October 29, 2025 • 47 mins
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--
Can you still build that much muscle in your 40s and beyond?
Discover why strength training over 40 might actually be your BEST opportunity to build serious muscle and strength.
Learn the evidence-based science showing that muscle tissue remains highly responsive to training well into old age, why midlife gives you strategic advantages younger lifters don't have, and the engineering framework that explains how building capacity now expands your margin of safety for decades to come.
Let's discuss muscle building, metabolism, aging, and what's actually possible when you apply the right nutrition and fitness strategies at any stage of life.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Why building muscle over 40 is still possible
3:50 - The science of muscle growth and aging
6:50 - Why muscle loss isn't inevitable
9:20 - How older adults respond to resistance training
12:15 - Adjusting protein and recovery with age
16:16 - Why midlife gives you a strength training advantage
22:30 - Building your long-term muscle reserve
27:18 - The nutrition and training inputs for muscle growth
31:16 - Tracking strength gains and body composition
36:24 - Your simple strength training plan to start today
43:25 - Consistency and asking for help
47:05 - The cost of delaying your muscle building goals
🔥 Take a 2-minute Metabolic Quiz for a personalized fat loss report (strength training & nutrition strategies)
🩸 Book a Performance Bloodwork Analysis to find out what's slowing your metabolism and weight loss (20% off - code VITALITY20)
🎓 Lose fat + build muscle in Physique University with evidence-based nutrition coaching (free custom nutrition plan - code FREEPLAN)
👥 Join our Facebook community for fitness & body recomp strategies
👋 Ask a question or find Philip Pape on Instagram
📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition and macros app for lifting weights)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:00):
You've probably heard that you should build
muscle while you're youngbecause you'll lose it when
you're older.
And sure there is sciencebehind that, but what nobody's
talking about is the flip sideof this advice, which is the
dangerous myth that once you hityour 40s or 50s, you've already
missed your chance.
Today I'm showing you threethings.
First, why the muscle buildingwindow never actually closes.
(00:22):
Second, why midlife mightactually be your best
opportunity to build seriousstrength.
And third, the engineeringframework that explains why
starting now gives you acompounding advantage for the
next several decades.
If you've ever felt like you'rebehind or you should have
started earlier, this episodewill change how you think about
muscle, aging, and what'sactually possible when you apply
(00:45):
the right inputs at any age.
I'm your host, Philip Pape, andtoday we're going to tackle a
(01:08):
topic that comes up constantlywith my listeners, our clients,
especially those in their 40s,50s, and beyond.
I was recently listening toPeter Atia talk about building
what he calls a strength reserveearly in life.
And while I completely agreewith this concept, I noticed
something missing from theconversation.
That is the practical messageof hope for anyone who didn't
(01:31):
start lifting in their 20s.
This episode is about reframingthat narrative, that story
around muscle building and age,especially for strength training
over 40.
Not to dismiss the science,which is real, but to show you
why the moment you're in rightnow, whatever your age, is the
perfect time to start buildingstrength and muscle.
(01:53):
It's a little bit of aninspirational episode, but it's
also one of the most importantthings to wrap our head around
and say, hey, I am where I amtoday.
What should I do going forwardto give me the best chance and
an amazing rest of my life fordecades to come?
So let's get into it.
And I actually want to startwith part of a testimonial I
(02:13):
received from someone inPhysique University.
And I'm not going to read herwhole testimonials.
It's actually quite long.
I'm going to focus on what'srelevant to today's episode.
She said, I asked him if thisprogram was appropriate for a
65-year-old mostly beginner.
I've been lifting for a while,just trying to figure out,
figure things out on my own, butI really wanted to be doing
things right.
I feel like I'm doing thingsright now because I haven't felt
(02:33):
this good in a long time, maybeever.
I have a workout program withinstructional videos, nutrition
app, a community of like-mindedpeople whom I can reach out to
anytime I need.
I love how Philip and hisprogram gives me a lot of leeway
in the things I want to eat andmy fitness workouts.
Not that I'm a control freak,but this program enables me to
feel in control.
I don't have to rearrange myentire diet and eat things I
(02:54):
don't like.
I'm getting results withstrength training without
killing myself.
As a matter of fact, onemorning I skip my workout to get
an extra hour's sleep,guilt-free, because that's what
I needed.
And Philip suggests we get oursleep dialed in, is one of the
first things we do.
The program takes care of mywhole person.
I'm feeling really good and I'mgetting stronger.
I feel empowered emotionallyand physically because I get to
(03:14):
make my own decisions withguidance from Philip.
I like his engineering mindsetand the fact that he backs up
his exercise science with facts.
And she goes on from there.
But really, the point is she's65 doing this for the first
time.
And listen to the kinds ofthings that are possible again
at any age.
And I think that is so, sopowerful.
I love to see when someonewho's never done this before,
(03:36):
finds the show, finds ourprogram, whatever, reaches out,
sends me an email, and says,like, I feel at my wit's end.
I'm whatever age, I feel like Ican't do it anymore.
Perimenopausal hormones, youknow, these issues, that issues.
It's possible.
Okay.
And that's what we're going totalk about.
So jumping into the topic,let's start with what the
research shows becauseunderstanding the mechanism
(03:58):
helps us engineer the solution.
I've talked about it a lot onthe show, but I'm kind of
bringing it all together todayand talking about muscle mass
and the decline of muscle masswith age, but that's not
something to fear.
In fact, it's something thatreally gives us power.
It's something that's at thecrux of what many people out
there discussing obesity andweight loss and health are
(04:20):
missing.
So, what does the data say?
Let's start with the quoteunquote bad news, and then we'll
jump from there.
The data shows a roughly 3% to8% loss per decade after age 30,
and that accelerates after 60.
We also think that's why yourmetabolic decline accelerates
around that age, because of themuscle mass.
Because in reality, people'smetabolisms tend to stay stable
(04:42):
from the age of 20 to 60.
I know it sounds insane.
There, I did a whole episode onthis.
I'm not going to go into thatpiece of it, but from the muscle
mass piece, it really starts todecline 30s through 60s and
then accelerates after 60.
This goes back to studies backto the late 80s by researchers
like Lexel and others whomeasured muscle fiber counts.
They mess measurecross-sectional area in looking
(05:04):
at aging populations.
However, the critical part thatgets left out from a lot of
these conversations, right?
They're like, okay, muscle massdeclines.
That sucks.
The decline is not primarilydriven by aging itself.
It is driven by what I'm gonnaframe as three D's for this
episode to make them easy toremember.
Three D's, D as in dog.
Disuse, deficiency, anddeconditioning.
(05:28):
Okay, disuse, deficiency, anddeconditioning.
Most people in these studies,first of all, weren't strength
training.
I mean, that's just the averagegeneral population is not
strength training.
And they weren't eating enoughprotein and they weren't
providing their muscles with themechanical tension needed to
maintain, let alone buildmuscle, because they weren't
training.
And when you actually look atstudies where older adults,
(05:49):
okay, we're talking 60 to 80years old, engage in progressive
resistance training, theresults look like magic and they
are remarkable.
And I wish we had even morestudies like this.
There was a landmark studypublished in the New England
Journal of Medicine by FiatFiat, I don't know how to
pronounce his name, butF-I-A-T-A-R-O-N and colleagues
in 1990 that showed that frailnursing home residents in their
(06:12):
80s and 90s had 10 to 20%increases in muscle size and
even bigger improvements instrength after 12 to 16 weeks of
training.
That's it.
That's it.
That is incredible in their 80sand 90s.
And of course, notsurprisingly, they saw better
metabolism and functionalcapacity.
Functional being a moreimportant word than the word
(06:34):
itself.
In other words, that's livingyour life and daily living.
Very important when you getinto your 80s and 90s.
Their muscles didn't know theywere old, right?
Muscles muscle, no matter howold you are.
They respond to stimulus thesame way that younger muscles
do.
They might have differentkinetics behind them, different
support structures like yourbones and connective tissue, but
(06:54):
they're still muscle tissue.
And the mechanism is verystraightforward.
When you apply that mechanicaltension to muscle tissue, this
is understood probably to be themost important driving factor
in muscle growth.
When you do resistancetraining, you trigger a cascade
of responses at the cellularlevel.
Very important.
Satellite cells activate,protein synthesis ramps up, your
(07:15):
muscles adapt.
We don't have to get into thebiology of it.
I half understand it myself.
I will be honest.
I'm still learning this stuff.
But I understand that it worksand you get stronger, your
muscles get bigger, and itdoesn't stop when you're 40 or
50 or 60 or 70 or 80 or 90.
And unless you're out therelistening to this and you're
120, 130, you've already crackedthe code, most likely, anyway.
(07:39):
What does change with age,though, is how efficient this
response is.
And this is one of these thingswe just have to understand and
live with.
It's okay.
Older adults might need alittle more protein to overcome
a little bit more anabolicresistance, which is kind of
that blunted response toprotein.
They may need more recoverybetween sessions.
The neuromuscular adaptations,like the motor unit recruitment
(08:02):
that occurs, might take a littlelonger to develop.
Now, is this because you'reolder and your body is so
trained in one way and yourbrain is less pliable and
plastic and all those?
Maybe.
Again, I'm not a biologist, butit all makes a little bit of
sense, doesn't it?
The good thing is, none of thismeans the window is closed.
It just means the inputs haveto be adjusted for you, which
(08:23):
you would want to do anyway atany age, male, female, you know,
different situations, differentlifestyles.
And so we're going to talkabout that throughout today's
episode.
The takeaway from this firstpart is really simple, though.
Muscle doesn't expire.
It does, however, decondition.
Okay.
And deconditioning can bereversed by conditioning with
(08:45):
the same physics that you use tobuild it in the first place,
which again, mechanical tension,progressive overload, adequate
nutrition recovery, the basics.
Those are the principles.
So that's kind of theunderlying what's going on,
right?
And again, I meant remember thethree D's disuse, you haven't
used it, deficiency, okay,because you haven't used it, you
(09:06):
don't have the function, anddeconditioning, you haven't
trained your muscles.
So of course they are doingwhat they do best, and that is
wither away because you don'tneed them.
And we are gonna turn thisaround.
We are gonna flip this entireconversation around and look at
why starting now, whether you'rein your 40s, your 50s, your
60s, I really don't care, mightgive you advantages that younger
(09:26):
lifters don't have.
Ooh, pretty cool, right?
I've thought about this a bit.
I've thought there's certainthings that I have an advantage
over younger lifters because Istarted later.
Certain things I don't, butlet's focus on the positives.
Okay.
First, you've got a lot of dataand you have some level of
discipline.
Now, I don't want toover-emphasize discipline for
its own sake.
(09:47):
I'm not asking people to quoteunquote be disciplined.
What I'm talking about is thatat this stage of life, you've
tried lots of things.
You're listening to thispodcast, you're collecting lots
of data, you've learned a lotabout your body, your life,
you've gone through the schoolof hard knocks, you've created
and developed wisdom.
Let's be honest, you havewisdom.
Now, there's a lot of stupidpeople who are 45 that I've met,
(10:09):
and yet they still have morewisdom than they did when they
were 25.
So laugh at that or think aboutthat what you will.
Okay.
And granted, some people don'thave the mindset to develop
wisdom, and that's a wholedifferent conversation.
But you're listening to thispodcast, so I'm gonna say that
you've self-filtered into thegroup that I'm talking to.
So you're you're probably notwinging it in the gym on YouTube
(10:30):
videos.
I hope you're not by thispoint.
But if you are, great.
That's something we're gonnastart from and say there's a
more structured approach, asystem-based approach.
But you kind of understand thatit usually takes a little bit
of effort, a little bit of asystem in place, some form of
tracking or measuring, right?
You know this from your moneyover the years.
