How to build muscles after 40 years for a man, tips and exercises

Gaining muscle mass is not only a goal for young people; bodybuilding after 40 years for men is not only possible, but even necessary. Often, this is the goal of older men and women. There are many reasons for this desire.

Sometimes, when you are over 50, you suddenly hear about the benefits of a healthy life and decide to correct the mistakes of your youth.

Others simply want to have a great figure at this age, but is it possible to build muscle at 40 and perform physical exercises after 50? All this is possible.

Gaining muscle volume at this age is more difficult than before, for the reason that the body is not able to quickly recover after exercise. But this doesn't mean you can't start building muscle after age fifty.

In fact, it is not at all difficult and bodybuilding after 40 years is possible, but there are some things you should first learn about.

Luckily, this article covers it all and we hope it will help you achieve a ripped figure at this wonderful age.

Bodybuilding after 40

The only thing that distinguishes a man at 20 and a man at 50 is the speed of progress. If it is enough for a young man to exercise for several months to see noticeable physical progress, at an older age this period doubles. This is due to a decrease in testosterone levels. Unlike women, men do not experience complete andropause, but after 50 years the amount of hormones decreases noticeably, which affects muscle development. General physical endurance and strength, as well as the rate of muscle fiber hypertrophy, depend on testosterone levels. Thus, to build muscle after 40 years, you will have to put in more effort than at a young age.

The good news: the number of muscle fibers and the maximum possible muscle volume is a constant value that does not depend on age. Thus, everyone can reach their peak fitness at 20 and at 50 if they put in the effort. The potential for weight growth after 50 years decreases by no more than 20%, which is associated with a decrease in the amount of sex hormones. It's fair to say that few athletes are able to reach their full potential at a young age.

Sarcopenia – why muscle mass decreases with age

Around the age of 30, the male body begins to lose some of its mass. Of course, you don't have to worry about your muscle mass disappearing as soon as you turn 30. However, you should know that every decade your total muscle size will decrease by 3-5%. Experts say that by the end of life, most men will lose about 30% of their skeletal muscle volume.

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As you can imagine, the older you get, the more noticeable these changes become. It’s easy to calculate that by your 50th birthday your body will have lost 6-10% of the muscle volume you had at 25 years old. Add to this the age-related decline in testosterone levels, and you get a frustrated man with saggy muscles.

But you should not perceive a decrease in muscle mass as an absolute defeat in front of nature. On the contrary, let this process serve as a signal for you to act. Fortunately, sarcopenia can be slowed down and muscle size can even be increased after age 40-50 and into older age.

Consider how sarcopenia can not only weaken you physically, but also reduce your overall quality of life. If these reasons are not enough to make you move, then think about this...

Yes, ignoring the signs of this disease, you are guaranteed to lead yourself to an early grave. Let's see what you can do to avoid this.

At any age, lifting weights is very beneficial for your body. Below are the advantages of bodybuilding in comparison with other sports disciplines.

I will speak for myself. I have quite a lot of experience in bodybuilding for health. There were also long breaks in classes, but I always knew that I would continue to do exercises with weights. How indescribable feelings of strength and vigor take over you when you train. When you feel how your muscles acquire elasticity and tone and ache pleasantly after exercise, when shapes begin to emerge and when you want to live!

Muscle mass increases.

By the age of 40, an untrained person loses up to 220 g of muscle mass annually with a simultaneous increase in fat. Studies conducted by scientists have shown that people who just started training added up to one and a half kilograms of muscle mass. Similar studies were conducted on 90 year old people. They recorded an 11% increase in muscle mass after weight training.

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Blood pressure decreases

Everyone knows that blood pressure levels only increase with age. Studies of people involved in bodybuilding have shown a decrease in systolic and diastolic pressure by up to 3 and 4 percent, which reduces the risk of heart attacks and heart attacks by forty percent (40%)!

