 160 kcal. If you perform another multi-joint exercise during the same training session, this could add another 160 kcal. If four smaller exercises follow, this could add 350 to 400 kcal. Such a training session would burn 650 to 700 cal and would be one hell of a workout.
A hypertrophy training session for the upper body could burn 250 to 400 kcal on top of your normal daily calorie consumption. For the lower body it could be 500 to 700 kcal on top of your normal calorie burn and a total body training session could be in the 300 to 500 kcal range.
I believe that the calorie consumption estimated by these watches/apps is mainly based on the measured heart rate as the basis for calorie consumption. These formulas were developed with cardio training in mind. In this type of training, the heart rate is directly proportional to the rate of energy expenditure because the heart rate only increases in response to the need for the heart to pump more blood to the muscles to provide oxygen for energy production.
However, when training with weights, the increase in heart rate can also be due to a high release of adrenaline. In addition, the heart rate may increase for the duration of the set and then remain elevated during breaks due to adrenaline/neuronal activation even though you are not continuing to exercise. As a result, these tools will dramatically overestimate the amount of calories burned during a training session with weights.
Why is this a problem? By giving you the impression that you are consuming a ton of calories, you can easily be tempted to eat more than you consume. "I just burned 1200 kcal during my weight training session! Now I can eat a hamburger because it only has 600 kcal!"
No, you can't. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't the end of the world, but it's still misleading.
Realistic gains at an age over 40
Q: How much muscle mass can a steroid-free, advanced trainee build in their forties?
A: I'd love to tell you that an advanced exerciser can continue to build tons of muscle in their forties...in part because I'm over 40 myself. But that would be a lie.
It's not even a matter of age (although that does play a role), it's a matter of training experience and adaptation. For me, "advanced exerciser" means at least 15 years of hard training. This means that you have already built up a lot of muscle. The human body has a limited capacity to build and maintain muscle without chemical support. This depends to a large extent on your genetics. ACTN3 genotype, myostatin levels, body structure and many other factors come into play here.
We don't fully understand all of these factors yet, but the fact is that the average man can gain about 15 to 20 kilos of muscle over the course of his training career beyond the weight he would have without training. Of course, anabolic steroids can overcome many of these limiting factors that prevent a steroid-free trainee from reaching the level of a Mr. Olympia.
I'm talking about pure muscle weight here. In addition to those 15 to 20 kilos, you will probably also build up a few extra kilos in the form of glycogen, water and collagen. Not to mention that you can also gain some fat and still look great. Over the course of your training career, you may put on 25 to 30 kilos of weight on the scale, but only 15 to 20 kilos of that will be muscle.
The closer you get to those 15 to 20 kilos, the slower and heavier your gains will be.
So let's take a 40-year-old man who would weigh about 78 kilos without training. Let's say that after 15 years of training he now weighs around 95 kilos with a similar or better body fat percentage.
Because he has been training all these years, he has built up around 15 to 17 kilos of muscle. Realistically, he can now build a maximum of 3 to 5 kilos of muscle.
If a second 40 year old man has only built 5 kilos of muscle over the course of his training career (because he has not consistently trained hard and intelligently), then he has the potential to build more muscle than the person who has trained properly.
Why will the more dedicated and experienced exerciser have a harder time building a lot of muscle? First of all, because of adaptation. His body is already well adapted to the training. It is very difficult at this point to do a workout that is still stressful for the body. If the training is no longer stressful for the body, then the body will not change further because no additional muscles are needed to do the work.
If you want to increase training stress, then you need to:
- Move more weight or.
- Complete a higher volume or...
- Push yourself harder during your sets
But there's a catch here. All three of these things can increase your cortisol levels and hinder your progress. What's more, you can't keep increasing these factors. There will come a point where it will be difficult to increase the weight of an exercise by 5 kilos over a period of 6 to 8 weeks. And if you are already going to muscle failure or close to muscle failure, then there is not much room for an increase here either.
And increasing volume is one of the best ways to stall progress, especially for older exercisers. It's also often not really practical in the real world. A normal person with a job and family can't spend 2 to 3 hours in the gym every day. An advanced exerciser needs an extremely high training stress to keep progressing, but doing so could also do more harm than good.
