Re: Older athletes

[Guest guest]

Hey Ken,

That was a really good post and I checked out Abel's site looks pretty

good. I'm only 43 but I have noticed that all of a sudden my joints are aching

and the more I talk to people older than myself the one common theme is that

even when they get stronger, their joints ache and are inflammed or similar

problems. How does the method that you refer to that seems to be a lot of

working out, not irritate the Joints? I looked on the site but didn't see and

thought someone else might have the same question.

Thanks,

Rex Icard

Albany, Georgia U.S.A.

====================================

kendaiganoneill wrote:

I'm not sure that the matter of training older athletes has at all

been studied. Since I'm on the cusp of 64, I'll offer what little I've

gained from mistakes made in the school of hard knocks.

I currently train 5 times weekly, workouts going for 75-90 minutes.

All are Abel's Metabolic Enhancement Training - a form of hybrid

training integrating standard training and so-called " functional

training " but with emphasis on progressive intensity training

throughout. I do not lift for power or strength as defined by external

1RM standards, instead opting for the trickier Innveration Training

standard of intensity - in this case focusing on lifting by means of

muscle flexion rather than heaving weights. Transition to innervation

meant going down in poundages, while transition to hybrid was at first

exhausting. After going on four months, much to my surprise, both

strength (measured by poundages), endurance, and agility have

wonderfully increased. In particular hip flexibility increases now

result in doing rather close stance squats. Lower back issues have

disappeared, no doubt thanks to intense core work. MET incorporates

Santana type hybrid training of three to four movements for a complete

sets - e.g,, incline db presses, speed squats on BOSU, situps on

stability ball. MET has changed my training from a bodybuilding

orientation to one of fitness and athleticism.

I've trained on and off since 1959. I had noticed accumulated injuries

and hot spots growing in time. Since MET, those have largely disappeared.

Since Tufts' publication of landmark work demonstrating sarcopenia to

be a major cause of aging rather than merely a condition of aging, and

that group's 1992 Bio-Markers book showing metabolic syndrome to be an

outcome of sarcopenia, the major work in arresting and reversing that

condition has been Wayne Westcott's. While incredibly brilliant,

studies I'm familiar with concern only the first 12 weeks of training,

and it's effect on arresting and reversing sarcopenia. Hence, more

longitudinal studies don't seem to exist. What's more, Westcott's

research populations were previously untrained persons - as cogent as

working with untrained undergraduates. As such, application to aging

athletes falls outside the scope of such studies. What's more,

Westcott's protocol is HIT based on Nautilus machines - something

brilliant for beginners but lacking in veracity in the longer haul -

especially for issues such as increasing density and resultant fitness

levels.

When training older populations, I've switched to a protocol that

might be termed light-MET (or is that MET-Lite, like Bud-Lite?). Three

workouts per week, each different. And progressive in nature. Far too

many maturing adults exhibit muscular imbalances and injuries for

starters, so using the standard machine dominant approach serves only

to enhance their difficulties. Two weeks of varying angle choppers

readily relieves gnawing lower back pain, as an example. From there on

out client-centered training incrementally enhances training volume

and variety.

Older athletes are a far more robust population. Neural " matured

muscle " responds better since they have it in the blood to train hard

and go for increased workload output capacity. Hell, I'm one of them.

Most often the major challenge is slowing them down. I have not found

so-called recovery to be a problem - and instead am coming to the

conclusion that one and two set intensity routines scratch the surface

of athletic intensity or workload density.

thanks

Ken O'Neill

Austin, Texas

>

> In the interests of good research but mainly because I would like to

know myself I would like to pose a question. It is: Should older

athletes train like younger athletes and if not how should we modify

the volume and intensity of exercise programs? Please don't bother

with the first part of the question as we all know there are

fundamental differences. Think of if more as a qualification question.

>

> Obviously as the ranks of the baby boomers age more and more of us

are interested in fitness, health and in some cases competition with

our peers (after all we have competed in the real world all our lives,

why stop now?) how to train and how often become very important to us.

Do you see the possibilities here for you entrepreneur types?

>

> As many of you older athletes know there are in many sports a

plethora of routines mainly designed for much younger participants.

Obviously, there is a need for programs designed for the older athlete

in terms of recovery, intensity, volume, target design, etc. For many

years I have trained under a hybrid of many routines all of which were

high in volume and intensity. This led to consistent gains in

strength but often to injury and over training as well. Being the

mental midget that I am I just figured what does not kill you, yada,

yada, yada. That simply is not true. What does not kill you will

still hurt you and often retard your progress. Therefore, I think it

would be quite interesting to explore the opinions and research on how

older athletes should approach training design considering individual

differences, etc.

>

> Examples: What is more effective in older athletes, high volume

routines such as Sheiko or perhaps singles routine with extra recovery

time. Does Westside address these issues?