Improves digestion

With age, the movement of food in the gastrointestinal tract slows down. This can lead to hemorrhoids, intestinal cancer, and more. other diseases. It has been found that after just a few months of training, the speed of food movement increases by 50%

Bones become stronger

We have already written that as we age, our skeletal system loses a lot of calcium, and because of this, the bones become more fragile. After just a few months of lifting weights, an increase in calcium levels of up to 4% is noted. Just one hour and a half workout increases metabolism by up to 10 percent, which means that excess calories are eliminated that could turn into subcutaneous fat.

The risk of developing coronary disease is sharply reduced

Coronary disease is when the lumen of the arteries leading to the heart decreases. It is caused by cholesterol plaques sticking to the artery walls. Research in this area has shown that after just a few months of training, the level of “good” cholesterol increases and the level of bad cholesterol decreases.

Also, one of the important factors in older people is the decrease in cell sensitivity to insulin. Bodybuilding increases this figure to 20 percent.

As you age, you need more time to rest after training and recover. Don't forget about it!

Features of strength training

You can build an athletic body at any age, but after 40 a man will have to face some difficulties associated with natural changes. Progress in sports and bodybuilding depends on several factors:

presence of chronic diseases;
state of the cardiovascular system;
Lifestyle;
food quality.

If we consider a man over 50 years old who has never played sports, but is completely healthy and leads a healthy lifestyle, there will be no obstacles on his path to an ideal body and success in bodybuilding. The only thing you have to face is the need to adhere to a strict regime.

When starting strength training, everyone wants to know in advance what maximum can be achieved by regular bodybuilding exercises. Athletic form does not represent maximally hypertrophied muscles (often with the help of anabolic steroids), but well-developed and well-developed muscles that can perfectly perform their function. Determining your ideal weight, taking into account muscle mass gain, is quite simple - you need to subtract 100 from your height. A man 180 cm tall can count on 80 kg of weight. After 50 years, the amount of androgens decreases, therefore the growth potential also decreases, changes are introduced into the formula - the number 105 should be subtracted from height. If at 20-30 years old a person with a height of 180 cm can count on a weight of 80 kg with regular strength training and proper nutrition , then at 50 years old the ideal weight of the same person will be 75 kg. It should be noted that this is not a maximum limit, but average values that amateur bodybuilders should focus on. Professionals often use “heavy artillery” in the form of advances in sports pharmaceuticals, so they achieve significantly better results.

What are the features of the process at this age?

As you get older, there are many pitfalls.
The first of them is a decrease in testosterone levels , which is responsible for making you a muscleman. I think you have begun to notice that every year your tame boa constrictor is hunting less and less for prey than when you were 18 years old.

So, in order for your testosterone levels to be at a good enough level, you need to reconsider your lifestyle. At a minimum, you will have to watch your diet. What you eat determines how well hormones are synthesized. If you eat erratically and harmfully, then I have disappointing news.

It is important to maintain the required amount of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. This, by the way, is also necessary for good training and for recovery after it, so that your muscles grow. I will talk about nutrition in more detail a little later; it is worthy of special attention.

I also advise you not to abuse alcohol and smoking, this also affects testosterone levels.

And one more important element of the puzzle - you need to get enough sleep and be less nervous . If you have disadvantages on all counts, then it is not surprising that your muscles are in no hurry to grow.

In addition, you need to understand that your joints are no longer so strong and first you need to go to the hospital to understand how capable your body is. If your knees, elbows, shoulders and spine lose ground, then you will not be able to fully train. More precisely, you can, but not for long, until one of the above says to you: “bye.”

You also have to understand that if your sports activities for all these 40 years have been limited to jogging to the smoking room, then it will be very difficult for you to start training. Because your body is not ready for such stress. Therefore, you will need to start smoothly and be patient, because increasing muscle volume is a long and difficult process.

But believe me, it's worth it. Just look at the admiring glances of the boss’s secretary and the request of colleagues to break the abs.

Age-related changes and strength training

Age is not a hindrance to bodybuilding, but your own health and existing illnesses can become a hindrance. The problem with fifty-year-olds is not their age, but their lifestyle, which is often far from healthy. As a result, people arrive at the half-century mark with a baggage of chronic diseases and disorders that complicate bodybuilding and worsen their physical fitness.