As you get older, your physiology changes - and not for the better when it comes to building muscle:
- Testosterone levels tend to drop
- Growth hormone and IGF-1 levels can drop
- The number of stem cells decreases due to lower IGF-1 levels. Stem cells are needed to repair muscle damage. Fewer stem cells mean that you can no longer repair muscle damage and build muscle as easily.
- Your body is more likely to suffer from systemic inflammation. This can significantly reduce your capacity to build muscle, partly because inflammation can reduce insulin sensitivity.
- You lose nerve cells and have atrophy in others. This will reduce your strength. And when your strength decreases, it can become harder to maintain muscle or build new muscle tissue. Muscle tissue is adapted to a certain level of load. If your nerves no longer allow you to produce as much force, then the reduced level of muscle tension that occurs during exercise may not be sufficient to stimulate muscle growth.
Lastly, life tends to take over as you get older. If you have a full-time job and a family, then you also have a lot more stress. This can also affect your capacity to make progress.
And now for the good news
Don't stop trying to improve because it's always possible to surprise yourself and achieve more than you thought possible. I'm in the best shape of my life at 41 and I'm still able to improve. Here are a few guidelines that can help older exercisers make progress;
1. don't always train hard
I know this seems counter intuitive, but periods of maintenance training can help make your body more receptive to training again. Call it strategic deconditioning if you like.
Perform the minimum necessary to avoid muscle loss for 3 to 5 weeks. If you are a dedicated exerciser, this will be less than you think. Reduce your volume, don't push yourself so hard on your sets (finish the set 2 to 3 reps before reaching muscle failure) and focus more on technique than load.
I like to do three full body workouts per week, using 3 to 4 exercises per workout. After this phase, you can push yourself hard for 6 to 8 weeks, increasing the demands of your workouts every two weeks or so.
I discovered this strategy when I started doing more seminars. I spent a phase of four weeks working out two to three times a week, not having the energy to push myself hard. However, when I went back to serious training afterwards, I exceeded my previous results.
2. use a specialization approach
This is something I started doing with high level bodybuilders to exceed a growth plateau.
If you are more advanced, then you need a serious stimulus to force the body to adapt. But at the same time, if you increase the overall training stress, eventually you won't be able to recover. Specialization is an excellent way to achieve this strong stimulus without overloading the body excessively.
Choose one or two muscle groups (or a heavy basic exercise) to focus on. Train these three days a week and the rest of the body once a week at maintenance level (either by training everything during one training session or by splitting it into two training sessions. Then focus on different muscle groups or a new exercise every four weeks.
3. focus on the look you want to achieve
There is a phenomenon I call muscle migration. If you reach an overall muscle mass that is close to your limit, you can still achieve an aesthetic evolution of your body by changing where those muscles are located.
- If I train like an Olympic weightlifter or an athlete, then my hamstrings, middle back and gluteus will improve, but I will lose some mass in my arms and chest.
- If I train more like a bodybuilder, then my chest, arms and quadriceps will improve, but I will lose some mass in my glutes and hamstrings.
- If I train like a disc jumper, then my chest, arms and shoulders will improve, but I will lose mass in the lower body. In all three scenarios, my weight will remain in the 100 kilo range, but the visual impression will be very different.
If you are approaching the maximum muscle mass you can achieve, then you should rely on developing the muscles that will give you the look you want. Deliberately place muscles that are not needed for that look second. This is very similar to specialization but without rotation every four weeks.
4. get lean
Everyone looks better when they are leaner. If you can no longer build a ton of muscle, then you can still improve your look by becoming more defined. I've talked about how I achieved my best look at 41. I was indeed less bulky than earlier in my life, but because I was leaner, the overall look was better. Even if you don't build muscle, you'll still look fantastic if you achieve a real 8 percent body fat percentage.
5. reduce inflammation and improve your insulin sensitivity
If you're older, these two factors are largely responsible for preventing you from building muscle and getting leaner. Your lifestyle and diet will play a big part in this.
If you want to take prevention a step further, fish oil capsules and curcumin are great for reducing underlying systemic inflammation.
It would be nice if we could build muscle by the day we stop exercising. Sadly, this will not be the case. But even if building muscle is harder to achieve, you can always find ways to improve.
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/question-of-strength-57
https://www.t-nation.com/training/question-of-strength-58
By Christian Thibaudeau