Many midlifers focus on cardio or train intensively and relentlessly. But what’s key is retaining muscle mass. In New Zealand, there were 3.3 million ACC claims for lower back pain between 2009 and 2020 at a total cost of NZ$4 billion. Claims, costs, and single contacts increased during this time. One of the best ways to protect ourselves from back injury is by strengthening our core muscles. A strong core also promotes good posture well into old age. Regularly doing plank exercises, which target the muscles of the midsection, including your abdominal, back, and hip regions, not only has “a great all-over strengthening effect” but also offers us protection against lower back pain.
Very few of us do enough strength building. If we are active, we prefer to get a sweat on. Many of Malcolm Hood’s midlife clients favor tennis, triathlons, cycling, swimming, yoga, or military-style boot camps which, he says, are “great for getting you quite quickly fit, but not necessarily good for long-term strength.”
It’s not enough. “The missing part of the ageing puzzle is strength training,” Malcolm says. Happily, in midlife, we still have “a window of responsiveness to exercise,” and this is his easy fix. Consider it your “physical pension.” Here’s what to do:
Squeeze strength snacks into your day
No, not crisps and peanuts. Malcolm means doing things such as brushing your teeth while on your tiptoes and using the stairs rather than taking the lift at work. Always stand to put your socks on and take them off. Even a few minutes of strength activity daily accumulates.
Work out like Goldilocks
Many midlifers focus on cardio or train intensively and relentlessly — a mistake. “Give yourself permission to train to your age. That means not training like you’re 25,” Malcolm says.
Overtraining causes an excess of inflammation, he says, meaning you eventually weaken instead of getting the “longevity boost” that optimal strength training provides. (Bodybuilding, with its goals of getting “as defined and as big as possible,” is the antithesis of functional fitness.)
To help reduce your cellular rate of ageing, aim instead for regular doses of controlled discomfort. The Goldilocks analogy applies, Malcolm says. “The porridge has got to be just right. And so has the effort and difficulty at which we train.” Physical challenge should be “moderately difficult but not extremely difficult all the time.”
Don’t neglect your fast-twitch muscle fibres
Our muscles contain three types of fibres: slow-twitch and two types of fast-twitch. Slow-twitch fibres are maintained by normal, moderate activity, such as walking, swimming, and cycling — even jogging. Fast-twitch fibres are used for harder activity requiring increased speed and strength, e.g., a hill sprint — “anything with acceleration in it.”
All muscle fibres decrease in size as we age but, Malcolm says, “The fast-twitch fibres are affected at an increased rate which accelerates off a curve, generally from 65 to 70 onwards, and keeps accelerating.”
Do you have an older relative who’s suddenly aged? “The reason people shrink and slow is because of that loss of the bigger, more powerful muscle fibres,” he says. “The only thing that maintains the health and existence of these two types of fast-twitch fibres is strength training and power-based activities, which can be as simple as a fast set of press-ups or squats.” They don’t have to be loaded, and one set a week is a start.
Skipping, tennis, and boxing can boost power, says Malcolm, but you must strength build too, and consistency is key. “The more fast-twitch fibres we can hold onto as we age, the better our ageing will be.”
Take your rest seriously
In midlife, acting as if “pain is weakness leaving the body” is a recipe for later life frailty. To stay stronger for longer, do less, Malcolm says. “Some people are amazed when I say, ‘Factor in more rest.’” He adds: “If your nervous system is fatigued because you haven’t slept, or not recovered, you’ll become weaker.” Same if you overtrain. Without time to repair, your body becomes chronically inflamed. You’re also more prone to injury. “Part of staying strong in older age is avoiding injury, and avoiding burnout.”
Don’t work through pain
Limping through a 5k run despite a twinging knee? “The whole midlife outlook shouldn’t be the next 30 minutes, the next 30 days, it should be the next 30 years. You need to turn up consistently,” Malcolm says. What you can do, if possible, is work around pain. Avoid the activity that injured you, but find another form of movement that won’t aggravate it. He also notes that if, say, your left knee is injured, strengthen your right. The “crossover effect” means you’ll benefit both.