Think about the jobs you'vehad, the businesses you've had,
making money, spending money,losing money, investing money in
(10:52):
risky ventures that didn't payoff, whatever it is in your past
has probably taught you thingsthat there's some level of
awareness, knowledge,discipline, consistent
application of some sort ofprinciple that gets you a
result.
And so think about the areaswhere you have been successful
over the years and you have theyears behind you to give you
some of that wisdom.
Again, to use that word, right?
(11:12):
There's lots of things I did Iwish I didn't do when I was
young, but then I reframe it andsay, you know what, I'm glad I
did, because it taught me earlyon what I should and shouldn't
do.
Okay.
This is like the engineeringmindset that I talk about on
this show, where younger liftersare chasing novelty.
And to be frank, some olderlifters as well, but they know
there's something different thatthey need to do.
(11:33):
And so I see people programhopping, getting distracted by
trends.
I think you being in your 40s,50s, 60s, dear listener, you and
me, we're we're we've got alittle more wisdom.
We can take a structuredapproach.
We can track the inputs andoutputs, we can make adjustments
based on feedback rather thanemotion because we know all that
other stuff hasn't worked.
We know it hasn't worked.
So we have that behind us.
(11:55):
All right.
So I just kind of give youprops for that.
Give yourself props for beingjust the fact that you're older
means you're wiser in some ways.
The second thing I I think hereis you've got hopefully more
resources than you when you wereyounger.
And there are a lot ofdifferent types of resources.
One may be money.
Not everybody, I understand,but one may be, you know, that
you've earned some more income,you've saved some more money,
(12:17):
you're probably making more thanyou did when you were younger.
At least you should be, right?
And maybe you can afford somemore of the tools or coaching or
equipment or gym memberships orwhatever food, you know, that
you need to make it happen.
I think that's an advantage ofbeing older, is that you've got,
you know, I think of all thethings I had college debt, I had
lots of, you know, I had creditcards when I was younger,
(12:37):
things that I've had to kind ofscrape out of.
But you also have access totools and people, a lot more
people than probably when youwere younger.
You can invest in differentrecovery strategies.
You probably have your ownplace to live where you're, you
know, in charge of your bed andyour sleep hygiene and your
supplements and stressmanagement, your schedule.
(12:58):
All of those things, it justwhat comes to mind for me is
just as we get older and we getmore responsibilities, the flip
side to responsibilities is yougenerally have resources as
well.
Okay, maybe that's noteveryone, but it's it's a thing
that comes to mind to me versuslike a 20-year-old.
And then the third thing, and Ithink this is huge, is your
motivation is different at thisage.
Okay, you're not lifting justto look good at the beach,
(13:20):
although that could be a greatside effect.
I always say that.
Like the vanity piece, thevisual, the physique is a
pleasant side effect.
But what you're really doing isyou're lifting for longevity,
for function, for independence.
You're lifting so you can pickup your grandkids, so you can
hike without pain, so you canlive the second half of your
life with strength, withvitality instead of decline and
(13:43):
dependence and decrepitude.
And this kind of motivation isfar deeper and more sustainable
than vanity.
Again, not to knock vanity, butwe need the deeper motivations
as well that are tied tomeaning, values, quality for
your future.
And if you have children like Ido, it enhances it even more.
Not to say, not havingchildren, you can't have deep
(14:04):
meaning.
Absolutely, you can't.
Everybody can have meaning intheir life, no matter what, no
matter your religion, you know,your family situation, whatever.
But do you have those things inyour life that you're anchored
to that makes you far lesslikely to quit when things get
hard?
And I would ask you to seekthat out if you're not sure what
it is.
You've got to reflect on thatand identify what that is for
you, right?
(14:24):
For me, that is absolutely myfamily, my wife, my kids.
But it's also their kids when Iget older and if I have
grandchildren, I don't want todo to depend on them.
I want to be the one therehelping them stack wood, you
know, move into their new house,right?
Run around and play sports whenI'm 70.
(14:44):
Absolutely.
And you know what?
I see 70 and 80-year-olds whohave done this the right way and
focus on getting strong, dothat.
Absolutely.
Even if they were already onthe path toward frailty.
And that's my point of thisepisode.
It's never too late to start.
That is why strength trainingover 40 is not just effective,
but can be more strategic.
And one little side tangent ofthis, which actually wasn't in
(15:07):
my notes, but I was thinking isyou haven't beat yourself up
from 20 years of strengthtraining already, whether it was
done correctly or not.
So that's another advantage ofstarting late.
You're a little bit fresher insome ways.
In other ways, not so pliable.
I get it.
But again, we're focused on thepositive.
And then the fourth, I guess,advantage of doing this over 40
(15:28):
is, and I think nobody talksabout this, is that you can not
only build but preserve tons andtons of muscle as if you were
young.
I mean, I'm gonna be honest,your amount of muscle you can
build is still not that far offfrom what you could have when
you started young.
It's a little bit less, but notmuch.
(15:50):
And guess what?
Most people take a long time toget to their genetic potential
anyway.
And so I wouldn't even worryabout that.
I wouldn't even worry about,oh, I only have so much muscle
to build.
If your problem is that you'rerunning out of new muscle to
add, you've already won, you'vealready won the game.
I'm you've already won thegame.
In that case, you're justyou're you're trying to optimize
and you're trying to go afterthat next level, right?
(16:10):
And by doing this now, I don'tcare if you're 55, 65, like the
person whose testimonial I read.
I don't want to say her namebecause I didn't get permission
to say her name, but yet.
But just like her at 65, she isfront loading her reserves for
the next few decades.
I mean, at 65, and if you liveto 95, that's 30 more years of
(16:31):
health span, wealth span,whatever word you want to use.
And you think of it like thisif you build your strength and
muscle now, okay, over the nextcouple of years, you build that.
We're not, we're not alwaysdieting, right?
We want to build muscle.
It doesn't have to be in a bigsurplus, it could be at
maintenance.
That's a whole separate topic.
How do you build?
How do you lose?
That's other episodes.
But if you do that now and thenyou maintain it, and by the
way, it's a lot easier tomaintain than build.
(16:52):
So, in other words, once you'vebuilt some muscle in the first
few years, you have a lot moreflexibility on how much volume
you need in the gym to hold onto it.
And then you're holding on tolike 90% or more of that new
tissue that everyone else islosing their muscle mass.
You've built muscle mass andyou're holding on to that muscle
mass in your 70s and 80s,because you can definitely just
(17:13):
keep training.
Compare that to someone whonever built that reserve in the
first place.
Even a small amount of thatage-related decline is what is
going to lead to them beingfrail and dependent.
They're gonna be, they're gonnafall, they're gonna break their
hip, they're gonna have jointissues, they're gonna have
dislocations.
Okay, they're not gonna be ableto get off the toilet one day.
I know it's it's a terrible,grim view of the future, but
(17:36):
it's kind of like in Christmasstory where the ghost of
Christmas past says you have achoice and this is gonna lead to
one future or the other.
That's your choice right now.
Okay, you're not trying to turnback the clock, you're changing
the future clock.
And if you want to think of itas getting younger every year,
I'm cool with that because I dothat myself.
I'm turning 45, joking with mywife.
(17:58):
I'm like, since the time I was40, every year, I've actually
gotten a year younger.
Now, I'm not turning back theclock.
I'm still that many years oldon this earth.
But from the age of 40 to 45, Ifeel like I've gone from 40 to
35 in age and how I feel and howI function.
And and I was joking with mydaughters.
I said, so I'm gonna do thatanother five years.
When I'm 50, I'll be like I'm30.
(18:18):
Now, at some point, I don'tthink I can really be like a
20-year-old ever again becauseof the hormone situation.
Although, you know, there isTRT.
But I said, you know, at leastif I I'm I'm 30, I'm like a
30-year-old when I'm 50.
That's 20 years of biologicaladvantage over my peers.
And then I just maintain that.
And now when I'm 60, 70, 80,90, I'm far younger in spirit
(18:42):
and physique and fit andphysical capability than my
peers, right?
And that's where we want to be.
So if you're realizing now it'syour time to start building
serious muscle and strength, butyou're like, look, I listened
to your podcast or I'm gonnabinge the show, whatever, and
it's a lot of information.
It's very confusing.
I don't want to figure it outon my own, or it's gonna take me
a long time to do that, whichis super common.
(19:02):
And don't beat yourself up forit because that's exactly where
I was until I started followingpeople and working with coaches
and asking for help.
If you're in that situationnow, I want to invite you to
join Wits and Weights PhysiqueUniversity.
This is my semi-private groupcoaching program.
Okay, I'm just laying it outthere, being transparent.
You get evidence-basednutrition and training,
(19:24):
strategies, courses, help,accountability, live calls, all
that fun stuff.
It's not really about thestuff, so much as the clarity to
know what to do for you andquickly be able to get an answer
from experts.
So that would be myself as wellas Coach Carol.
She's an expert, especially forwomen and hormones and thyroid
(19:44):
issues, uh, especially.
She's also a personal trainer.
And you get immediate help fromone of us.
You also get direct nutritionsupport.
There's training templates andprograms designed for every
level, every level of equipment,days per week.
There's live coaching calls.
One of the most value-addedthings we've been doing is
monthly workshops that goreally, really deep on things
(20:07):
like body recomp and recoverydieting.
And the one coming up inNovember before we get to the
holidays is how to finish strongwith a year, how to have a
bailout strategy rather thantrying to do more than is
realistic during the end of theyear.
It's those kinds of things.
And of course, the communitythat binds it all together of
like-minded, ambitious peoplewho are all ages.
I mean, we have people as youngas in their 30s, maybe even
(20:29):
late 20s, to be honest, but mostpeople are in their 40s, 50s,
beyond, who are focused on doingthis, on trying to reclaim
their muscle, build it up,become stronger, and just more
badass people.
Okay.
That's excuse my French.
That's the the closest toswearing you're going to get on
this podcast.
And the best part is becauseyou're listening to the podcast,
if you use my code FREEPLAN,you'll get a custom nutrition
(20:52):
plan as well for free at thebeginning.
And what that's gonna do isgive you an accelerator for what
to do, when to do it, how to doit.
Right?
We don't do meal plans.
We don't do anything that'sgeneric.
We personalize it for you in agroup setting.
And you're like, how does thatwork?
Well, come check it out.
Go to physique.wits andweights.com.
I have a demo in there.
You can read all about it.
(21:12):
You can ask me questions ifyou're if you're not sure.
Some people will ask 10questions before they join.
I'm cool with that.
If you're serious about makingthis the decade that you build
that real lasting strength,because that's what it's about,
is strength, guys.
It's not about YouTubeworkouts, it's not about
mobility, it's not about youknow yoga and mindfulness and
all that.
All that's great, but it'sreally about strength and
(21:33):
function and fitness that allties to the rest of it.
I want you to go towitsandweights.com slash
physique, use my code FREEPLANto get the free plan, link in
the show notes.
All right, let's keep buildingthis framework for this episode.
Because next, I want to giveyou a mental model.
I think mental models are agreat way to understand why
(21:54):
starting now is optimal and kindof tie into the the deeper why
of why we do this and then howto do it.
So I want you to think of yourmuscle mass as structural
capacity, structural, as in yourstructure of your body.
And I want you to think of yourstrength as the output, kind of
like the gas engine, thethroughput, the output.
(22:15):
Okay.
If in any system we design, ifyou designed a system in life,
like a physical product orsystem, you would design it for
future demand, right?
You wouldn't just design forthe current you current use, you
want it to last.
Right?
When a civil engineer builds abridge or designs a bridge, they
don't build it to handle justthe traffic today.
(22:35):
They say, okay, we need asafety margin, extra capacity,
increased load over time,unexpected stress, wind and
hurricanes and all that funstuff.
Your body works the same way.