It is necessary to understand how physiological aging and changes in the functioning of various body systems are related to limitations in bodybuilding and exercise tolerance.

Heart and blood vessels

Every beginner, when starting training, first “pumps” the most important muscle of the body – the heart. Progress in sports depends on the coordinated work of all body systems, and without normal blood flow and saturation of organs with oxygen, which is transported by blood, it is impossible to achieve good results.

The heart wears out, and an unhealthy lifestyle accelerates this process, so in some cases, the possibilities of strength training for an individual man over 40 years of age may be severely limited. With heart pathologies, a person cannot normally tolerate physical activity. Diseases for which bodybuilding is prohibited:

arrhythmia;
heart failure;
atherosclerosis;
arterial hypertension;
severe congenital or acquired heart defects;
previous myocardial infarction.

Atherosclerosis is a disease in which cholesterol plaques form on the walls of blood vessels, narrowing their lumen and complicating normal blood flow. Another common disease for those over 40 is arterial hypertension - increased vascular tone, leading to high blood pressure and poor circulation. Such disorders arise due to poor nutrition, physical inactivity and excess weight.

The good news is that moderate exercise can improve your overall health if you have cardiovascular disease. The bad news is that moderate exercise is not about bodybuilding and strength training. Thus, if you have at least one of the above diseases, the list of acceptable exercises is limited. You can start bodybuilding only after consultation with a cardiologist and an adequate assessment of the functioning of the cardiovascular system by a specialist.

Musculoskeletal system

Another scourge of the modern man is problems with the musculoskeletal system. Even an initially completely healthy person develops a number of problems with the spine and joints over the years. This is due to physical inactivity (lack of physical activity), which affects about half of all people of working age.

The main causes of back problems:

sedentary work, which results in stooping;
lack of adequate physical activity;
being overweight.

The second extreme is diseases of the back and joints due to injuries and excessive physical exertion. As doctors joke, “osteochondrosis spares no one,” and every second person over 40 years of age faces this disease. This disease affects the cervical, thoracic or lumbar spine. Against the background of osteochondrosis, more serious problems can develop, such as spinal hernias and disc protrusions. All these conditions do not exclude the possibility of training in the gym, but they significantly limit the range of possibilities in strength training.

Another problem of modern man is knee pain. Violation of the normal functioning of the extensors is caused by inflammatory and degenerative-dystrophic diseases, as well as heavy load on the legs due to heavy body weight. And if you can still somehow deal with a protrusion or hernia, then with problem knees you will have to forget about working with heavy weights. In order to assess the likely risks and not harm yourself with exercises, before attending the first lesson, you should undergo an examination by a neurologist or rheumatologist, taking x-rays of all “weak” areas of the musculoskeletal system.

Bones and tendons

Tendons become less elastic with age - that's a fact. Accordingly, the risk of sprain or injury increases during intense physical exertion. But with bones, not everything is so bad: according to statistics, osteoporosis, or a decrease in bone density, affects women, not men. In the stronger sex, problems with bones are possible by the age of 60-70.

Age-related tendon problems dictate the need for a full warm-up before the main load. It is useful for men over 40 to do stretching - this will not only protect you from injury, but will also have a positive effect on your overall well-being.

The importance of testosterone in bodybuilding

The myth that after 50 years you cannot build up muscles and create an athletic body is firmly entrenched in the minds of men. You need to stop believing in this and understand the peculiarities of how the male body works.

Testosterone does affect the rate of muscle gain, but its production in a man’s body does not stop as long as healthy testicles are in place. The problem of testosterone deficiency can only be encountered by a man of any age who has undergone a bilateral orchiectomy. By the way, such an operation is prescribed in critical cases; there is no time for sports here.

With age, the male sex hormone actually becomes less, but there is no deficiency. This explains why some men remain fertile at 70 and 80 years of age. Only diseases of the male genitourinary system can reduce the amount of testosterone to a critical level.

