Gert's muscle journey's video: TRAINING INTENSITY for the over 40 guy

One of the biggest problem areas for the over-40 guy is to determine his training intensity. Too much and the over 40 body will simply “pack up” (tendons/joint problems and injuries). Too little and there will be little to no response from the muscles. For the over-40, training frequency must be between 4-5 days a week. NOT more and NOT less. More = overtraining = no growth = injuries. Less = under training = little or no growth = injuries due to lacking muscle flexibility One of my followers made the following comment: “Gert in one video you said one must train to failure on each set and in another you said one must tone down training if muscle soreness is extreme. So, which is it now?” And that sums up the problem the over-40 guy face! So, let me explain how we deal with this. Yes, it is true that to stimulate a muscle for growth, means training to absolute muscle failure. It always has been the no.1 way of stimulating growth. In the Building phase, I suggest literally training to failure on each set with resting enough between set to at least do the next set to 80% of your target rep range. If not failure on every set, at least every 2nd set. Not reaching this absolute muscle failure point will (!) limit your muscle growth. Now, of course this intense training will result in muscle soreness. You need to be able to determine the level. Level 1 – light muscle soreness, just sore enough that you know you had a workout yesterday = perfect. Don’t alter training intensity. Level 2 – medium soreness. Making movement difficult during the day = be careful to push your body to hard the next 2 days. Tone training slightly down just for 2 days. Level 3 – intense soreness. Struggle to get out of bed next day. Struggle to walk and move. You must (!) tone down training quite a bit for next 7 days. Your muscles are literally inflamed by all the muscle fiber damage and the use of anti-inflammatories advised (under doctor supervision). Wisdom is required in our training approach when over 40. Remember the training regime that should be used when we are over 40 is where one typically trains only one muscle group intensely once in period of 7 days (this excludes calves and abs – they are of a different muscle fiber type, which usually respond to more frequent training). So, this means that only once a week will you hit a certain muscle group very hard. Then that muscle will theoretically have 7 days to recover and grow. Some muscle pain from training is good and will not be a problem (Level 1). However, when that muscle pain is going into the extreme (Level 2 and 3), like struggling to get out of bed or making it difficult to train, then red lights are flickering. When one is at Level 2 and 3 and you do not alter your training, you WILL run into serious injury somewhere down the line. Plus, muscle growth in such an environment will be very poor, if at all. Too much fiber damage is done to the muscles, thus the soreness. The muscles do not have sufficient time to recover and repair, let alone to grow. Hitting muscles constantly this way can even result in a decrease in size. HERE IS THE LINK FOR THE REST OF THE ARTICLE: https://gertlouw.com/2019/05/01/over-40-workout-intensity-matters/ DONATION LINK: https://www.paypal.me/GERTFITNESS ADVANCED SYSTEM II: https://gertlouw.com/my-transformation-secrets/ [YouTube CHANNEL] http://youtube.com/c/GertLouw [My Fitness site] http://www.gertlouw.com [Facebook page] https://www.facebook.com/gertfitness/ [Twitter] https://twitter.com/FitnessGert [Pinterest] https://www.pinterest.com/gertlouw96/fitness/ [Tumblr] http://gertlouw.tumblr.com/ [Instagram] https://instagram.com/gertfitness/ Happy training! Cheers... Gert Louw