The muscle and strength thatyou build now is not just for
today.
It is your margin of safety forthe next three, four, five
decades.
Every pound of muscle you add,every unit of strength you gain,
(22:58):
expressed by, you know, weighton the bar, weight on the
machines, weight on thedumbbells, expands that margin.
And even if you start later inlife, the act of building
capacity is still going to payan equivalent dividend across
your remaining lifespan.
And therefore, by startingtoday, you're retrofitting your
system with far better materialsand greater load-bearing
(23:22):
capacity.
You're increasing your wholecapability of your body.
Someone who started at 25, theyhave a longer runway, sure.
But you can still buildsubstantial capacity in a short
period of time and then maintainit because that's the key.
It doesn't actually take a longtime to build it up.
And as I mentioned before,maintenance requires a lot less
work and stimulus than growing.
(23:43):
So we want to focus on thatgrowth.
Once you build the muscle,holding on to it becomes easier.
And that's why I always tellyou, dear listener and our
clients, that building, if youif you're not sure if you should
build muscle or lose fat, I erron the side of building muscle.
Now, you're gonna build muscleregardless if you've never done
it before, whether you're losingfat or not, because you've
never done it before.
(24:04):
Your body's gonna respondreally well.
So don't get hung up on that.
Okay, don't get hung up onPhillip saying you need to gain
weight.
I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying you need tobuild muscle.
All right.
Not five years ago because youdon't have a time machine.
Okay, that's not the best time.
You can't go back in time.
But think of the opposite.
Every year you delay is anotheryear it gets harder.
(24:26):
Your margin of safetydecreases, and your health span
decreases.
Okay.
Again, not to fear mongerwhat's happened in the past.
If you're 70 today listening tothis, this is not a negative
story.
This is a positive story.
You're listening to this andhearing this message now.
Amazing.
Now do something about it.
Now, what do you do about it?
Let's talk about the inputs andoutputs because this is where
(24:46):
we get practical.
All right.
On the input side, you have,I'll say, four primary variables
for today.
And I say for today because Ialways go on podcasts and I talk
about the pillars of health.
And sometimes it's four, five,six.
I kind of move them around.
But today we're gonna talkabout four.
The first one is training.
You have to progressivelyresistance train, ideally three
(25:08):
or four times a week, but forsome of you, two is gonna be
amazing, better, way far better,infinitely better than zero,
that's for sure.
And you have to have enoughvolume and intensity to create
the adaptation where you buildthat muscle.
And that means primarily usingcompound movements.
So these are exercises thatinvolve major natural movement
(25:28):
patterns, squats, deadlifts,pressing, and so on.
You have to progress, meaningyou're not jumping around doing
YouTube workouts.
You're doing whatever you didon Monday, you're doing it the
next Monday, and you're going upin weight or going up in reps,
right?
That's just simple examples.
You're progressing.
And the real first principlehere is you're training close
enough to failure that yourmuscles, muscles have to respond
(25:50):
and get bigger.
Okay.
Lifting weights withprogression in that way, that is
what signals your body to buildand maintain muscle tissue.
So if you've been doing thisfor 20 years and going to the
gym, you're like, Philip, I loveall what you're saying, but I
just don't can't seem to buildmuscle.
Well, you're not doing aprogressive program.
I guarantee it.
If I looked at what you weredoing, that is not what you're
doing.
If you still have the same15-pound dumbbells, and that's
(26:12):
the heaviest dumbbells you havein your home gym, that's the
problem, right?
That's the problem.
Now, if you're 80 years old,you've never worked out before,
15-pound dumbbells might besuper heavy.
So it's all relative.
So that's the first variable istraining.
The second variable isnutrition.
And this is why it's fourtoday, because I'm kind of
lumping them into bigcategories.
Nutrition.
Adequate protein is theunderwriting factor here,
overriding factor here.
(26:32):
And we're just gonna hammer ithome the message again.
0.7 to 1 gram per pound of bodyweight a day.
That's it.
Optimal muscle proteinsynthesis is closer to that
higher end, but at least 0.7grams per pound, you're golden.
Okay, older people tend to needmore than than younger, but
that range covers pretty muchanybody, and it's good enough.
It's plenty good enough.
(26:53):
Don't sweat it.
All right.
At the same time, you needenough energy.
So energy is calories.
And for some of you, that mightbe a slight surplus or even a
you know, more aggressivesurplus to really focus on
growth.
If you're trying to recomp, Iwould keep it more toward a very
slight surplus.
If you're overweight, if youhave extra weight to lose,
(27:14):
you're gonna have a slightdeficit.
But the point is you have tohave enough energy where your
body feels like it has theresources to build the muscle in
response to your training.
A fat loss phase, specificallylose body fat, is a trade-off to
that.
And I'm not discussing thattoday.
But if you have extra body fatto lose, there is a place for
fat loss phases for sure.
They're not very long, they'remoderate too aggressive.
(27:36):
You get them over and donewith, you get out, and you go
back to building muscle.
Third, the third input here isrecovery.
Sleep is non-negotiable.
I can't tell you enough howsleep is probably the biggest
other than alcohol for some ofyou.
Sleep is the thing that many ofyou should focus on first.
Now, I don't mean first to theexclusion of training.
You've got to train as well.
(27:57):
But if you had to pick all theother things that could be
having the biggest impact onyour metabolism and your muscle
building, it's probably sleep,quantity of sleep, quality of
sleep, you know, managing yourfatigue and recovery between
your sessions, using the rightworkout program depending on the
phase you're in, all of thatfun stuff.
You know, even managing yourstress, like can be connected to
(28:17):
this.
All of that supports yourability to adapt.
And I'm not, I'm not, I'm notgonna talk about movement today
and neat and all of that.
I do think it's very, veryimportant that you're walking
and getting up.
I'm not gonna put that as oneof the one of the primary
variables for muscle building,but I probably should.
Now that I think about it, Iprobably should.
But we're gonna go to thefourth variable, and that is
(28:38):
consistency.
I wanted to I wouldn't includea process-related input here
because this is the multiplier.
It's also the thing that yousucceed or fail by because you
can have perfect programming,perfect nutrition, but if it's
sporadic, you're not gonna buildanything.
If you have adequate nutritionand adequate training and do it
(28:59):
consistently, oh, that is gonnacompound into such an amazing
transformation.
Now, it may take longer than ifyou did it more optimally, but
so what?
It's gonna happen.
It's gonna happen.
All right.
I briefly mentioned earlierwe're gonna be doing a challenge
in physique university inNovember before the holidays.
It's to close out the year.
I'm mentioning it because partof that strategy is having a
(29:19):
bailout option.
What I what I mean by that iswe all want to be optimal.
We all want to train five daysa week, you know, eat our
protein every day, sleep ninehours, all those things.
We want to, we want to dothose, but in reality, we don't
do those.
And rather than saying, well,okay, I'm not doing them, so I'm
a failure, we have minimumsthat we try to hit.
(29:39):
And I've talked about that manytimes, having a minimum.
But I'm gonna take it onefurther and say, why don't you
have a bailout strategy as well?
Even if you can't do theminimum, do you have a bailout
strategy that still gives you awin?
That's my point when I talkabout consistency is doing
something every day, a non zeroin all the things you care
about.
On most days, if you're optimalor even minimum, you're gonna
be good.
Even if some days are bailouts,as long as you don't have any
(30:03):
zeros.
Now, are you never, ever, ever,ever, ever gonna have a zero?
No.
But this sets up your mindsetand the way you approach your
process to give you tons andtons of flexibility.
I could be optimal, I could beminimum, or I can go with the
bailout strategy.
Anyway, that's something we'regonna teach in the workshop.
Let's get back to this, talkingabout consistency.
I think it's super important asprobably the number one
(30:24):
principle.
And remember, consistency andintensity often battle each
other.
So if you're trying to go allout and be too intense, you
know, David Goggin's style andeverything, that's a sure recipe
for failure.
If you're all or nothing, surerecipe for failure.
Let's pick one thing, training.
Let's pick two things, trainingand sleep, whatever makes sense
for you, and build up overtime.
Okay, that's the inputs.
(30:44):
On the output side, well, nowyou have to see how all those
inputs are translating to whatyou're doing.
And that's where you trackmetrics that give you feedback.
You're like, oh, data, numbers,you know what?
All life, all existence can bereduced to math.
I don't whether you like tohear that or not, it's true.
Math is a universal language.
And that's because math issimply, is simply an abstract
(31:08):
representation of reality.
That's all it is.
And by reality, I mean theempirical, observable things
that happen, the cause andeffect that happens.
Okay, and if you can figure outthe cause and effect, ooh,
you've got it made because thatgives you control and
confidence.
That's what we are all about.
So, for example, weighingyourself on the scale every day
(31:29):
is a perfectly normal thing todo.
It is not obsessive and it'sassociated with high positive
outcomes in not only weight andfat loss, but main maintaining
that.
There's so many myths in thefitness industry about tracking,
being somehow obsessive orcalling causing OCD type
behaviors.
It's not true.
If you are if you are prone tothose to begin with, certain
things may trigger that, butit's not because you're tracking
(31:51):
itself, it's because you've gotother issues to resolve.
So take scale weight, forexample.
You weigh yourself every dayand then you average it out or
you smooth it out over time tosee if your body mass is moving
in the right direction.
Now that's one example wherethere could be confusion because
you're like, okay, Philip justsaid I need metrics.
I'm weighing myself every dayand it's going up and down two,
three, four pounds.
Can't do anything with thatdata.
(32:12):
You're right.
You can't do anything with thatdata because the daily
fluctuations are meaningless.
But over time, the amount ofenergy you have stored in your
fat is going to be indicated bythe trend in your weight over
time.
Once you've smoothed it out forthat noise with the water
weight fluctuations, right?
So you kind of have to have alevel of understanding of these
things.
Obviously, that's where a coachcan help.
(32:33):
You know, we can help.
Listening to this show canhelp.
There's things I had to figureout not till I was four years
old.
So that's trend weight.
Strength progression in yourlifts, your big lifts, your
accessory lifts, really anythingyou're trying to progress to
confirm that you are adapting.
And again, you have to knowwhat to measure.
What do I measure?
Okay, I need to measure theexercises, the sets and reps,
(32:54):
the weight.
Really, it's just the numbersand track that they are changing
over time.
Measurements for your physique,your body composition can be
helpful to understand where theweight's going, whether you're
achieving your goal for losingbody fat, visceral fat, et
cetera, and health.
And then there's all thesubjective markers that become
more objective over time of yourbiofeedback, recovery, energy,
(33:15):
soreness, right?
Hunger, sleep stress, etcetera.
And I could go on, I've doneentire episodes about this, but
this is a closed loop system.
Your body's a closed loopsystem.
So when you apply inputs andyou measure the outputs, you can
reasonably determine whatshould be adjusted.
Okay.
And I say reasonably becauseit's it's a practical thing,
it's not a perfect thing.
(33:36):
You're not going to get down tothe third decimal on stuff.
You're just going to know that,okay, the way I'm eating right
now is leading me to slowlydrift up in weight.
Okay, great.
So I need to eat a little bitless.
Like that's a simple way toclose the loop.
The precise amount of caloriesyou need, you'll never truly,
truly know.
And I'm sorry if you're aperfectionist and feel like you
(33:56):
have to know, you don't.
It's just good enough.
It's not mystical.
It's not dependent on luck.
It's not dependent on geneticseither.
The genetics establish thebaseline.
Once you measure yourself, it'sit's baked in.
The genetics are baked in, butyou need to measure yourself for
you.
Then the genetics are baked in.
At that point, it becomesengineering everything.
Right?
Now I get it, things changeover time.
(34:16):
As we get old, if you're inyour 50s, if you're a woman,
you're like, wait a minute, I'vegot my hormones are all
changing.