Since in a relatively healthy person the production of testosterone does not stop, but only decreases, it is possible to build muscle at the age of 40 and later. This requires approximately 30% more time than a young man. At first, work on your own body will progress slowly. During this period, the body gets used to physical activity, the muscles become toned, and the process of hypertrophy begins. However, once the muscles are in working condition, testosterone levels will increase and the rate of hypertrophy will increase significantly. You will also have to reconsider your lifestyle and acquire a number of useful habits that have a positive effect on the production of male sex hormones.

About metabolism

Another myth that needs to be dispelled is that metabolism slows down with age. This happens only in one case - severe endocrine diseases, such as diabetes, or excess weight problems. The metabolic rate of a healthy person does not decrease; moreover, the value of basal metabolism is always the same and depends on height and weight. The problem with quickly gaining extra pounds is not associated with an age-related slowdown in metabolism, but with a decrease in physical activity and a general decrease in body tone. As a rule, lack of strength in people after 50 years of age is associated with chronic diseases and lack of physical activity.

Is it too late to start?

Someone will say: it's never too late to start something. Without being so categorical, we can say that “points of no return” still exist. These are serious illnesses or the end of life.

But as long as you can move, you don’t have serious illnesses, you can do something with your body.

The good news is that our body is a partially renewable resource, that is, capable of restoration. With the help of nutrition, certain procedures and physical training, you can significantly improve your figure and health.

It doesn't matter how old you are! It is important how healthy your body is and how unbending your will is. Muscle growth at 40 years of age is slower than at 20, but the process is still ongoing and impressive results can be achieved. The main thing is not to go ahead, but to do a little preliminary preparation.

Features of physical activity after 40 years

Having found out that age is not a hindrance to sports, you should figure out how to build muscles after 50 years and build an ideal body. The basic principles of training are as follows:

regular cardio;
warm-up, stretching and cool-down;
less weight and more repetitions;
complete rest;
attention to nutrition and daily routine.

A person who has not exercised before should start by visiting a doctor. You can start exercising only after concluding that the man is healthy or does not have serious disorders in which sports are prohibited. Common chronic diseases that arise with age are not an absolute contraindication, but only oblige us to take load distribution and building a strength training plan more seriously.

For mild to moderate hypertension, the emphasis is on low-intensity aerobic exercise. Fast walking on a treadmill improves the functioning of the heart and blood vessels. After 2-3 months of such exercises, you can move on to strength training to gain muscle mass.
If you have osteochondrosis and non-critical knee problems, you can work in the gym. Each strength training begins with preparing the spine for work using a moderate impact load (walking, running on an orbit track). For problems with the knees, the use of a fixing bandage or bandage is recommended; for problems with the lower back, it is recommended to use an athletic belt during training.

It is recommended to work out in the gym with a personal trainer. The specialist will create a strength training program taking into account the client’s physical fitness, while monitoring the performance of each exercise and selecting the working weight. Correct technique and adequate load are the key to rapid progress and minimizing the risk of injury.

Up to 2 months

The most important task of this stage is to increase blood circulation throughout the body ; this is the simplest cardio exercise together with pumping. You need to use such working weights in which you perform at least 15-20 repetitions, rest between sets for 60-90 seconds, this will speed up the blood of your body, supply all organs with oxygen and prepare the muscles for future heavier physical activity.

No heavy weights or records, training with moderate weights combined with aerobic exercise - running, cycling, orbitrek.

How to create a training program?

How to build muscle after 50 years depends on the initial parameters. If you are overweight, you should start with cardio and a calorie deficit. Sample schedule for a training week:

Monday, Wednesday, Saturday – strength training;
Tuesday, Friday – cardio;
Thursday, Sunday are rest days.

If you have health problems, you can start with two strength and two cardio workouts per week. Gradually, as your physical performance improves, switch to three strength exercises per week.

