How To STOP Losing Muscle As You Age (IMPORTANT!)

Take one look at this graph and you might not be very optimistic because you'll see here that with each passing decade we lose both muscle mass and strength. As a matter of fact, even in our 30s, we're losing 3 and a half to 4%

strength. As a matter of fact, even in our 30s, we're losing 3 and a half to 4% of both. And that increases to 6 and 12 to 9 12% of muscle loss and strength

of both. And that increases to 6 and 12 to 9 12% of muscle loss and strength respectively when we get into just our 50s. And guys, it gets even worse when we go beyond that. So, what are you supposed to do? Throw in the towel or is

there something you could actually do? Well, today I want to identify for you the eight specific things that are contributing to this graph. And the good news is there's something that you can do about every one of them. This is due

to something called anabolic resistance. As we get older, there's a simple age related decline in your body's ability to respond positively to even resistance training and protein intake. Even when you're doing the right things, your body

cannot respond as powerfully to the same stimulus that used to build muscle.

Things change. I used to be able to read print on the side of a medicine bottle like nothing. And now all of a sudden I turn 50 and it's very difficult for me

like nothing. And now all of a sudden I turn 50 and it's very difficult for me to read that. And that's just something happening to my body. Nothing else has changed in terms of how I approach every day. Just things change in your body.

And there's not a blue pill to fix everything that goes wrong. Right? So

the first trigger that's actually responsible for what you're seeing is this dose response curve when it comes to protein intake. So, when you're younger, to stimulate something called muscle protein synthesis, which is the

building of new muscle, you might only need 20 to 25 grams of protein per meal.

When you're older, that limit is now raised to about 35 to 40 grams. It's actually due specifically to something I'm going to cover here in a second.

Now, we're talking per meal here. The most important factor is how much you're taking in in a day. And I always go with the recommendation of one gram per pound of body weight and sometimes upwards of 1.2 grams if you're training really

hard. Especially as you get older, those numbers are going to become, as you see

hard. Especially as you get older, those numbers are going to become, as you see here, a bigger and bigger requirement. But even at the permeal level, it starts to matter more as you get older because of this blunting of this response to the

protein intake to create new muscle growth. But what I want you to visualize is the the volume dial on an old radio. There's some radios that when you just turn the volume up just a little little bit, you get a real big increase in the

sound. And then there's some radios where you have to turn it a lot to get

sound. And then there's some radios where you have to turn it a lot to get that same increase. Both of them are increasing volume, but only one of them is doing them very effectively. Think about the older muscle as that volume

control that has to be turned a lot to get the same effect. What you can do about this is to actually start to care a little bit more about how much protein you're having at every meal. Again, number one concern, meeting your daily

protein requirement, making sure that you're getting that one gram per pound of body weight. If you are, then trying to divide that up so that you're getting or crossing that threshold a little bit more regularly throughout the day to

maximize the number of bouts of muscle protein synthesis that you are going to have each day. Again, realizing that this is going to become more difficult as you get older. The second thing is there's a blunting of something called

the mTor pathway. And the mtor pathway is actually one of the most significant means by which we build new muscle. And the most effective way to stimulate that

pathway is through one specific amino acid, leucine. And in most high quality proteins like whey protein, yogurt, eggs, fish, the percentage of leucine in

that protein is around 10%. So if you had 30 grams of protein from let's say fish, then three grams of that 10% is going to be in the form of leucine.

Leucine is the direct trigger for the mTor pathway that is going to help you to build new muscle. And again, in younger individuals, two to three grams seems to be the amount of leucine that's needed to cross that leucine threshold

to create new muscle growth. In older individuals, 40s, 50s, and beyond, that number increases. The sensitivity to leucine goes down. That mTor pathway is

number increases. The sensitivity to leucine goes down. That mTor pathway is blunted. So, what used to be like an onoff switch is now a dimmer switch.

blunted. So, what used to be like an onoff switch is now a dimmer switch.

Okay? And you have to turn that dimmer up. And the way to do that is to have more leucine in your diet and to focus on that. So what can you do? You can

either increase the amount of total protein that you take in realizing that 10% of that when coming from high quality sources is going to come in the form of leucine or you can actually supplement your regular protein intake

with some additional leucine. You can take branch chain amino acids and I know they've gotten some and flack over the years but as an adjunct to the regular protein intake. Remember, you'd have to take 90% more if you were taking

it in the form of protein. So, if you wanted to get, let's say, four grams of leucine, you could have 20 grams of protein in the meal you're eating, and then two additional grams of leucine strictly from the branch amino acids.

But just realize that the BCAAs, in addition to promoting recovery, which we're going to talk about here, are going to allow for more muscle protein synthesis by helping you to cross that lucine threshold more readily. again

amplifying what you're already taking in in the in the form of protein. The third

thing that we have here is the effect of training on muscle protein synthesis.

