Is Age A Problem?

[Mikael]

Is age a problem when it comes to progressing on the grippers? As I understand it, it becomes harder and harder to build muscles the older you get. However, since the muscles used in grip training are pretty small, maybe it's not as hard as it would be if you trained your entire body?

I'm 40 by the way. Doesn't sound like much, but the fact is I already feel the limitations of my age. The other day I was playing with the children in the neighbouhood, and was going to lift an 8 year old girl and turn her upside down, and I felt pain in my elbow. 10 years ago I could do the same thing without any problems.

[Lol999]

I hope it isn't too much of a problem! I'm 42 soon and feel lots of aches and pains but I'm giving the grippers a go and hope to compete at BGC one day. Look at Hubgeezer, I think, who closed the #3 after 8 years trying at age 50-ish!

Cheers, Lol

[gazza]

I would say yes and no.

Yes in the fact that you cannot recover like a 20 year old and obviously this means it takes you longer to recover from a workout but it depends on the workout as it obviously takes longer to recover from squats and deadlifts than it does a set of grippers or bending as the squats or deads done properly will take more outa the whole body/recovery system.

No because people like the Mighty Atom were still performing at the age of 80 yes thats 80 he and others show that its largely a state of the mind.

I am 46 in a few months yet weeks ago i hit 6 PRs in a 2 1/2 week period not beginners bends either so if i can do it i dont see why you cannot its largely all in the mind you just have to be smarter because injuries will and do happen.

Joe Kinney was late 30s when he set the gripper world upside down.

Hubgeezer Shows whats possible with dedication and a will to never quit.

[Hubgeezer]

Funny you should mention elbows. That is the only area where I am truly fearful. My elbows hurt when I do regular curls, cleans, and bending. So, I work around them. I do High Pulls in place of cleans, avoid regular curls, and have to concede bending. I see Chris Rice (Climber 511) doing bending, so it is not completely an age thing.

I have been extremely cautious. The only exercise I did age 26-44 was the equilvalent of perhaps 5 years of jogging and biking. I did grip, and only grip age 44-47,and then slowly added the rest of the body parts at 47, then fixing my back at age 49 (through weight training, not doctors). It was not until I started believing that things were possible at age 49 that my performances kicked a level up. I had figured the #3 was impossible, but when I saw young guys that were not particularly genetically gifted did I believe that I could do it too.

However, I have been slow and patient in my approach, at times almost paranoid. It has paid off.

Hbgzr

[Scott Styles]

I have been slow and patient in my approach, at times almost paranoid. It has paid off.

This is where I think older guys have a huge advantage over us young guys. We are rash and impulsive. It leads to injury, burn out, and stalled training progress. Life experience teaches good things come with time. Age gives the patience needed to wait for them.

[climber511]

Is age a problem when it comes to getting stronger- of course it is. But you have to deal with what you've got I figure. As you age you have two choices - quit or do. Unlike Mike (Hubgeezer) - I have been lifting and leading a very physical lifestyle for almost 50 years now. My life has been constant physical stress's and I still love it. One thing I have done is a lot of different sports - results may have been different if I had stayed training for a more focused strength sport all that time. But I have lifted weights the whole time - just often not focused on pure strength development.

I've come to a few conclusions about age and strength development.

It is not possible to become stronger at an older age than the same training and conditions would have made you at a younger age. I'm not talking about the difference between 23 and 25 here guys but the physical decline years.

There is a difference between physical age and training age - the number of years under the bar has an impact on your potential to still make strength gains. It is my guess that Mike should have a bigger "upside" in regards to future strength gains than I do due to this factor. Plus the fact that he is younger than me. It is possible that my tendons etc have more development than Mike's due to all the years of training but I have no way of knowing that of course.

At some age, you WILL begin to level off and then go down hill, and that no doubt varies from person to person and perhaps body part to body part. The idea is to hold it off as long as possible. And training and your lifestyle is what will do that. I'm not so sure grip strength is that much different than other strength but that almost no one has the same number of years training their grip for the things we (GB) are now doing as we do training other larger muscle groups or exercises. It does seem like I have been able to maintain grip strength longer than say my squat or other lifts that require overall body strength but - my max Dead lift is down 20 + percent from my best ever and my max wrist curl is down 20 + percent as well. Many of the things we do - Blobs, grippers, v-bar etc were not done (at least by me) when I was significantly (20 years) younger as a comparison. David Horne may be our best experiment in this regard but he is not old enough yet to be seriously into his "declining" years to show his results.

It is possible to exhibit greater strength but not "be stronger" as you age but I think it's more of a skill and an ability to recruit a greater number of specificly needed fibers but at some point, the muscles "raw" strength will simply not increase. I know I haven't explained this very well but perhaps the "mental" or belief in oneself aspect that comes with experience and time working out has a bigger role than people understand.

The accumulation of injuries over time must also be considered - at some point - it becomes mentally very difficult to turn on a hurting muscle or joint when you are afraid it will blow on you - and age adds to that possibility as well. Flexibility of fibers etc decreases and injuries become more likely and will be much much harder to recover from.