Each lesson begins with a full warm-up. It will take at least 10 minutes. Then they move on to strength training in the gym, focusing on the following exercises:

military press – for developing the muscles of the arms and shoulder girdle;
weighted squats - to strengthen the lower body and stabilizer muscles;
deadlift with a weight of 25 kg - for the lower back, hips, hip extensors;
bench press with a weight of 6 kg in each hand - strengthens the pectoral muscles;
hyperextension with additional weight in the hands or crunches on the floor - for the abs and lumbar extensors.

These exercises will perfectly prepare the body for full strength training and isolation exercises. The military press will stabilize the muscles of the back and arms, which in the future will be needed to perform isolated exercises for the biceps, triceps and latissimus dorsi. Squats normalize the mobility of the knee joint, provided there are no pathologies of this joint. The deadlift is a basic exercise for men that increases overall endurance and develops the lumbar region.

The main principle of training after 40-50 years is more repetitions. The weight used is 70% of the maximum a man can handle. All exercises are performed in 3-4 sets of 15 times or more. As you gain experience, the program must be changed, but due to the heavy load on the joints, working with maximum weight is not recommended.

At stage 0 - 1.5 months - Improving blood circulation

Remember, the very first task that you need to set for yourself in the early stages of training, from the first day in the gym, is to improve blood circulation in the body. What should I do? The first workouts should be volumetric, involving pumping. That is, the number of repetitions in approaches should be in the range of 15-20, but with light weight. Also try to keep the rest between sets minimal.

The main goal is to maximize blood circulation in the body. There is no goal to focus on the number of approaches in any particular exercise. It is necessary to proceed from the total number of sets per workout, this is 18-20 approaches. For example, 5 exercises of 4 approaches is 20 approaches per workout. It makes no sense to work to failure, to work with heavy weights either, it’s all in the background, even in third place.

Nutrition and lifestyle

A young man involved in sports can afford various indulgences and regular cheat meals, but a man over 50 years old is deprived of such luxury. To really succeed in sports, gain maximum mass and always stay in shape, it is important to always eat right.

Any semi-finished products, fatty confectionery products, foods rich in fast carbohydrates and trans fats are excluded from the diet. Loosening your diet for one day is taking a step back one workout. And trans fats are dangerous for the cardiovascular system and, if abused, lead to atherosclerosis.
In nutrition, the emphasis is on protein. You can and should eat red meat, as it promotes testosterone production, but without abuse. Seafood, tomatoes and fresh herbs are good for health - foods that have a positive effect on the functioning of the hormonal system.
Another important rule for successfully gaining muscle mass is proper rest between workouts. Each muscle group should recover for at least two days. In other words, if the back and chest were worked on Monday, the next loads on these groups are allowed no earlier than Thursday.
You cannot build a beautiful body without a daily routine - every athlete knows this. To increase the volume of muscle fibers, somatotropic hormone is needed, and with age it becomes less and less. This substance is produced during sleep and only until 1-2 am, so the athlete should have a bedtime no later than 11:00 pm (preferably before 10:00 pm).

After 50 years, life does not end; age is not an indicator of sporting success. For many, this age becomes a period of discovering new opportunities, and bodybuilding is one of them. Any man can build muscle if he takes a responsible approach to drawing up an exercise program. In addition to a beautiful and sculpted body, regular bodybuilding exercises will improve your overall well-being and help you maintain good health for many years.

How to build muscle in the shortest possible time?

It is very important to create conditions for testosterone synthesis. To do this, you need to lead a healthy lifestyle, which includes a balanced diet, proper rest, including eight hours of sleep, and regular cardio training. By the way, you should go to bed early, since the peak of synthesis occurs during deep sleep and continues until the early morning, and deep sleep is the second phase, which begins at approximately two in the morning, provided that a person falls asleep before 10 pm. That is, if a man falls asleep at 24 hours, then the phase of deep sleep shifts and the time for testosterone synthesis is reduced.
As for diet, everything is simple. To produce male hormones, you need protein foods, as well as fruits and vegetables. To gain weight, your diet should also contain carbohydrates, but only complex ones. Sugar and flour should be excluded.
Bad habits also fall under the taboo: alcohol, tobacco. Also, excessive consumption of coffee, smoked foods, fatty and salty foods should also be limited.