So, here's where it gets interesting because the number one stimulus for building muscle as you get older is still training, right? You've seen

people who do all the right things in terms of eating enough protein, but when they don't stimulate the muscle, in terms of working out and working out, as you're going to see here in a minute, at a high enough or hard enough level, then

they don't build new muscle. The number one way to build muscle is going to be by having an effective training plan and doing it consistently. However, what's

interesting here is that the intensity of the repetitions has to go up the older you get because the lower the weight that you use, the farther away

from failure that you go, the lower the intensity level of what you're training at, the much more difficult it becomes to be add actual muscle from what you're doing. And I see people do this all the time. They go in the wrong direction.

doing. And I see people do this all the time. They go in the wrong direction.

They figure as they get older, they need to step off the gas, lighten things up and kind of go through the motions just to make sure that they're getting their training in. But that's not training. That to me is just exercising. You're

training in. But that's not training. That to me is just exercising. You're

moving your body around trying to make sure that you're staying active, but staying active is not actively building muscle. The way to actively build muscle is to challenge yourself. And again, as you get older, we saw the age related

decline. Father time is undefeated. we're going to continually lose muscle

decline. Father time is undefeated. we're going to continually lose muscle mass, but you can do a really good job of decreasing that amount by holding on to as much muscle as you can by almost gaining by maintaining, if that makes

sense. The way you want to do this is to train with more intensity. Make sure

sense. The way you want to do this is to train with more intensity. Make sure

that you're taking your sets to as close to failure, if not all the way to failure, depending on the exercise. Not on squats. Train with heavier weights, but train slowly. If you control the weight, you will not have to worry as

much about increased injury risk by doing so. And a lot of people will use that as an excuse. I don't train heavy because I don't want to get injured as I get older. Training with lighter weights and not having enough exposure to

get older. Training with lighter weights and not having enough exposure to heavier weights is likely going to get you injured more quickly than it is to actually train with the heavier weights, but by doing them slowly. And by

increasing the amount of weight that you use, you're actually stimulating more muscle growth very significantly. that is amplified when you add in what I just told you about protein. Okay? Making sure that you're doing the right things when it comes to protein. One of my favorite ways to do this is with a

technique called effective reps. And I mentioned before, there's a bunch of videos on the channel that I'll link at the end of this one that if you took a set to failure, only the last few repetitions of that first set were really difficult, right? The first few were really nothing. Just getting you to

a point where you're fatigued enough to make the last ones feel something. If

you then come right back in on a shorter rest time, you're going to get right back into those effective reps much more quickly. That is a way that you're going to be able to save some unnecessary training volume, which may go a long way

to helping you feel better even though you're training harder, right? You're

going to feel less wear and tear on your joints because you're doing fewer repetitions, but the ones that you're doing, you're making your reps count.

So, I always say, forget counting your reps and worry more about making your reps count as you get older. The next thing that causes this inevitable loss of muscle as we get older is a loss in something called satellite cells. And

what these do is they actually become fewer and also less responsive and less effective. It's kind of a common theme here. But think about these as like your

effective. It's kind of a common theme here. But think about these as like your pit crew. After a workout, the car comes in, the pit crew comes out, and when you

pit crew. After a workout, the car comes in, the pit crew comes out, and when you are young, there's a lot of crew members that can do their work, and they work really, really quickly, and they get you right back on the racetrack again to go

as fast as possible. When you get older, there's fewer guys helping out, and they don't move as quickly. And because of that, you don't recover as well. And

when you don't recover as well as you get older, each subsequent workout becomes more and more difficult to recover from until you start to reach a point where you're underreovering and not able to grow muscle. You don't want

to find yourself in that position. You want to be able to stimulate often enough, best probably for me, four times a week, upper, lower, you're hitting all muscle groups twice a week, and you're still able to recover because you're

spacing those out with enough days of rest in between the upper and lower sessions to allow for recovery, but you have to be recovering in the gym. That

means planning your days off and sticking to them and realizing they're just as important as the workout days themselves. That means doing some of the corrective exercises that you didn't have to do before. And I understand the reality of that is, you know, these things suck. They're boring. They take

up time. But they're not time wasters. Believe me, 2 + 2 equals 10 when it comes to increasing the number of exercises that you do if they're the right corrective exercises that help you to recover from your workouts. Or they

fortify the areas that tend to get weaker as we get older. So therefore,

making it more possible to make gains from the exercises that we're doing that we like to do or focus on. Getting enough sleep, getting proper supplementation like omega-3s, very good for decreasing something else we're going to talk about here, and that's inflammation. But doing the right

things, having the right nutritional approach, focusing on recovery just as much as you focus on the training in order to maximize the satellite cell activity and and realizing what it can do for you. The next thing I just

mentioned, inflammation. There's something called inflammaging and it's

mentioned, inflammation. There's something called inflammaging and it's the presence of increased inflammation throughout your entire body as you get

older. It's like a chronic lowgrade inflammatory state in your body that's

older. It's like a chronic lowgrade inflammatory state in your body that's always present that definitely blunts that anabolic response or the capabilities of building new muscle because your body's too busy focusing on

first and foremost decreasing that inflammation, not on building new muscle tissue. And some of the signs and symptoms of this are mood disorders,

tissue. And some of the signs and symptoms of this are mood disorders, difficulty sleeping at night, chronic joint pain, skin changes, hair changes.