So how can you say that it'sjust inputs and outputs and it's
a closed system?
Because at any given point,what's happening is still a
result of what's going on inyour body.
And it may be because of somecombination of hormones and
(34:37):
nutrient deficiencies and yourbehavior and your brain
genetics, but it's stillmeasurable to a good enough
extent that you can do somethingabout it.
Now, some of you may need tomeasure more things than others.
Some of you may need bloodwork, right?
We do performance blood workfor a reason.
Go to witsandweights.com slashblood work, just to give
(34:57):
ourselves a plug here on that,because that can be a massive
game changer for anybody who hasdone the things or they're
starting to put all this inplace and there's still
something else that seems a bitmysterious.
But anyway, the beautiful thingis this works at any age as
long as you provide the rightinputs, right?
Stimulus, recovery, nutrition,consistency, and measure the
(35:19):
outputs.
All right, so this episode'sgoing longer than I than I
anticipated, but I think it'simportant.
And now we get to the practicalstuff.
So let's make this concrete.
What should you do if you wantto start building muscle and
strength right now, regardlessof your age?
First is start with astructured training program.
When it comes to liftingweights after 40, it's no
different than lifting weightsunder 40.
(35:41):
But the difference is how yourespond and understanding that
your nutrition and training needto work together.
So if you're new to lifting orif you're coming back after a
long break and you're detrained,a very simple full-body
program, three times per weekwith the big compound movements
can get you 80, 90% of the waythere.
(36:01):
Absolutely.
In fact, it's probably what youshould do.
All right.
Programs like StartingStrength, uh, we have different
novice strength programs inPhysic University that also uh
play on this concept of keepingit simple.
It's boring, but basic.
You focus on learning themovements, getting in touch with
your body, building that baseof strength, and establishing
consistency.
And you'll start to pack onwins after win after win after
(36:24):
win as you see how strong youcan get pretty quickly.
Even if you're 80 years oldstarting this, I guarantee it.
Doesn't mean you have to use abarbell.
It might be a dowel, it mightbe body weight, it might be
dumbbells.
It depends on where you are.
Now, if you're more advanced,if you're intermediate or
advanced, well, then we have tolook at having enough volume to
continue growing.
Okay, that could be splittinginto four days a week, even five
(36:46):
days a week, using things likeupper lower body splits, body
part splits, push-pull legs.
There's so many varieties.
It you almost can't go wrong ifyou're just sticking to the
principle of progression.
I've known people who almost dorandom gym workouts, but they
actually tracked what they weredoing and did more of that as
they went, and they even hadprogress.
It's not optimal, but theprinciple is they train close to
(37:08):
failure and they progressed.
That's it.
You have to increase thedemands on your muscles over
time, whether that's moreweight, more reps, or more sets.
You have to.
So that's the first one istraining.
Second is your nutrition.
Again, we're tying these backto the inputs that I mentioned
earlier, but being a littlepractical.
For nutrition, the best thingto do is to track it.
Okay.
Just track it.
If you're like, oh, here hegoes again.
(37:29):
It's because how do you knowwhere your money is going
without tracking your spending?
How do you know where your foodand your body mass is going
with track without tracking yourfood and your body mass?
I mean, it's just, it's, it'salmost self-evident.
But if you're not doing it,don't complain that you don't
know your metabolism or don'tknow why you're gaining weight.
And don't say, I think I'meating this or I think my
(37:52):
metabolism is this, because thatmeans you don't know.
Just to be honest about it andhonest with yourself.
So start tracking your food,which includes your macros and
your calories, and hopefullyalso your micros.
I love MacroFactor, my favoriteapp.
I use it myself.
Use my code WITS and Waits, allone word, to get a free trial
on that app.
And that app is not only goingto track your food, it's going
(38:15):
to give you an estimate of yourmetabolism.
And then you'll know how muchyou need to eat for what you're
trying to do.
You have to be tracking for twoor three weeks before you could
really get enough data.
And that's why you have to beconsistent about it.
And then you adjust yourcalories based on if you want to
lose fat, you want to maintain,you want to build muscle or
recomp, whatever.
Now, underlying all this is howdo I eat?
(38:37):
And that goes down to eatingconsistently, having enough
meals throughout the day, havingenough protein in every single
meal and fiber.
If you start there, the rest isgoing to slowly fall in line as
you realize what it takes toreach your goals and the quality
of foods needed and what ittakes to not be hungry and and
and things we've covered inother episodes on this show, I'm
not going to go into, but it'seating whole foods, eating
(38:58):
fiber, eating consistently, notdoing things like fasting and
keto and all these restrictivediets.
You don't need them.
If you want to do them and theyfeel great for you, I've always
said go for it, but you don'tneed them.
Third is again recovery.
And this is where a lot ofpeople at our age screw up
because you're training likeyou're younger without
recovering adequately, and thenyou get injured or you get
burned out, or you don't focuson form, or you're trying to
(39:21):
progress really quickly and youdon't dial in the movement
pattern.
In my opinion, getting themovement pattern right, but not
dragging it on for months isprobably a good approach.
Okay.
Being mindful, getting a coach.
I don't care if it's a personaltrainer in the gym, hopefully
somebody that knows what they'retalking about, reach out to us,
join physique university,whatever it is, to get that
help.
(39:41):
I've had multiple coaches asI've learned to train, and I
still go and I talk to coaches,and I still will occasionally
hire a personal trainer who Irespect to do form checks for
me.
Because it's and I've gotfriends who are really good
lifters, so we can do the same.
We can send it to each other.
I'm in a barbell club that Ipay for where there's a coach
who can do that.
You know what I mean?
(40:02):
So I do it myself.
I walk the walk.
I suggest you do the same, orelse you're gonna screw
something up and you're at best,or yeah, at best, you're just
not gonna progress, but at worstyou're gonna injure something.
We don't want to do that,especially with the age-related
stuff.
And then fourth, well, how manypoints do I have here?
I have five points, practicalpoints.
Fourth, I want you to thinklong term.
This is the mindset piece aboutconsistency and patience.
(40:24):
It's not a 12-week challenge.
I'm sorry if you think this isa short-term thing, like I need
to improve my physique, I'mgonna take 12 weeks and I'm
gonna move on with my life.
That's not.
This is the next chapter ofyour life.
This is your new life.
This is the system you're gonnause for decades.
And that means this is the funthing about it, this is the
positive thing about it.
The choices you make for thatsystem should be things you want
(40:47):
to make on a day by day, byweek, by month, by year basis.
Things that are sustainable,not just effective in the short
term.
Listen that to that carefully.
Choose things that aresustainable, not just effective
in the short term.
What that means is you're gonnachoose things that have some
level of effectiveness, but arealso sustainable.
So you're actually making alittle trade-off most of the
(41:10):
time to do that.
The trade-off is you're notpicking something that's 100%
effective, you're pickingsomething that's 90% or 80% or
even 70% effective, but you cando it.
And when you takeeffectiveness, modest
effectiveness from I'm gonna doit, you get the transformation.
You get it on whatever timelineit's gonna happen, but you get
(41:31):
it.
If you're going for 100%effective, but you don't do it,
that's a zero.
That's a big goose egg.
So get that into your thickskulls.
And I'm talking to myself here,guys.
Okay, I'm talking to myselfhere.
And then lastly, here, get helpif you need it, and pretty much
everybody needs it.
It's insane that people will goto all of these specialists for
(41:52):
healthcare, but they won't talkto one person when it comes to
the preventative, functional,lifestyle nutrition stuff,
right?
Personal trainers, coaches,nutrition coaches, friends who
know about this stuff, you know,programs, groups, free groups,
paid groups.
I don't care.
Whatever your resources allowthat makes the most sense, get
(42:12):
help.
Work with someone who couldgive you objective feedback and
keep you accountable.
It's not not only does itaccelerate your results, which I
know a lot of you, you know,because you're a little bit of
impatient, impatient for this,that kind of piques your
interest.
But but more importantly, itprevents the legion costly
mistakes that you're gonna makeotherwise, which you're gonna
(42:34):
learn from, but it might takeyou 10 years, 20 years, 30
years.
We want to learn these now,okay?
Especially when injury is atstake or your health's at stake.
So the point to all of this isthere are clear actionable steps
you can take starting today.
This is not theory.
This is something, this is notsomething you have to wait for
the perfect time or even waittill Monday.
The perfect time is right now.
If you have to go back andlisten to this episode over and
(42:56):
over to get it in your head,please do.
Use the timestamps, share itwith a friend, talk about it
with a friend, post it on socialmedia and say, this is the
thing that I learned, and I'mgonna do this today because I
want to live a great life.
The last thing I want to leaveyou with is a concept called
opportunity cost.
Okay, this is for all myengineering and finance folks
out there, business people, butreally this is for everyone.
(43:18):
Opportunity cost is the valueof the next best alternative
that you give up when you make achoice.
Okay, it's the value of thenext best choice that you gave
up when you made another choice.
And here's what I've realizedabout opportunity cost regarding
building muscle later in life.
Every day you delay is not justa day that you don't build
(43:39):
muscle.
It's a day that you lose musclebecause your baseline is not
neutral.
You don't just stay the same.
The baseline, if you donothing, is decline, is muscle
loss, is strength loss, isreduced metabolic health, is
decreased functional capacity,is age-related disease.
So the question is not whetheryou should have started earlier.
(44:00):
The question is what are yougoing to do now?
Here's the truth you can spendthe next five years regretting
that you didn't start 10 yearsago.
Or you can spend the next fiveyears building something
remarkable so that five yearsfrom now you look back and
realize this was the turningpoint right now, today.
The muscle building windownever closes.
It never does.
It is always open to you.
You have to choose to walkthrough that door.
(44:22):
And what I've seen over andover with clients in their 40s,
their 50s, their 60s, in thisage grain, which is the vast
majority of people I work withand I identify with, is that
when they do start, when theycommit to the process, when they
trust the system, the resultsare life-changing.
They change your life.
I'm almost in tears thinkingabout this and how many people
could be helped by just takingthis message to heart.
(44:43):
And it's not just how you look.
Great, that's a side effect.
It's how you feel, it's how youmove, it's how you show up for
yourselves and for the peopleyou care about.
I'm choking up here.
This is the this is it.
This is the decade you takecontrol, this is the decade you
build that reserve, this is thedecade you engineer the body,
the life that supports what youwant to do for the next 20, 30,
40 years.
(45:03):
And how powerful is that?
So let's just recap what we'vecovered today because it was a
long episode.
First, muscle loss with age isnot inevitable.
It's driven by inactivity,inadequate nutrition, lack of
stimulus, and your muscleremains very responsive to all
of these things well into oldage, which means you can do
something about it.
Second, midlife is an idealtime to start because you have a
(45:26):
little bit more discipline thanthe young ones, you have some
more resources, you have somemore motivation to apply a
longer-term approach.
You're thinking aboutlongevity, you're thinking about
your kids, your grandkids,you're thinking about the future
generations and your own healthand not being in a nursing
home.
You're not chasing just theshort-term vanity.
And again, I'm okay if you wantto be good looking, but you are
building that foundation forlongevity, for independence, for
(45:48):
metabolic health.
Third, doing this today isgonna expand your margin of
safety for the next few decades.
You're not trying to reversetime, you're trying to change
the future of your time on thisearth, right?
And it all compounds.
So you've got to start today,just like with money for
retirement.
And then finally, the practicalsteps are actually clear.
We know what to do.
You train the right way, youeat enough protein, you recover,
(46:10):
you think long term, havepatience, be consistent, and get
help if you need it.
All right, so I always like toleave you with some clear action
or something simple that'sgonna be helpful.
And I thought for today'sepisode that sharing my muscle
building nutrition blueprintcould be a fun thing to grab
because it's one of the morecomprehensive guides I have.