Step-by-step instructions for men

To achieve the maximum benefit from what fitness provides for men after 40 years of age, you need to adhere to some rules. Therefore, we provide you with almost step-by-step instructions for men after 40 years of age:

The preparation of a training program should be based on the state of health and the speed of adaptation of your body to stress. It is necessary to start training with minimal loads, then regularly increase them along with the duration and frequency of training. It is important to rationally approach the preparation of the program. To do this, you need to decide on the purpose of your training. For example, you can include exercises to strengthen the functioning of the heart and blood vessels, respiratory organs, build muscle, increase the range of motion in joints, increase muscle elasticity, as well as for losing weight and normalizing general well-being.
We strongly advise you to do aerobic training for at least 30-40 minutes, 3-4 per week. As you progress, the duration of aerobic training should be gradually increased. This factor primarily depends on the degree of adaptation that fitness can provide for men after 40 years of age. You should exercise at moderate intensity without working at the limit of your aerobic threshold. It is recommended to combine several types of aerobic exercise: cycling, brisk walking, swimming, running. (Again, the type of load must be selected based on how you feel).
If you don’t have the strength for a long workout, you can just walk. Try to aim for 8,000-10,000 steps every day.
Stretching is also important. It is advisable to do stretching exercises almost every day.
Anaerobic exercise, that is, weight training in the gym and at home, should also be included in fitness for men after 40 years of age. The intensity of the loads is distributed according to the principle of increase - from least to greatest. It is best for men to train in the gym, as it has all the necessary equipment for high-quality training of all muscle groups. In addition, it is allowed to conduct workouts where you use your body weight for loads (push-ups, pull-ups, twisting, dips).
You need to rest for 2-3 minutes between approaches. The movement of the projectile should be slow or moderate. For example, after 15 technically correct squats, you need to rest for 2-3 minutes, then start squats again.
It is recommended to perform the movement under control. It affects the effectiveness of training. If an athlete is well trained, fairly intense loads are indicated for him. It is in this case that the return from training will be maximum. For muscle growth, you need to push the exercise to failure. Failure is a marker that the muscles are working to the limit. However, fitness for men after 40 years of age, especially if they have health problems (for example, due to heart problems), can have an adverse effect on the body. After all, refusal approaches at this age can cause harm.
It is also important to sometimes change the training program, add or exclude certain exercises. To ensure that your muscles do not get used to the load, it is recommended to change the training program every 2-3 months. For example, sometimes it is enough to switch exercises or change the number of repetitions and sets.
Every week you should do 2-3 weight training sessions. Over time, after your body adapts to the stress, you can increase the number of workouts per week, while reducing the intensity of each session. As you train, full-body workouts will no longer be as easy as at the beginning of your training journey. Therefore, it is recommended to work each muscle group once a week. For example, on Monday we train the chest and biceps, on Wednesday – the back muscles and shoulders, on Friday – the legs and triceps. This system is called a split, in which each muscle group is assigned a specific day to work it out. Split can be varied in different ways.
Static exercises, during which the muscles tense without movement, are not recommended.
Men over 50-60 years of age and older need to approach training even more rationally. In this case, training with free weights and machines can bring undesirable results. In this case, you need to train with your own weight, use a fitball, expanders, and pay more attention to aerobic exercise. Exercises on a fitball are good for training your abs and long back muscles. At an older age, a strong lower back is simply necessary.
It is recommended to combine fitness for men and exercises in the gym with specialized gymnastics. It should be noted that it is quite difficult for people who are well adapted to stress to increase the intensity of exercise.

