Shoutout to my doctor who refused to refer me to a psychiatrist until I gave the gym a try. He told me to lift weights and run for 1-2 months before going down the route of anti-depressants. That was 18 months ago, I’m 37, deadlift 405 and squat 325, bench 215 at 165 bodyweight.
I have a family doc in her early to mid 40’s I see once a year. She 100% supports me lifting heavy and she supports all of my crazy activities outside of lifting. In fact, she encourages me to push myself 😊
I have zero experience with this as I’m still in my early 30’s myself, but I can’t say it surprises me. There are so many reasons why I walked away from the medical field, even after all my many years of schooling. But the main underlying tone for my reasoning, is the disgusting culture that the industry has around intentionally keeping people sick, drugging them to high Heaven, and NEVER addressing lifestyle or diet. It’s disgusting and an abuse, to treat patients this way! Someone on the verge of diabetes doesn’t need 3 medications, they need their lifestyle and diet addressed aggressively! The same for looming heart disease. And it’s the same for nearly everything else, even the conditions that can’t be cured, lifestyle and diet is still exacerbating their conditions. These elderly folks lifting are doing great by their body, and spirit, by getting out there consistently! They need to be encouraged, and applauded, not whatever the heck those doctors are telling them. Jeez… this erks me so very much!
Most doctor's don't train with barbells. They haven't studied strength training, yet being doctors they think they're qualified to share their training wisdom, particularly to seniors. This comes from a good place generally, because doctors don't want us old people to get hurt, but they don'y understand that seniors can progressively get stronger and we won't break. Quite the opposite. This may sound arrogant, but I'm convinced having read Starting Strength Basic Barbell Training, The Barbell Prescription, Practical Programming, Radically Simple Strength (Paul Horn's new book) and learning from great SSCs like Phil, I know more about strength training than most doctors ever will. So when a doctor tells me I'm too old at 68 to be lifting heavy weights, I just smile and ignore them.
It's not arrogant - it's simply accurate. You've received (through your own efforts) more education on the topic than they have, unless they've done something similar.
Love this. I think that (somewhat understandably) most doctors are in the mindset of treating the 90% of Americans for whom "fitness" would be getting off their couch for 20 minutes a day and for whom lifting heavy things would usually be exceedingly dangerous. And they get so tunnel visioned from that being all they ever see that they don't even contemplate that that doesn't *have* to be the way things are.
Indeed, and most people with the mindset mentioned in this video don't understand the simple concept of starting at a very manageable weight, adapting to that weight, and then increasing the weight slightly. "Sally" didn't start at these weights, of course, and in fact her first day squatting was with an empty barbell, if I recall correctly (I think it was actually a 33 lb bar). It's not just doctors, of course, but that was related to the Sally's story.
I hear variations of this at 62 - injury/"your joints can't take it", "not sustainable." The reality 16 months later is my health stats are best in 12 years, more energy, feel better, sleep bettet, came off several meds, generally more mindful of eating, fitness overall. Yeah, 1 injury due to form, but remediated that, recovered and feeling great.
Don't know which phyisicians don't recommend stength training, here in Sweden we're taught to encourage strength training throughout your whole life. It counteracts sarcopenia. The literature is really in favor of life-long strength training, what seems to matter though is volume tolerance.
Yep, the literature absolutely supports it. What usually happens (and this isn't just docs, of course, that was simply pertinent to "Sally's" story) is that a person will hear about how much someone is lifting - in this case Sally - and upon hearing that, the person says something along the lines of "That's too much, don't do that, keep it light, etc." This could be a family member, PT, chiro, even strength coaches sadly. All this is said, without understanding basic principles of stress, recovery, and adaptation. Sally's doc doesn't get that she started out at a very manageable weight (in her case - an empty bar years ago), and gradually added weight and got stronger, so that her "weights that are too heavy" (in his words) are, in fact, manageable (albeit challenging) for her.
This is prevalent in all of our society. An expectation to be pursue minimalism. Those people will criticize all day saying "you're doing too much," but they wouldn't be saying anything if you weren't doing enough. People don't only do that for weight lifting, but for everything.
If your dog can sit there so calmly when you train, then it can't be bad for you. Also at my last competition I met a Power Couple. He's 80 and she's 70 and they love to bench press. He benched 80kg and she bench pressed around 50kg. They are also both incredibly fit and healthy. I have a lot of respect for the Masters. They are always so calm and they show us again and again how good you can be, regardless of age. I wish them all the gainz!💪
I'll be 62 in a few days. Lift regularly, party hard very occasionally. 'Doctor' tried to give me grief about it. I quietly and matter of factly asked him, "You do realize I could toss you across this room?" Appointment over lol. IMO too many doctors want you to be dependent on them and not take care of business on your own.
I’m fortunate that all my medical professionals support lifting. My physical therapist for my right shoulder (detached supraspinatus) also does crossfit, my chiropractor used to do CrossFit. And for some reason, the nursing assistants at my GPs office seem to take a lot longer doing their touch-feely thing on my abs than would be required by medical necessity.
I'm confused. Various of the lifters seemed to be lifting in a wrong way. I realise that suggests that my 'take' on this must be wrong. I'm not seeing 'bend the knees' lifting?
Reasonable question Peter, and what you're probably referring to is a very conscious decision to not only bend at the knees (so the knees do indeed bend of course), but also bend the hips, i.e., bend over as one lifts. In the squat, this makes for a stronger movement (as opposed to trying to keep the back angle vertical), and it's also easier to achieve depth. In the deadlift, this makes it possible to make sure that the knees are not an obstacle for the bar's path (when the knees get in the way of the bar, it makes for a very difficult, inefficient, and weak deadlift). Note, however, that although the back goes through a host of angles - from vertical at the top of the movement to relatively horizontal at the bottom of the movement - we still want a straight back. And indeed, this is exactly how the back gets stronger. The muscles of the back (and the entire trunk) are responsible for keeping the back flat and rigid - like a steel beam - throughout the entire movement. And so one begins at a very manageable weight at which one can maintain the correct positioning and movement, the body adapts to that weight by getting stronger, and then we increase the weight slightly, and the process begins again. Here's a solid explanation in this video we put out a few weeks back: The ONE Thing Fitness Magazines WON'T Tell You About the Squat ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qWb-onZhxvw.html I hope this helps!
Any doctor who understands what humans are should understand how psychologically devastating it is for a social animal to not be able to keep up physically with the rest.
They mean well but don’t understand. I’m 45 been lifting consistently since I was 15. Most of us lifters are not trying to prove anything to anyone. We just enjoy getting stronger, challenging ourselves and knowing we are capable of things nonlifters will never understand.
How can they prescribe you statins or diabetes medicine or operate on your back / knees / hips once every couple of years if you have a lot of muscle, strong bones and ligaments and a healthy heart? The medical establishment hates it when you find free ways to be healthy.