It tells you how to seteverything up for muscle
building, but it also has a reallife example.
(46:32):
When I did this myself a fewyears back during a muscle
building phase, I gained 10pounds of muscle and how I did
it.
And so it kind of gives you thenumbers, gives you the thought,
gives you the process and thereally practical stuff.
And that's totally free.
Okay, you can download it forfree.
Go to witsandweights.com slashmuscle.
A link will be in the shownotes.
Witsandweights.com slash monkmuscle to set up your nutrition
plan for building muscle.
(46:53):
And that is it today, guys.
I hope you were inspired.
I hope you take action.
Please do.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits, lifting those
weights.
And remember, the best time tobuild muscle always, always,
always is right now.
Talk to you next time.
You're in wits and weights.
You've probably heard that you should build
muscle while you're youngbecause you'll lose it when
you're older.
And sure there is sciencebehind that, but what nobody's
talking about is the flip sideof this advice, which is the
dangerous myth that once you hityour 40s or 50s, you've already
missed your chance.
Today I'm showing you threethings.
First, why the muscle buildingwindow never actually closes.
(00:22):
Second, why midlife mightactually be your best
opportunity to build seriousstrength.
And third, the engineeringframework that explains why
starting now gives you acompounding advantage for the
next several decades.
If you've ever felt like you'rebehind or you should have
started earlier, this episodewill change how you think about
muscle, aging, and what'sactually possible when you apply
(00:45):
the right inputs at any age.
I'm your host, Philip Pape, andtoday we're going to tackle a
(01:08):
topic that comes up constantlywith my listeners, our clients,
especially those in their 40s,50s, and beyond.
I was recently listening toPeter Atia talk about building
what he calls a strength reserveearly in life.
And while I completely agreewith this concept, I noticed
something missing from theconversation.
That is the practical messageof hope for anyone who didn't
(01:31):
start lifting in their 20s.
This episode is about reframingthat narrative, that story
around muscle building and age,especially for strength training
over 40.
Not to dismiss the science,which is real, but to show you
why the moment you're in rightnow, whatever your age, is the
perfect time to start buildingstrength and muscle.
(01:53):
It's a little bit of aninspirational episode, but it's
also one of the most importantthings to wrap our head around
and say, hey, I am where I amtoday.
What should I do going forwardto give me the best chance and
an amazing rest of my life fordecades to come?
So let's get into it.
And I actually want to startwith part of a testimonial I
(02:13):
received from someone inPhysique University.
And I'm not going to read herwhole testimonials.
It's actually quite long.
I'm going to focus on what'srelevant to today's episode.
She said, I asked him if thisprogram was appropriate for a
65-year-old mostly beginner.
I've been lifting for a while,just trying to figure out,
figure things out on my own, butI really wanted to be doing
things right.
I feel like I'm doing thingsright now because I haven't felt
(02:33):
this good in a long time, maybeever.
I have a workout program withinstructional videos, nutrition
app, a community of like-mindedpeople whom I can reach out to
anytime I need.
I love how Philip and hisprogram gives me a lot of leeway
in the things I want to eat andmy fitness workouts.
Not that I'm a control freak,but this program enables me to
feel in control.
I don't have to rearrange myentire diet and eat things I
(02:54):
don't like.
I'm getting results withstrength training without
killing myself.
As a matter of fact, onemorning I skip my workout to get
an extra hour's sleep,guilt-free, because that's what
I needed.
And Philip suggests we get oursleep dialed in, is one of the
first things we do.
The program takes care of mywhole person.
I'm feeling really good and I'mgetting stronger.
I feel empowered emotionallyand physically because I get to
(03:14):
make my own decisions withguidance from Philip.
I like his engineering mindsetand the fact that he backs up
his exercise science with facts.
And she goes on from there.
But really, the point is she's65 doing this for the first
time.
And listen to the kinds ofthings that are possible again
at any age.
And I think that is so, sopowerful.
I love to see when someonewho's never done this before,
(03:36):
finds the show, finds ourprogram, whatever, reaches out,
sends me an email, and says,like, I feel at my wit's end.
I'm whatever age, I feel like Ican't do it anymore.
Perimenopausal hormones, youknow, these issues, that issues.
It's possible.
Okay.
And that's what we're going totalk about.
So jumping into the topic,let's start with what the
research shows becauseunderstanding the mechanism
(03:58):
helps us engineer the solution.
I've talked about it a lot onthe show, but I'm kind of
bringing it all together todayand talking about muscle mass
and the decline of muscle masswith age, but that's not
something to fear.
In fact, it's something thatreally gives us power.
It's something that's at thecrux of what many people out
there discussing obesity andweight loss and health are
(04:20):
missing.
So, what does the data say?
Let's start with the quoteunquote bad news, and then we'll
jump from there.
The data shows a roughly 3% to8% loss per decade after age 30,
and that accelerates after 60.
We also think that's why yourmetabolic decline accelerates
around that age, because of themuscle mass.
Because in reality, people'smetabolisms tend to stay stable
(04:42):
from the age of 20 to 60.
I know it sounds insane.
There, I did a whole episode onthis.
I'm not going to go into thatpiece of it, but from the muscle
mass piece, it really starts todecline 30s through 60s and
then accelerates after 60.
This goes back to studies backto the late 80s by researchers
like Lexel and others whomeasured muscle fiber counts.
They mess measurecross-sectional area in looking
(05:04):
at aging populations.
However, the critical part thatgets left out from a lot of
these conversations, right?
They're like, okay, muscle massdeclines.
That sucks.
The decline is not primarilydriven by aging itself.
It is driven by what I'm gonnaframe as three D's for this
episode to make them easy toremember.
Three D's, D as in dog.
Disuse, deficiency, anddeconditioning.
(05:28):
Okay, disuse, deficiency, anddeconditioning.
Most people in these studies,first of all, weren't strength
training.
I mean, that's just the averagegeneral population is not
strength training.
And they weren't eating enoughprotein and they weren't
providing their muscles with themechanical tension needed to
maintain, let alone buildmuscle, because they weren't
training.
And when you actually look atstudies where older adults,
(05:49):
okay, we're talking 60 to 80years old, engage in progressive
resistance training, theresults look like magic and they
are remarkable.
And I wish we had even morestudies like this.
There was a landmark studypublished in the New England
Journal of Medicine by FiatFiat, I don't know how to
pronounce his name, butF-I-A-T-A-R-O-N and colleagues
in 1990 that showed that frailnursing home residents in their
(06:12):
80s and 90s had 10 to 20%increases in muscle size and
even bigger improvements instrength after 12 to 16 weeks of
training.
That's it.
That's it.
That is incredible in their 80sand 90s.
And of course, notsurprisingly, they saw better
metabolism and functionalcapacity.
Functional being a moreimportant word than the word
(06:34):
itself.
In other words, that's livingyour life and daily living.
Very important when you getinto your 80s and 90s.
Their muscles didn't know theywere old, right?
Muscles muscle, no matter howold you are.
They respond to stimulus thesame way that younger muscles
do.
They might have differentkinetics behind them, different
support structures like yourbones and connective tissue, but
(06:54):
they're still muscle tissue.
And the mechanism is verystraightforward.
When you apply that mechanicaltension to muscle tissue, this
is understood probably to be themost important driving factor
in muscle growth.
When you do resistancetraining, you trigger a cascade
of responses at the cellularlevel.
Very important.
Satellite cells activate,protein synthesis ramps up, your
(07:15):
muscles adapt.
We don't have to get into thebiology of it.
I half understand it myself.
I will be honest.
I'm still learning this stuff.
But I understand that it worksand you get stronger, your
muscles get bigger, and itdoesn't stop when you're 40 or
50 or 60 or 70 or 80 or 90.
And unless you're out therelistening to this and you're
120, 130, you've already crackedthe code, most likely, anyway.
(07:39):
What does change with age,though, is how efficient this
response is.
And this is one of these thingswe just have to understand and
live with.
It's okay.
Older adults might need alittle more protein to overcome
a little bit more anabolicresistance, which is kind of
that blunted response toprotein.
They may need more recoverybetween sessions.
The neuromuscular adaptations,like the motor unit recruitment
(08:02):
that occurs, might take a littlelonger to develop.
Now, is this because you'reolder and your body is so
trained in one way and yourbrain is less pliable and
plastic and all those?
Maybe.
Again, I'm not a biologist, butit all makes a little bit of
sense, doesn't it?
The good thing is, none of thismeans the window is closed.
It just means the inputs haveto be adjusted for you, which
(08:23):
you would want to do anyway atany age, male, female, you know,
different situations, differentlifestyles.
And so we're going to talkabout that throughout today's
episode.
The takeaway from this firstpart is really simple, though.
Muscle doesn't expire.
It does, however, decondition.
Okay.
And deconditioning can bereversed by conditioning with
(08:45):
the same physics that you use tobuild it in the first place,
which again, mechanical tension,progressive overload, adequate
nutrition recovery, the basics.
Those are the principles.
So that's kind of theunderlying what's going on,
right?
And again, I meant remember thethree D's disuse, you haven't
used it, deficiency, okay,because you haven't used it, you
(09:06):
don't have the function, anddeconditioning, you haven't
trained your muscles.
So of course they are doingwhat they do best, and that is
wither away because you don'tneed them.
And we are gonna turn thisaround.
We are gonna flip this entireconversation around and look at
why starting now, whether you'rein your 40s, your 50s, your
60s, I really don't care, mightgive you advantages that younger
(09:26):
lifters don't have.
Ooh, pretty cool, right?
I've thought about this a bit.
I've thought there's certainthings that I have an advantage
over younger lifters because Istarted later.
Certain things I don't, butlet's focus on the positives.
Okay.
First, you've got a lot of dataand you have some level of
discipline.
Now, I don't want toover-emphasize discipline for
its own sake.
(09:47):
I'm not asking people to quoteunquote be disciplined.
What I'm talking about is thatat this stage of life, you've
tried lots of things.
You're listening to thispodcast, you're collecting lots
of data, you've learned a lotabout your body, your life,
you've gone through the schoolof hard knocks, you've created
and developed wisdom.
Let's be honest, you havewisdom.
Now, there's a lot of stupidpeople who are 45 that I've met,
(10:09):
and yet they still have morewisdom than they did when they
were 25.
So laugh at that or think aboutthat what you will.
Okay.
And granted, some people don'thave the mindset to develop
wisdom, and that's a wholedifferent conversation.
But you're listening to thispodcast, so I'm gonna say that
you've self-filtered into thegroup that I'm talking to.
So you're you're probably notwinging it in the gym on YouTube
(10:30):
videos.
I hope you're not by thispoint.
But if you are, great.
That's something we're gonnastart from and say there's a
more structured approach, asystem-based approach.
But you kind of understand thatit usually takes a little bit
of effort, a little bit of asystem in place, some form of
tracking or measuring, right?
You know this from your moneyover the years.
Think about the jobs you'vehad, the businesses you've had,
making money, spending money,losing money, investing money in
(10:52):
risky ventures that didn't payoff, whatever it is in your past
has probably taught you thingsthat there's some level of
awareness, knowledge,discipline, consistent
application of some sort ofprinciple that gets you a
result.
And so think about the areaswhere you have been successful
over the years and you have theyears behind you to give you
some of that wisdom.
Again, to use that word, right?
(11:12):
There's lots of things I did Iwish I didn't do when I was
young, but then I reframe it andsay, you know what, I'm glad I
did, because it taught me earlyon what I should and shouldn't
do.
Okay.
This is like the engineeringmindset that I talk about on
this show, where younger liftersare chasing novelty.
And to be frank, some olderlifters as well, but they know
there's something different thatthey need to do.