There's a lot of things that just start to feel off. And a lot of times it can be attributed back to this inflammaging that's going on. And again, that inflammation is going to take precedence over everything else you're trying to

do. So, if you don't intervene by taking supplements like an omega-3 that have

do. So, if you don't intervene by taking supplements like an omega-3 that have shown to be effective at controlling some of that total body inflammation or by getting more sleep and prioritizing sleep and not just saying, "Well, I used

to be able to sleep five, six hours a night, so why is it different?" It's

different for the same reason that you can't read the side of that pill bottle anymore, Jeff. Right? Because things change. It's not always because you've

anymore, Jeff. Right? Because things change. It's not always because you've done something different. is because your body starts to change as you get older. So you need to take the right approach. You need to try to tip the

older. So you need to take the right approach. You need to try to tip the scales back in that balance towards anabolic signaling and away from that oxidative stress and again that inflammation that's holding you back

right now. So this is serious business and something that you have to focus on.

right now. So this is serious business and something that you have to focus on.

This is not just going to happen on its own. The next thing that we know and this is obvious. There's hormonal changes as we get older. And hormones

are essentially like the background music for muscle growth. And as you get older, the volume on that music goes down lower and lower and lower. And your

body becomes less responsive to even the amount of hormone that you have.

Testosterone can decrease by 1% every year once you hit even the age of 30.

the amount of hormones and IGF-1 and growth hormone that's pulsed out each time it's released gets lower and lower and lower as you get older. And the

lower anabolic hormones just makes the overall environment more difficult to grow in. So even if you're doing the same things, right, you're still

grow in. So even if you're doing the same things, right, you're still watering the plant, but the plant can't grow as well. Or you're still giving it sunlight, but the plant can't grow as well. Well, we're still giving it

protein, we're still training, but you can't grow as well. But here's the good news. Training alone can actually increase the responsiveness to those hormones even if they are in

news. Training alone can actually increase the responsiveness to those hormones even if they are in lower levels. So realizing that you might see a drop in those hormone levels

lower levels. So realizing that you might see a drop in those hormone levels year after year after year by training and training hard enough because that's the key. You're actually increasing your response to those hormones by training

the key. You're actually increasing your response to those hormones by training with enough weight and again with enough intensity. So you can still get maybe the same effect even at lower levels of hormones. Which is why, by the way,

people who use their blood work as the only indicator of when or when they should not start HRT. It's not really that simple and it shouldn't be the only determinant in terms of whether or not you should be taking additional

exogenous hormones. The last thing here is interesting. It's one that people

exogenous hormones. The last thing here is interesting. It's one that people never think about and it's the decrease in blood flow and the efficiency of blood flow as you get older because we get endothelial resistance as well which

means that the vessels themselves they're not as elastic anymore. They

don't expand as much and if they can't expand as readily then they don't carry as much blood flow in them. they don't deliver as much nutrients to the muscles in terms of recovery and therefore the recovery process is blunted and all the

things we already talked about start to go down. So, how do we fix this? Because

if you thought about this like a construction site, you've got a bunch of workers who have all the materials that you need to build your house, but they're stuck in traffic and they can't get there on time. Nothing is going to happen at the construction site. So, what can we do here? when we can try to

pair up some of those increased deliveries of protein in a time when we know we have more efficient blood flow and that's following exercise. So when

people talk about the effectiveness of the anabolic window or whether it even exists anymore, I think that in this case as you get older there's more to say about maybe why you might want to reinvestigate that because after

exercise there is a period of increased blood flow. So trying to make sure that some of that additional protein that you're trying to get that we talked about earlier is coming in during that time might make it easier to deliver to the muscles because we know we have a period of increased blood flow. Of

course, the other things you can do is start to do more cardio, right? start to

do more zone two, start to do more of that zone five high effort, highintensity cardio because that will do a better job at increasing your cardiac output, teaching your muscle to become stronger to push with more force,

which could help to expand some of those arteries that have become a little bit lazy over the years. So, all of these things are things that you can do to intervene. But the good news is this. Yes, father time is undefeated. He's

intervene. But the good news is this. Yes, father time is undefeated. He's

coming for us all. However, we don't have to age gracefully. And the most important thing that you can do is resist. Because if you don't, then the types of things I showed you in the beginning, this curve here, is going to become a reality for many and your quality of life will go downhill very

rapidly. And remember the importance of the protein, guys. You can find the

rapidly. And remember the importance of the protein, guys. You can find the highest quality protein, NSF certified for sport, so all of our athletes can make sure that they can take it with confidence. You can find it over at

athletex.com. A full 30 grams of protein per serving. Also, omega-3s, again, rich

athletex.com. A full 30 grams of protein per serving. Also, omega-3s, again, rich in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as leucine. In the

meantime, the hard training you're looking for, this channel is built around that. Make sure you follow, make sure you subscribe, turn on

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See you soon. I hope you found this helpful.