During training, it is necessary to maintain balance and correctly distribute the load on each muscle group.
People with osteoporosis, arthritis, arthrosis and other diseases of the musculoskeletal system are recommended to take water aerobics classes. Exercises in water are performed against water resistance using additional equipment. To prevent diseases of the musculoskeletal system, it is recommended to take the natural remedy “Osteomed”.
Don't forget about warming up before training. Joints, muscles and tendons in men after 40 years of age require a good “warm-up”. Each workout should begin with a good warm-up for 5-10 minutes. In addition to this, after class it is strongly recommended to cool down in order to calm the nervous and cardiovascular systems. “Warming up” the muscles should not be neglected, especially for men and women after 40-50 years of age. You need to warm up like this: 5-7 minutes of running on a treadmill or pedaling on a bicycle ergometer, then you can do crunches, jump rope, and then stretch. Before starting working approaches, it is recommended to do several warm-up and acclimatization sets for more efficient muscle work. As a rule, for a warm-up set the weight is calculated as 50% of the working one. Acclimatization approaches are done with 60-80% of the worker and are necessary to adapt the muscles to the upcoming strength training.
If you suffer from back pain, you should not squat with a barbell or do deadlifts. The same goes for overhead shoulder presses if you have a sore or injured shoulder. Think with your head before you start any traumatic exercise. Sometimes it is better to replace it than to put your health at risk. In this case, try to find an alternative to such exercises and replace them with simulators. For example, if there are contraindications to performing heavy squats with a barbell, then it is recommended to replace them with a leg press in a special machine.
Try not to do explosive movements if you are over 40. This style of exercise is quite dangerous even for young and experienced athletes. Therefore, such “explosive” fitness for men who have crossed the threshold of 40 years old is completely unsuitable for them. Pay special attention to the negative phase of the exercise: lower the implements twice as slow as in the positive phase of the movement.
The adult body requires more time to recover even after training with moderate intensity. Sometimes, it is recommended to add at least one day of rest between classes and rest, for example, not 1-2 days, but 3-4. It is recommended to alternate training for the upper and lower body and not to train a muscle group until it has fully recovered. The Leveton P, Leveton Forte, Elton P and Elton Forte complexes will help you recover much faster.
Reduce the intensity of your training plan if you feel tired and overwhelmed. You should not copy the training of twenty-year-old guys. The training should be moderately intense. It is allowed to use the so-called periodization of training, which is used by many performing athletes. Fitness for men and its periodization after the age of 40 looks something like this: at the beginning of the training journey, while you are still full of energy, you can train at medium intensity for 3 weeks, followed by 1 easy week of training. An easy week involves using weights that are 50-70% of the weights you've been lifting the previous 3 weeks. It is likely that for some men, introducing an easy week into the training plan is necessary after a couple of weeks of intense training, and sometimes alternating one intense and one easy week may be even beneficial. In each case, you need to look for the optimal balance for each new athlete. Everything is individual and depends on many factors, such as: training volumes, intensity of training, the speed of recovery of a person’s physiological systems, the presence of injuries and other aspects. Light training is encouraged if there is no strength left for a full workout.
Get enough sleep. Athletes in their twenties can work, study, exercise and even walk at night with virtually no harm to health and muscle growth. However, after overcoming the 40-year mark, fitness for men without proper sleep will seem beyond belief. Fitness for men after 40 years is impossible without proper recovery and sleep. In addition to the duration of sleep, it is also necessary to monitor its quality. Every little detail is important: the hardness of the mattress, the temperature during sleep, air humidity, the absence of stress, compliance with the regime, the absence of diseases that disturb restful sleep, etc. Try to limit yourself from consuming caffeine in the afternoon. Do not exercise right before bed; it is recommended to finish your workouts 3-4 hours before going to bed. Put your smartphone, tablet, laptop aside before bed and don’t watch TV 2 hours before bedtime. The recommended time for sleep is 8-9 hours, and it is advisable to fall asleep before midnight. For proper sleep, it is recommended to use sedative sedatives “Motherwort P”, “Valerian P” and “Nervo-Vit”.

An approximate training plan for men after 40 years of age should look like this:

The number of exercises per workout is 6-8 (at the beginning of classes it is better to start with 3-5).
Each exercise is designed for 12-15 repetitions (as training progresses, the weights on the apparatus should increase and the number of repetitions decrease). It is recommended to rest between exercises and approaches until your heart rate is completely restored.