(11:33):
And so I see people programhopping, getting distracted by
trends.
I think you being in your 40s,50s, 60s, dear listener, you and
me, we're we're we've got alittle more wisdom.
We can take a structuredapproach.
We can track the inputs andoutputs, we can make adjustments
based on feedback rather thanemotion because we know all that
other stuff hasn't worked.
We know it hasn't worked.
So we have that behind us.
(11:55):
All right.
So I just kind of give youprops for that.
Give yourself props for beingjust the fact that you're older
means you're wiser in some ways.
The second thing I I think hereis you've got hopefully more
resources than you when you wereyounger.
And there are a lot ofdifferent types of resources.
One may be money.
Not everybody, I understand,but one may be, you know, that
you've earned some more income,you've saved some more money,
(12:17):
you're probably making more thanyou did when you were younger.
At least you should be, right?
And maybe you can afford somemore of the tools or coaching or
equipment or gym memberships orwhatever food, you know, that
you need to make it happen.
I think that's an advantage ofbeing older, is that you've got,
you know, I think of all thethings I had college debt, I had
lots of, you know, I had creditcards when I was younger,
(12:37):
things that I've had to kind ofscrape out of.
But you also have access totools and people, a lot more
people than probably when youwere younger.
You can invest in differentrecovery strategies.
You probably have your ownplace to live where you're, you
know, in charge of your bed andyour sleep hygiene and your
supplements and stressmanagement, your schedule.
(12:58):
All of those things, it justwhat comes to mind for me is
just as we get older and we getmore responsibilities, the flip
side to responsibilities is yougenerally have resources as
well.
Okay, maybe that's noteveryone, but it's it's a thing
that comes to mind to me versuslike a 20-year-old.
And then the third thing, and Ithink this is huge, is your
motivation is different at thisage.
Okay, you're not lifting justto look good at the beach,
(13:20):
although that could be a greatside effect.
I always say that.
Like the vanity piece, thevisual, the physique is a
pleasant side effect.
But what you're really doing isyou're lifting for longevity,
for function, for independence.
You're lifting so you can pickup your grandkids, so you can
hike without pain, so you canlive the second half of your
life with strength, withvitality instead of decline and
(13:43):
dependence and decrepitude.
And this kind of motivation isfar deeper and more sustainable
than vanity.
Again, not to knock vanity, butwe need the deeper motivations
as well that are tied tomeaning, values, quality for
your future.
And if you have children like Ido, it enhances it even more.
Not to say, not havingchildren, you can't have deep
(14:04):
meaning.
Absolutely, you can't.
Everybody can have meaning intheir life, no matter what, no
matter your religion, you know,your family situation, whatever.
But do you have those things inyour life that you're anchored
to that makes you far lesslikely to quit when things get
hard?
And I would ask you to seekthat out if you're not sure what
it is.
You've got to reflect on thatand identify what that is for
you, right?
(14:24):
For me, that is absolutely myfamily, my wife, my kids.
But it's also their kids when Iget older and if I have
grandchildren, I don't want todo to depend on them.
I want to be the one therehelping them stack wood, you
know, move into their new house,right?
Run around and play sports whenI'm 70.
(14:44):
Absolutely.
And you know what?
I see 70 and 80-year-olds whohave done this the right way and
focus on getting strong, dothat.
Absolutely.
Even if they were already onthe path toward frailty.
And that's my point of thisepisode.
It's never too late to start.
That is why strength trainingover 40 is not just effective,
but can be more strategic.
And one little side tangent ofthis, which actually wasn't in
(15:07):
my notes, but I was thinking isyou haven't beat yourself up
from 20 years of strengthtraining already, whether it was
done correctly or not.
So that's another advantage ofstarting late.
You're a little bit fresher insome ways.
In other ways, not so pliable.
I get it.
But again, we're focused on thepositive.
And then the fourth, I guess,advantage of doing this over 40
(15:28):
is, and I think nobody talksabout this, is that you can not
only build but preserve tons andtons of muscle as if you were
young.
I mean, I'm gonna be honest,your amount of muscle you can
build is still not that far offfrom what you could have when
you started young.
It's a little bit less, but notmuch.
(15:50):
And guess what?
Most people take a long time toget to their genetic potential
anyway.
And so I wouldn't even worryabout that.
I wouldn't even worry about,oh, I only have so much muscle
to build.
If your problem is that you'rerunning out of new muscle to
add, you've already won, you'vealready won the game.
I'm you've already won thegame.
In that case, you're justyou're you're trying to optimize
and you're trying to go afterthat next level, right?
(16:10):
And by doing this now, I don'tcare if you're 55, 65, like the
person whose testimonial I read.
I don't want to say her namebecause I didn't get permission
to say her name, but yet.
But just like her at 65, she isfront loading her reserves for
the next few decades.
I mean, at 65, and if you liveto 95, that's 30 more years of
(16:31):
health span, wealth span,whatever word you want to use.
And you think of it like thisif you build your strength and
muscle now, okay, over the nextcouple of years, you build that.
We're not, we're not alwaysdieting, right?
We want to build muscle.
It doesn't have to be in a bigsurplus, it could be at
maintenance.
That's a whole separate topic.
How do you build?
How do you lose?
That's other episodes.
But if you do that now and thenyou maintain it, and by the
way, it's a lot easier tomaintain than build.
(16:52):
So, in other words, once you'vebuilt some muscle in the first
few years, you have a lot moreflexibility on how much volume
you need in the gym to hold onto it.
And then you're holding on tolike 90% or more of that new
tissue that everyone else islosing their muscle mass.
You've built muscle mass andyou're holding on to that muscle
mass in your 70s and 80s,because you can definitely just
(17:13):
keep training.
Compare that to someone whonever built that reserve in the
first place.
Even a small amount of thatage-related decline is what is
going to lead to them beingfrail and dependent.
They're gonna be, they're gonnafall, they're gonna break their
hip, they're gonna have jointissues, they're gonna have
dislocations.
Okay, they're not gonna be ableto get off the toilet one day.
I know it's it's a terrible,grim view of the future, but
(17:36):
it's kind of like in Christmasstory where the ghost of
Christmas past says you have achoice and this is gonna lead to
one future or the other.
That's your choice right now.
Okay, you're not trying to turnback the clock, you're changing
the future clock.
And if you want to think of itas getting younger every year,
I'm cool with that because I dothat myself.
I'm turning 45, joking with mywife.
(17:58):
I'm like, since the time I was40, every year, I've actually
gotten a year younger.
Now, I'm not turning back theclock.
I'm still that many years oldon this earth.
But from the age of 40 to 45, Ifeel like I've gone from 40 to
35 in age and how I feel and howI function.
And and I was joking with mydaughters.
I said, so I'm gonna do thatanother five years.
When I'm 50, I'll be like I'm30.
(18:18):
Now, at some point, I don'tthink I can really be like a
20-year-old ever again becauseof the hormone situation.
Although, you know, there isTRT.
But I said, you know, at leastif I I'm I'm 30, I'm like a
30-year-old when I'm 50.
That's 20 years of biologicaladvantage over my peers.
And then I just maintain that.
And now when I'm 60, 70, 80,90, I'm far younger in spirit
(18:42):
and physique and fit andphysical capability than my
peers, right?
And that's where we want to be.
So if you're realizing now it'syour time to start building
serious muscle and strength, butyou're like, look, I listened
to your podcast or I'm gonnabinge the show, whatever, and
it's a lot of information.
It's very confusing.
I don't want to figure it outon my own, or it's gonna take me
a long time to do that, whichis super common.
(19:02):
And don't beat yourself up forit because that's exactly where
I was until I started followingpeople and working with coaches
and asking for help.
If you're in that situationnow, I want to invite you to
join Wits and Weights PhysiqueUniversity.
This is my semi-private groupcoaching program.
Okay, I'm just laying it outthere, being transparent.
You get evidence-basednutrition and training,
(19:24):
strategies, courses, help,accountability, live calls, all
that fun stuff.
It's not really about thestuff, so much as the clarity to
know what to do for you andquickly be able to get an answer
from experts.
So that would be myself as wellas Coach Carol.
She's an expert, especially forwomen and hormones and thyroid
(19:44):
issues, uh, especially.
She's also a personal trainer.
And you get immediate help fromone of us.
You also get direct nutritionsupport.
There's training templates andprograms designed for every
level, every level of equipment,days per week.
There's live coaching calls.
One of the most value-addedthings we've been doing is
monthly workshops that goreally, really deep on things
(20:07):
like body recomp and recoverydieting.
And the one coming up inNovember before we get to the
holidays is how to finish strongwith a year, how to have a
bailout strategy rather thantrying to do more than is
realistic during the end of theyear.
It's those kinds of things.
And of course, the communitythat binds it all together of
like-minded, ambitious peoplewho are all ages.
I mean, we have people as youngas in their 30s, maybe even
(20:29):
late 20s, to be honest, but mostpeople are in their 40s, 50s,
beyond, who are focused on doingthis, on trying to reclaim
their muscle, build it up,become stronger, and just more
badass people.
Okay.
That's excuse my French.
That's the the closest toswearing you're going to get on
this podcast.
And the best part is becauseyou're listening to the podcast,
if you use my code FREEPLAN,you'll get a custom nutrition
(20:52):
plan as well for free at thebeginning.
And what that's gonna do isgive you an accelerator for what
to do, when to do it, how to doit.
Right?
We don't do meal plans.
We don't do anything that'sgeneric.
We personalize it for you in agroup setting.
And you're like, how does thatwork?
Well, come check it out.
Go to physique.wits andweights.com.
I have a demo in there.
You can read all about it.
(21:12):
You can ask me questions ifyou're if you're not sure.
Some people will ask 10questions before they join.
I'm cool with that.
If you're serious about makingthis the decade that you build
that real lasting strength,because that's what it's about,
is strength, guys.
It's not about YouTubeworkouts, it's not about
mobility, it's not about youknow yoga and mindfulness and
all that.
All that's great, but it'sreally about strength and
(21:33):
function and fitness that allties to the rest of it.
I want you to go towitsandweights.com slash
physique, use my code FREEPLANto get the free plan, link in
the show notes.
All right, let's keep buildingthis framework for this episode.
Because next, I want to giveyou a mental model.
I think mental models are agreat way to understand why
(21:54):
starting now is optimal and kindof tie into the the deeper why
of why we do this and then howto do it.
So I want you to think of yourmuscle mass as structural
capacity, structural, as in yourstructure of your body.
And I want you to think of yourstrength as the output, kind of
like the gas engine, thethroughput, the output.
(22:15):
Okay.
If in any system we design, ifyou designed a system in life,
like a physical product orsystem, you would design it for
future demand, right?
You wouldn't just design forthe current you current use, you
want it to last.
Right?
When a civil engineer builds abridge or designs a bridge, they
don't build it to handle justthe traffic today.
(22:35):
They say, okay, we need asafety margin, extra capacity,
increased load over time,unexpected stress, wind and
hurricanes and all that funstuff.
Your body works the same way.
The muscle and strength thatyou build now is not just for
today.
It is your margin of safety forthe next three, four, five
decades.
Every pound of muscle you add,every unit of strength you gain,
(22:58):
expressed by, you know, weighton the bar, weight on the
machines, weight on thedumbbells, expands that margin.
And even if you start later inlife, the act of building
capacity is still going to payan equivalent dividend across
your remaining lifespan.
And therefore, by startingtoday, you're retrofitting your
system with far better materialsand greater load-bearing
(23:22):
capacity.
You're increasing your wholecapability of your body.
Someone who started at 25, theyhave a longer runway, sure.
But you can still buildsubstantial capacity in a short
period of time and then maintainit because that's the key.
It doesn't actually take a longtime to build it up.
And as I mentioned before,maintenance requires a lot less
work and stimulus than growing.