As for the bending Mike, I was afraid to bend very hard until Franky visited and corrected my technique - it always felt as if my shoulder was going to explode before that. He took me from a grade 5 to a cut grade 8 in half an hour and I went to a Bastard in less than a month so it wasn't strength but skill I needed. I still don't bend much but will have to for the competitions this year I figure - likely to be reverse it looks like for some of them. My two cents is that bending and maybe v-bar (big one hand lifts in general) are the most dangerous lifts we do in grip so I'm pretty careful with them.

Anyway - that's the opinion of one old guy

[Alawadhi]

David Horne won his 10th grip compotition when he was only 45 years on planet earth

Forgot to say Gazza is the world best bender and this hapen when he was in his young 40's

Edited May 28, 2007 by Alawadhi

[Mikael]

Thanks for all the replies, it gave me a better understanding of the matter.

[John Beatty]

Age just means you have to learn to listen to your body & give it time to recover. I remember when first really seriously training for strength in 7th-8th grade. Didn't know a thing about recovery, splitting body parts, etc. I did 4 full body workouts per week. Old time Barbell warm ups to start (10 each deadlifts, overhead press, squats) then a full squats workout, then full upper body, then full back workout. Would take me 2-2 1/2 hours, 4 times per week. Got pretty strong, but 2 weeks of that would kill me now. In my 20's, I could do 4-5 split workuts per week & make steady gains. Now at 40, I get through my 4 part split in about 10 days. Make some gains, but obviously much slower. Just last fall I hit a PR raw squat of 665. Don't let age scare you off training, just use the wisdom time gives you & listen to your body.

[mobsterone]

David Horne won his 10th grip compotition when he was only 45 years on planet earth

Forgot to say Gazza is the world best bender and this hapen when he was in his young 40's

I'm at my strongest at age 42 (43 August) and second to David. That said both David and I have loads of aches and pains. I'm of the opinion that training as hard as we do is what causes most of them. Right now it's lower back, right elbow and both shoulders but not at the same time.

[gothrik]

I'm a young guy but I have some encuragement for you. There is a guy in my church who is almost 90, and yet I saw him lift and move one end of the grand piano by himself...now its not all that heavy, but I know lots of 20 year olds who can't do that. Stay active (he did farm work his whole life till recently) and you will only slowly lose your strength. And hey some old guys get stronger (lack of exercise in early life?)

[Hubgeezer]

And hey some old guys get stronger (lack of exercise in early life?)

You talkin to me?

[boland magyar]

age ? ......no problem to me, im a 43 year old teenager

boland

[superfeemiman]

Age just means you have to learn to listen to your body & give it time to recover. I remember when first really seriously training for strength in 7th-8th grade. Didn't know a thing about recovery, splitting body parts, etc. I did 4 full body workouts per week. Old time Barbell warm ups to start (10 each deadlifts, overhead press, squats) then a full squats workout, then full upper body, then full back workout. Would take me 2-2 1/2 hours, 4 times per week. Got pretty strong, but 2 weeks of that would kill me now. In my 20's, I could do 4-5 split workuts per week & make steady gains. Now at 40, I get through my 4 part split in about 10 days. Make some gains, but obviously much slower. Just last fall I hit a PR raw squat of 665. Don't let age scare you off training, just use the wisdom time gives you & listen to your body.

Obviously age has a lot to do with it, but I think the fact that you are a lot stronger now also factors in on that.

[gothrik]

You talkin to me?

Nope, just saying I've seen some old couch potatoes get some results that my young friends would kill for....

[crobb1320]

i think there are alot of variables,and everyone is different,i am only 36,but i dont feel like i did when i was 26.

[Dave H]

Well, all I have to say is this. I'm 50 years old and I would invite anyone out to the house to train with me. You might come away with a whole different view on age. After all, what is age? What is too old? Most of my uncles and both grandfathers worked in the fields well up into their 80's. Maybe when we start to hit 70 or 80 age might make a diffenance. But then again, Merle Meeter is still curling 75 pound Dumb-bells at 71! So that's my two-cents.

But really, anyone is more than welcome to stop by. We'll train, talk, watch video, eat some food and get to know one another.

Dave...

[j.scribner]

Chris (Climber)- as always, your post is spot-on. As you get older, every variable figures in with more wight in the total equation. Genetics? If you weren't big man as a young stud, you aren't going to be a big man as a 50-something. Previous strength training? If you didn't lift early in life (and I didn't start until I was almost 30) then you won't be able to exceed what you could have accomplished as a young guy. Pevious injuries? They're always lurking there beneath the surface, and as you get older, you will have to learn to pace yourself around them, or pend a lot of time rehabilitating. Cumulative abuse to your chassis (smoking, drinking, recreational drugs, eating the wrong foods, staying up all night) tends to show up later on, not when you are 20-something and feel invincible.

I didn't feel "old" at 40, in fact I felt as if I was just beginning to peak, but as I've passed the half-century mark I can say that my body is indeed telling me I'm getting older. Every gain I make is incremental and requires a lot more work. PR's are frequent but in small numbers. Grip training for me is particularly frustrating- I'm only slightly better on the grippers now than I was 2 years ago. Some days it's very hard for me to get motivated to do a workout. But I love this stuff that Stew introduced me to, and I plan on keeping up with it for a long time to come.

John Scribner