>

> Do elite older distance runners train differently than younger

runners? At what age are there inherent differences since this tends

to be different for each sport.

>

> You get the idea, sorry I did not present it in a more organized

way. Any thoughts?

>

> Eddie White

> Blue Springs, Mo.

>

[Guest guest]

Thanks Ken, that was helpful. I'll check into Abel's website.

Rex Icard

Albany, Georgia U.S.A.

==================================

kendaiganoneill wrote:

Hello Rex:

I'd be a fool to be so presumptuous to diagnose what's going on with

your joints! But since fools rush in where angels fear to tred, I'll

share some thoughts on the matter.

Coach Abel's three decades of his own training, including surgery for

two lumbar vertebrae, along with observation of thousands of clients,

convinced him of the importance of multiplanar training - " functional

training " added to standard sagital plane training to cover all bases,

prevent musculuar imbalances and consequence injuries. That's the

substance of his Hybrid Training. MET ups the ante by doing complexes

of two to four movements in sequence, some maximal, others moderate to

low resistance coupled with speed, and going on to the next round of

that complex with incomplete recovery in order to optimize and sustain

oxygen debt. His first training innovation was Innervation Training,

far too complicated in terms of foundational ideas to cover here. In

summary, he puts emphasis on the role of the central nervous system in

training, including the so-called subjective or phenomenological

dimension - what he most often refers to as " biofeedback " or explicit

conscious attending to immediate, unmediated training experience - and

he modifies traditional periodization training from an obsession with

meeting external goals to focusing on internal conditions - hope that

makes sense. He also adds that after up to 10 years of training,

natural plateaus reached can be surmounted by means of innervation -

in this case moving weights by flexing the target muscles rather than

banging the weight.

Joints? Along with Vern Gambetta and Santana, Abel is an

advocate of multiplanar conditioning. With the advent of Nautilus

equipment, the age of the machine was born - with myriad knock-off

machines often demonstrating a loss of Arthur ' inventive genius.

Trouble with machines in particular is that most are exclusively

sagital plane movements. Coronal or lateral and transverse planes of

movement are absent in our training. Imbalances sneak in, and injuries

follow.

I've found tremendous relief from both joint pain and, most

suprisingly, increased mobility in joints - for example, knees and

hips, since implementing MET training. Over the decades my squat

stance had grown wider and wider. Now it's back to roughly shoulder

width, perhaps less.

BTW, 's recent new book includes references to Mel Siff's work

among many others.

Hope this is of some minor assistance.

Ken O'Neill

Austin, Texas

====================================

[Guest guest]

Thanks Ken, that was helpful. I'll check into Abel's website.

Rex Icard

Albany, Georgia U.S.A.

==================================

kendaiganoneill wrote:

Hello Rex:

I'd be a fool to be so presumptuous to diagnose what's going on with

your joints! But since fools rush in where angels fear to tred, I'll

share some thoughts on the matter.

Coach Abel's three decades of his own training, including surgery for

two lumbar vertebrae, along with observation of thousands of clients,

convinced him of the importance of multiplanar training - " functional

training " added to standard sagital plane training to cover all bases,

prevent musculuar imbalances and consequence injuries. That's the

substance of his Hybrid Training. MET ups the ante by doing complexes

of two to four movements in sequence, some maximal, others moderate to

low resistance coupled with speed, and going on to the next round of

that complex with incomplete recovery in order to optimize and sustain

oxygen debt. His first training innovation was Innervation Training,

far too complicated in terms of foundational ideas to cover here. In

summary, he puts emphasis on the role of the central nervous system in

training, including the so-called subjective or phenomenological

dimension - what he most often refers to as " biofeedback " or explicit

conscious attending to immediate, unmediated training experience - and

he modifies traditional periodization training from an obsession with

meeting external goals to focusing on internal conditions - hope that

makes sense. He also adds that after up to 10 years of training,

natural plateaus reached can be surmounted by means of innervation -

in this case moving weights by flexing the target muscles rather than

banging the weight.

Joints? Along with Vern Gambetta and Santana, Abel is an

advocate of multiplanar conditioning. With the advent of Nautilus

equipment, the age of the machine was born - with myriad knock-off

machines often demonstrating a loss of Arthur ' inventive genius.

Trouble with machines in particular is that most are exclusively

sagital plane movements. Coronal or lateral and transverse planes of

movement are absent in our training. Imbalances sneak in, and injuries

follow.

I've found tremendous relief from both joint pain and, most

suprisingly, increased mobility in joints - for example, knees and

hips, since implementing MET training. Over the decades my squat

stance had grown wider and wider. Now it's back to roughly shoulder

width, perhaps less.

BTW, 's recent new book includes references to Mel Siff's work

among many others.

Hope this is of some minor assistance.

Ken O'Neill

Austin, Texas

====================================