(23:43):
So we want to focus on thatgrowth.
Once you build the muscle,holding on to it becomes easier.
And that's why I always tellyou, dear listener and our
clients, that building, if youif you're not sure if you should
build muscle or lose fat, I erron the side of building muscle.
Now, you're gonna build muscleregardless if you've never done
it before, whether you're losingfat or not, because you've
never done it before.
(24:04):
Your body's gonna respondreally well.
So don't get hung up on that.
Okay, don't get hung up onPhillip saying you need to gain
weight.
I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying you need tobuild muscle.
All right.
Not five years ago because youdon't have a time machine.
Okay, that's not the best time.
You can't go back in time.
But think of the opposite.
Every year you delay is anotheryear it gets harder.
(24:26):
Your margin of safetydecreases, and your health span
decreases.
Okay.
Again, not to fear mongerwhat's happened in the past.
If you're 70 today listening tothis, this is not a negative
story.
This is a positive story.
You're listening to this andhearing this message now.
Amazing.
Now do something about it.
Now, what do you do about it?
Let's talk about the inputs andoutputs because this is where
(24:46):
we get practical.
All right.
On the input side, you have,I'll say, four primary variables
for today.
And I say for today because Ialways go on podcasts and I talk
about the pillars of health.
And sometimes it's four, five,six.
I kind of move them around.
But today we're gonna talkabout four.
The first one is training.
You have to progressivelyresistance train, ideally three
(25:08):
or four times a week, but forsome of you, two is gonna be
amazing, better, way far better,infinitely better than zero,
that's for sure.
And you have to have enoughvolume and intensity to create
the adaptation where you buildthat muscle.
And that means primarily usingcompound movements.
So these are exercises thatinvolve major natural movement
(25:28):
patterns, squats, deadlifts,pressing, and so on.
You have to progress, meaningyou're not jumping around doing
YouTube workouts.
You're doing whatever you didon Monday, you're doing it the
next Monday, and you're going upin weight or going up in reps,
right?
That's just simple examples.
You're progressing.
And the real first principlehere is you're training close
enough to failure that yourmuscles, muscles have to respond
(25:50):
and get bigger.
Okay.
Lifting weights withprogression in that way, that is
what signals your body to buildand maintain muscle tissue.
So if you've been doing thisfor 20 years and going to the
gym, you're like, Philip, I loveall what you're saying, but I
just don't can't seem to buildmuscle.
Well, you're not doing aprogressive program.
I guarantee it.
If I looked at what you weredoing, that is not what you're
doing.
If you still have the same15-pound dumbbells, and that's
(26:12):
the heaviest dumbbells you havein your home gym, that's the
problem, right?
That's the problem.
Now, if you're 80 years old,you've never worked out before,
15-pound dumbbells might besuper heavy.
So it's all relative.
So that's the first variable istraining.
The second variable isnutrition.
And this is why it's fourtoday, because I'm kind of
lumping them into bigcategories.
Nutrition.
Adequate protein is theunderwriting factor here,
overriding factor here.
(26:32):
And we're just gonna hammer ithome the message again.
0.7 to 1 gram per pound of bodyweight a day.
That's it.
Optimal muscle proteinsynthesis is closer to that
higher end, but at least 0.7grams per pound, you're golden.
Okay, older people tend to needmore than than younger, but
that range covers pretty muchanybody, and it's good enough.
It's plenty good enough.
(26:53):
Don't sweat it.
All right.
At the same time, you needenough energy.
So energy is calories.
And for some of you, that mightbe a slight surplus or even a
you know, more aggressivesurplus to really focus on
growth.
If you're trying to recomp, Iwould keep it more toward a very
slight surplus.
If you're overweight, if youhave extra weight to lose,
(27:14):
you're gonna have a slightdeficit.
But the point is you have tohave enough energy where your
body feels like it has theresources to build the muscle in
response to your training.
A fat loss phase, specificallylose body fat, is a trade-off to
that.
And I'm not discussing thattoday.
But if you have extra body fatto lose, there is a place for
fat loss phases for sure.
They're not very long, they'remoderate too aggressive.
(27:36):
You get them over and donewith, you get out, and you go
back to building muscle.
Third, the third input here isrecovery.
Sleep is non-negotiable.
I can't tell you enough howsleep is probably the biggest
other than alcohol for some ofyou.
Sleep is the thing that many ofyou should focus on first.
Now, I don't mean first to theexclusion of training.
You've got to train as well.
(27:57):
But if you had to pick all theother things that could be
having the biggest impact onyour metabolism and your muscle
building, it's probably sleep,quantity of sleep, quality of
sleep, you know, managing yourfatigue and recovery between
your sessions, using the rightworkout program depending on the
phase you're in, all of thatfun stuff.
You know, even managing yourstress, like can be connected to
(28:17):
this.
All of that supports yourability to adapt.
And I'm not, I'm not, I'm notgonna talk about movement today
and neat and all of that.
I do think it's very, veryimportant that you're walking
and getting up.
I'm not gonna put that as oneof the one of the primary
variables for muscle building,but I probably should.
Now that I think about it, Iprobably should.
But we're gonna go to thefourth variable, and that is
(28:38):
consistency.
I wanted to I wouldn't includea process-related input here
because this is the multiplier.
It's also the thing that yousucceed or fail by because you
can have perfect programming,perfect nutrition, but if it's
sporadic, you're not gonna buildanything.
If you have adequate nutritionand adequate training and do it
(28:59):
consistently, oh, that is gonnacompound into such an amazing
transformation.
Now, it may take longer than ifyou did it more optimally, but
so what?
It's gonna happen.
It's gonna happen.
All right.
I briefly mentioned earlierwe're gonna be doing a challenge
in physique university inNovember before the holidays.
It's to close out the year.
I'm mentioning it because partof that strategy is having a
(29:19):
bailout option.
What I what I mean by that iswe all want to be optimal.
We all want to train five daysa week, you know, eat our
protein every day, sleep ninehours, all those things.
We want to, we want to dothose, but in reality, we don't
do those.
And rather than saying, well,okay, I'm not doing them, so I'm
a failure, we have minimumsthat we try to hit.
(29:39):
And I've talked about that manytimes, having a minimum.
But I'm gonna take it onefurther and say, why don't you
have a bailout strategy as well?
Even if you can't do theminimum, do you have a bailout
strategy that still gives you awin?
That's my point when I talkabout consistency is doing
something every day, a non zeroin all the things you care
about.
On most days, if you're optimalor even minimum, you're gonna
be good.
Even if some days are bailouts,as long as you don't have any
(30:03):
zeros.
Now, are you never, ever, ever,ever, ever gonna have a zero?
No.
But this sets up your mindsetand the way you approach your
process to give you tons andtons of flexibility.
I could be optimal, I could beminimum, or I can go with the
bailout strategy.
Anyway, that's something we'regonna teach in the workshop.
Let's get back to this, talkingabout consistency.
I think it's super important asprobably the number one
(30:24):
principle.
And remember, consistency andintensity often battle each
other.
So if you're trying to go allout and be too intense, you
know, David Goggin's style andeverything, that's a sure recipe
for failure.
If you're all or nothing, surerecipe for failure.
Let's pick one thing, training.
Let's pick two things, trainingand sleep, whatever makes sense
for you, and build up overtime.
Okay, that's the inputs.
(30:44):
On the output side, well, nowyou have to see how all those
inputs are translating to whatyou're doing.
And that's where you trackmetrics that give you feedback.
You're like, oh, data, numbers,you know what?
All life, all existence can bereduced to math.
I don't whether you like tohear that or not, it's true.
Math is a universal language.
And that's because math issimply, is simply an abstract
(31:08):
representation of reality.
That's all it is.
And by reality, I mean theempirical, observable things
that happen, the cause andeffect that happens.
Okay, and if you can figure outthe cause and effect, ooh,
you've got it made because thatgives you control and
confidence.
That's what we are all about.
So, for example, weighingyourself on the scale every day
(31:29):
is a perfectly normal thing todo.
It is not obsessive and it'sassociated with high positive
outcomes in not only weight andfat loss, but main maintaining
that.
There's so many myths in thefitness industry about tracking,
being somehow obsessive orcalling causing OCD type
behaviors.
It's not true.
If you are if you are prone tothose to begin with, certain
things may trigger that, butit's not because you're tracking
(31:51):
itself, it's because you've gotother issues to resolve.
So take scale weight, forexample.
You weigh yourself every dayand then you average it out or
you smooth it out over time tosee if your body mass is moving
in the right direction.
Now that's one example wherethere could be confusion because
you're like, okay, Philip justsaid I need metrics.
I'm weighing myself every dayand it's going up and down two,
three, four pounds.
Can't do anything with thatdata.
(32:12):
You're right.
You can't do anything with thatdata because the daily
fluctuations are meaningless.
But over time, the amount ofenergy you have stored in your
fat is going to be indicated bythe trend in your weight over
time.
Once you've smoothed it out forthat noise with the water
weight fluctuations, right?
So you kind of have to have alevel of understanding of these
things.
Obviously, that's where a coachcan help.
(32:33):
You know, we can help.
Listening to this show canhelp.
There's things I had to figureout not till I was four years
old.
So that's trend weight.
Strength progression in yourlifts, your big lifts, your
accessory lifts, really anythingyou're trying to progress to
confirm that you are adapting.
And again, you have to knowwhat to measure.
What do I measure?
Okay, I need to measure theexercises, the sets and reps,
(32:54):
the weight.
Really, it's just the numbersand track that they are changing
over time.
Measurements for your physique,your body composition can be
helpful to understand where theweight's going, whether you're
achieving your goal for losingbody fat, visceral fat, et
cetera, and health.
And then there's all thesubjective markers that become
more objective over time of yourbiofeedback, recovery, energy,
(33:15):
soreness, right?
Hunger, sleep stress, etcetera.
And I could go on, I've doneentire episodes about this, but
this is a closed loop system.
Your body's a closed loopsystem.
So when you apply inputs andyou measure the outputs, you can
reasonably determine whatshould be adjusted.
Okay.
And I say reasonably becauseit's it's a practical thing,
it's not a perfect thing.
(33:36):
You're not going to get down tothe third decimal on stuff.
You're just going to know that,okay, the way I'm eating right
now is leading me to slowlydrift up in weight.
Okay, great.
So I need to eat a little bitless.
Like that's a simple way toclose the loop.
The precise amount of caloriesyou need, you'll never truly,
truly know.
And I'm sorry if you're aperfectionist and feel like you
(33:56):
have to know, you don't.
It's just good enough.
It's not mystical.
It's not dependent on luck.
It's not dependent on geneticseither.
The genetics establish thebaseline.
Once you measure yourself, it'sit's baked in.
The genetics are baked in, butyou need to measure yourself for
you.
Then the genetics are baked in.
At that point, it becomesengineering everything.
Right?
Now I get it, things changeover time.
(34:16):
As we get old, if you're inyour 50s, if you're a woman,
you're like, wait a minute, I'vegot my hormones are all
changing.
So how can you say that it'sjust inputs and outputs and it's
a closed system?
Because at any given point,what's happening is still a
result of what's going on inyour body.
And it may be because of somecombination of hormones and
(34:37):
nutrient deficiencies and yourbehavior and your brain
genetics, but it's stillmeasurable to a good enough
extent that you can do somethingabout it.
Now, some of you may need tomeasure more things than others.
Some of you may need bloodwork, right?
We do performance blood workfor a reason.
Go to witsandweights.com slashblood work, just to give
(34:57):
ourselves a plug here on that,because that can be a massive
game changer for anybody who hasdone the things or they're
starting to put all this inplace and there's still
something else that seems a bitmysterious.
But anyway, the beautiful thingis this works at any age as
long as you provide the rightinputs, right?