Check your strength (and improve it)
Test your strength levels. Can you balance on one leg? Do a slow full squat without one knee caving inward? Get up from a chair on one leg? If you can’t, or putting weight on one side is easier than the other, that’s useful feedback. “Work on your relative weaknesses to become globally stronger,” Malcolm says.
If your knees ache when you walk down a hill or stairs, that’s more good intel. Of the three types of muscle action — concentric, when it shortens; eccentric, when it lengthens; and isometric, when it’s static — we’re most commonly weak in the “lengthening phase” of movement. But it’s the most important, Malcolm says. “It’s how we slow and control ourselves.” Improve your eccentric strength by slowing the lowering phase of a squat or press-up by four seconds. Eccentric contractions are “gold dust for older age strength and stability.”
Slow down before you speed up
Power is part of strength, and to develop it we must do short, sharp bursts of challenging work, e.g., fast press-ups, skipping, uphill sprints. However, as anyone who’s suffered tendinitis knows, “ligaments and tendons take a lot longer to strengthen than muscles.”
Often professional football or rugby teams hire an Olympic sprinting coach to teach them techniques to move faster. But the subsequent “increased forces” through their joints, muscles, tendons, and ligaments can cause problems, Malcolm says. “Those muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and bones have not had time to adapt … and often that’s where preventable non-contact injuries happen in sport — a hamstring or knee ligament goes.”
Control and tolerance take months to build, he says. Work on the elasticity and strength in your tendons and ligaments, so you can control your movement. “I’m a big fan of isometric holds,” he says, where you hold a position, such as a wall sit or deep squat. Don’t be proud — perfect your squat over the toilet. To yoga and Pilates devotees, he advises adding his ten movements for foundational strength to their regular regimen.
The ten movements for foundational strength
In consultation with other ageing experts, Malcolm has devised a 12-week program of ten exercises which he calls “the couch to 5k for strength.” Using an exercise band and dumbbells at home, I found them straightforward and more effective than fiddling about with gym machines. Each exercise includes variations for all strength levels starting with the easiest (a wall press if a press-up is too much). Perform twice weekly and you’ll become “globally stronger,” Malcolm says. The movements are:
Horizontal shoulder push
A “pushing away” movement with your hands to the front of your body, such as a wall press, box or standard press-up, or an elevated feet press-up.
Horizontal shoulder pull
This involves outstretched arms pulling towards your chest, e.g., a towel pull, exercise band pull, or using a suspension system, which requires equipment.
Vertical shoulder push
Think: reaching above your head to place an object on a high shelf. Exercises include the towel press, a press using a household object (water bottle) or a weighted press using dumbbells.
Vertical shoulder pull
This requires you to pull yourself up and over something, a towel pull-up, exercise band pull-down or band-assisted pull-up (for which you’ll require a pull-up bar and exercise bands).
Plank
Either a standard plank or an alternative, such as side, wall, or chair plank. All plank exercises protect against lower-back pain or injury and are good for lower-back and spinal posture. For all plank versions, start with 2 sets of 30 seconds, building to 2 sets of 2 minutes before progressing to more challenging versions.
Squat
Again, either a standard squat, a weighted squat, or a chair squat.
Hip thrust
Options include a standard hip thrust, a bodyweight hip thrust with shoulders against a sofa, or a weighted hip thrust.
Lunge
Either a standard lunge, a weighted static lunge, or a weighted walking lunge.
Grip and lean or grip and hang
This requires a pull-up bar. Think: hanging from the monkey bars in a playground. Your local park might have the necessary equipment for this.
The farmer’s hold or walk
This involves holding a weight in each hand and holding for up to two minutes while remaining still or while walking.
Based upon Stronger — How to Build Strength: the Secret to a Longer Healthier Life by David Vaux . Preorder a copy here.