Stimulus, recovery, nutrition,consistency, and measure the
(35:19):
outputs.
All right, so this episode'sgoing longer than I than I
anticipated, but I think it'simportant.
And now we get to the practicalstuff.
So let's make this concrete.
What should you do if you wantto start building muscle and
strength right now, regardlessof your age?
First is start with astructured training program.
When it comes to liftingweights after 40, it's no
different than lifting weightsunder 40.
(35:41):
But the difference is how yourespond and understanding that
your nutrition and training needto work together.
So if you're new to lifting orif you're coming back after a
long break and you're detrained,a very simple full-body
program, three times per weekwith the big compound movements
can get you 80, 90% of the waythere.
(36:01):
Absolutely.
In fact, it's probably what youshould do.
All right.
Programs like StartingStrength, uh, we have different
novice strength programs inPhysic University that also uh
play on this concept of keepingit simple.
It's boring, but basic.
You focus on learning themovements, getting in touch with
your body, building that baseof strength, and establishing
consistency.
And you'll start to pack onwins after win after win after
(36:24):
win as you see how strong youcan get pretty quickly.
Even if you're 80 years oldstarting this, I guarantee it.
Doesn't mean you have to use abarbell.
It might be a dowel, it mightbe body weight, it might be
dumbbells.
It depends on where you are.
Now, if you're more advanced,if you're intermediate or
advanced, well, then we have tolook at having enough volume to
continue growing.
Okay, that could be splittinginto four days a week, even five
(36:46):
days a week, using things likeupper lower body splits, body
part splits, push-pull legs.
There's so many varieties.
It you almost can't go wrong ifyou're just sticking to the
principle of progression.
I've known people who almost dorandom gym workouts, but they
actually tracked what they weredoing and did more of that as
they went, and they even hadprogress.
It's not optimal, but theprinciple is they train close to
(37:08):
failure and they progressed.
That's it.
You have to increase thedemands on your muscles over
time, whether that's moreweight, more reps, or more sets.
You have to.
So that's the first one istraining.
Second is your nutrition.
Again, we're tying these backto the inputs that I mentioned
earlier, but being a littlepractical.
For nutrition, the best thingto do is to track it.
Okay.
Just track it.
If you're like, oh, here hegoes again.
(37:29):
It's because how do you knowwhere your money is going
without tracking your spending?
How do you know where your foodand your body mass is going
with track without tracking yourfood and your body mass?
I mean, it's just, it's, it'salmost self-evident.
But if you're not doing it,don't complain that you don't
know your metabolism or don'tknow why you're gaining weight.
And don't say, I think I'meating this or I think my
(37:52):
metabolism is this, because thatmeans you don't know.
Just to be honest about it andhonest with yourself.
So start tracking your food,which includes your macros and
your calories, and hopefullyalso your micros.
I love MacroFactor, my favoriteapp.
I use it myself.
Use my code WITS and Waits, allone word, to get a free trial
on that app.
And that app is not only goingto track your food, it's going
(38:15):
to give you an estimate of yourmetabolism.
And then you'll know how muchyou need to eat for what you're
trying to do.
You have to be tracking for twoor three weeks before you could
really get enough data.
And that's why you have to beconsistent about it.
And then you adjust yourcalories based on if you want to
lose fat, you want to maintain,you want to build muscle or
recomp, whatever.
Now, underlying all this is howdo I eat?
(38:37):
And that goes down to eatingconsistently, having enough
meals throughout the day, havingenough protein in every single
meal and fiber.
If you start there, the rest isgoing to slowly fall in line as
you realize what it takes toreach your goals and the quality
of foods needed and what ittakes to not be hungry and and
and things we've covered inother episodes on this show, I'm
not going to go into, but it'seating whole foods, eating
(38:58):
fiber, eating consistently, notdoing things like fasting and
keto and all these restrictivediets.
You don't need them.
If you want to do them and theyfeel great for you, I've always
said go for it, but you don'tneed them.
Third is again recovery.
And this is where a lot ofpeople at our age screw up
because you're training likeyou're younger without
recovering adequately, and thenyou get injured or you get
burned out, or you don't focuson form, or you're trying to
(39:21):
progress really quickly and youdon't dial in the movement
pattern.
In my opinion, getting themovement pattern right, but not
dragging it on for months isprobably a good approach.
Okay.
Being mindful, getting a coach.
I don't care if it's a personaltrainer in the gym, hopefully
somebody that knows what they'retalking about, reach out to us,
join physique university,whatever it is, to get that
help.
(39:41):
I've had multiple coaches asI've learned to train, and I
still go and I talk to coaches,and I still will occasionally
hire a personal trainer who Irespect to do form checks for
me.
Because it's and I've gotfriends who are really good
lifters, so we can do the same.
We can send it to each other.
I'm in a barbell club that Ipay for where there's a coach
who can do that.
You know what I mean?
(40:02):
So I do it myself.
I walk the walk.
I suggest you do the same, orelse you're gonna screw
something up and you're at best,or yeah, at best, you're just
not gonna progress, but at worstyou're gonna injure something.
We don't want to do that,especially with the age-related
stuff.
And then fourth, well, how manypoints do I have here?
I have five points, practicalpoints.
Fourth, I want you to thinklong term.
This is the mindset piece aboutconsistency and patience.
(40:24):
It's not a 12-week challenge.
I'm sorry if you think this isa short-term thing, like I need
to improve my physique, I'mgonna take 12 weeks and I'm
gonna move on with my life.
That's not.
This is the next chapter ofyour life.
This is your new life.
This is the system you're gonnause for decades.
And that means this is the funthing about it, this is the
positive thing about it.
The choices you make for thatsystem should be things you want
(40:47):
to make on a day by day, byweek, by month, by year basis.
Things that are sustainable,not just effective in the short
term.
Listen that to that carefully.
Choose things that aresustainable, not just effective
in the short term.
What that means is you're gonnachoose things that have some
level of effectiveness, but arealso sustainable.
So you're actually making alittle trade-off most of the
(41:10):
time to do that.
The trade-off is you're notpicking something that's 100%
effective, you're pickingsomething that's 90% or 80% or
even 70% effective, but you cando it.
And when you takeeffectiveness, modest
effectiveness from I'm gonna doit, you get the transformation.
You get it on whatever timelineit's gonna happen, but you get
(41:31):
it.
If you're going for 100%effective, but you don't do it,
that's a zero.
That's a big goose egg.
So get that into your thickskulls.
And I'm talking to myself here,guys.
Okay, I'm talking to myselfhere.
And then lastly, here, get helpif you need it, and pretty much
everybody needs it.
It's insane that people will goto all of these specialists for
(41:52):
healthcare, but they won't talkto one person when it comes to
the preventative, functional,lifestyle nutrition stuff,
right?
Personal trainers, coaches,nutrition coaches, friends who
know about this stuff, you know,programs, groups, free groups,
paid groups.
I don't care.
Whatever your resources allowthat makes the most sense, get
(42:12):
help.
Work with someone who couldgive you objective feedback and
keep you accountable.
It's not not only does itaccelerate your results, which I
know a lot of you, you know,because you're a little bit of
impatient, impatient for this,that kind of piques your
interest.
But but more importantly, itprevents the legion costly
mistakes that you're gonna makeotherwise, which you're gonna
(42:34):
learn from, but it might takeyou 10 years, 20 years, 30
years.
We want to learn these now,okay?
Especially when injury is atstake or your health's at stake.
So the point to all of this isthere are clear actionable steps
you can take starting today.
This is not theory.
This is something, this is notsomething you have to wait for
the perfect time or even waittill Monday.
The perfect time is right now.
If you have to go back andlisten to this episode over and
(42:56):
over to get it in your head,please do.
Use the timestamps, share itwith a friend, talk about it
with a friend, post it on socialmedia and say, this is the
thing that I learned, and I'mgonna do this today because I
want to live a great life.
The last thing I want to leaveyou with is a concept called
opportunity cost.
Okay, this is for all myengineering and finance folks
out there, business people, butreally this is for everyone.
(43:18):
Opportunity cost is the valueof the next best alternative
that you give up when you make achoice.
Okay, it's the value of thenext best choice that you gave
up when you made another choice.
And here's what I've realizedabout opportunity cost regarding
building muscle later in life.
Every day you delay is not justa day that you don't build
(43:39):
muscle.
It's a day that you lose musclebecause your baseline is not
neutral.
You don't just stay the same.
The baseline, if you donothing, is decline, is muscle
loss, is strength loss, isreduced metabolic health, is
decreased functional capacity,is age-related disease.
So the question is not whetheryou should have started earlier.
(44:00):
The question is what are yougoing to do now?
Here's the truth you can spendthe next five years regretting
that you didn't start 10 yearsago.
Or you can spend the next fiveyears building something
remarkable so that five yearsfrom now you look back and
realize this was the turningpoint right now, today.
The muscle building windownever closes.
It never does.
It is always open to you.
You have to choose to walkthrough that door.
(44:22):
And what I've seen over andover with clients in their 40s,
their 50s, their 60s, in thisage grain, which is the vast
majority of people I work withand I identify with, is that
when they do start, when theycommit to the process, when they
trust the system, the resultsare life-changing.
They change your life.
I'm almost in tears thinkingabout this and how many people
could be helped by just takingthis message to heart.
(44:43):
And it's not just how you look.
Great, that's a side effect.
It's how you feel, it's how youmove, it's how you show up for
yourselves and for the peopleyou care about.
I'm choking up here.
This is the this is it.
This is the decade you takecontrol, this is the decade you
build that reserve, this is thedecade you engineer the body,
the life that supports what youwant to do for the next 20, 30,
40 years.
(45:03):
And how powerful is that?
So let's just recap what we'vecovered today because it was a
long episode.
First, muscle loss with age isnot inevitable.
It's driven by inactivity,inadequate nutrition, lack of
stimulus, and your muscleremains very responsive to all
of these things well into oldage, which means you can do
something about it.
Second, midlife is an idealtime to start because you have a
(45:26):
little bit more discipline thanthe young ones, you have some
more resources, you have somemore motivation to apply a
longer-term approach.
You're thinking aboutlongevity, you're thinking about
your kids, your grandkids,you're thinking about the future
generations and your own healthand not being in a nursing
home.
You're not chasing just theshort-term vanity.
And again, I'm okay if you wantto be good looking, but you are
building that foundation forlongevity, for independence, for
(45:48):
metabolic health.
Third, doing this today isgonna expand your margin of
safety for the next few decades.
You're not trying to reversetime, you're trying to change
the future of your time on thisearth, right?
And it all compounds.
So you've got to start today,just like with money for
retirement.
And then finally, the practicalsteps are actually clear.
We know what to do.
You train the right way, youeat enough protein, you recover,
(46:10):
you think long term, havepatience, be consistent, and get
help if you need it.
All right, so I always like toleave you with some clear action
or something simple that'sgonna be helpful.
And I thought for today'sepisode that sharing my muscle
building nutrition blueprintcould be a fun thing to grab
because it's one of the morecomprehensive guides I have.
It tells you how to seteverything up for muscle
building, but it also has a reallife example.
(46:32):
When I did this myself a fewyears back during a muscle
building phase, I gained 10pounds of muscle and how I did
it.
And so it kind of gives you thenumbers, gives you the thought,
gives you the process and thereally practical stuff.
And that's totally free.
Okay, you can download it forfree.
Go to witsandweights.com slashmuscle.
A link will be in the shownotes.
Witsandweights.com slash monkmuscle to set up your nutrition
plan for building muscle.
(46:53):
And that is it today, guys.
I hope you were inspired.
I hope you take action.
Please do.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits, lifting those
weights.
And remember, the best time tobuild muscle always, always,
always is right now.
Talk to you next time.
You're in wits and weights.
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