the “snowball effect” for building muscle after 50
Hey omorfe,
According to wiki:
“Metaphorically, a snowball effect is a process that starts from an initial state of small significance and builds upon itself, becoming larger (graver, more serious), and also perhaps potentially dangerous or disastrous (a vicious circle), though it might be beneficial instead (a virtuous circle). This is a cliché in cartoons and modern theatrics and it is also used in psychology.”
We can also use the snowball effect to build muscle.
And it’s extra relevant for you, if you’re in your 50’s and beyond.
Here’s what I mean:
Before coming to me, a big problem my clients face is joint pain or, more generally, the achyness their body experiences when performing everyday movements that once felt OK.
Call it aging, call it sarcopenia, call it life giving you the finger, this happens to all of us.
And when it does the best solution is to “snowball” your workouts so that you can keep training non-stop by staying pain free. When you do so, it’s easy to build more muscle than before, without the use of steroids or useless supplements (Side note: if you’re over 45, I’d suggest checking out your testosterone levels since you might need TRT. There’s no shame here and you’d feel and perform way better than with subpar T-levels)
So let me be clear here:
If you want to build muscle after 50, you need to find ways to keep training without experiencing pain and without taking long breaks to heal/recover. Just like you can’t create a snowball by taking regular breaks when rolling it, you can’t build muscle by training 4 times on the first week, twice the second one, taking a break on the third, starting slowly on the fourth, etc. Your workouts need to build upon themselves so they can trigger muscle growth inside your hairy body.
Now, how do you snowball workouts?
First, you need to find movements (not exercises, this is important) you can perform pain-free.
For example:
I lifting your arms overhead causes shoulder impingmement, that’s a sign that loading this movement pattern with a barbell, dumbbell, bands, cables, whatever, is a bad idea.
Or let’s say that no matter how you perform a bodyweight squat, you experience low back pain. You’re prohibited from loading this movement and will have to find other ways to work your legs.
This is where knowing anatomy or having a knowledgeable coach in your corner can help.
Anyway, let’s say you found the movements you can do pain-free.
Up next, you have to turn them into exercises.
How?
By performing them with equipment such as your bodyweight, barbells, dummbells, bands, cables, your girlfriend/wife/mistress (chillax feminists I *might* be joking) or anything you can use to add load. You have to add load to the exercises, otherwise building muscle will be almost impossible.
This is an important step since just performing a movement pain free, doesn’t mean you can turn it into a pain free exercise.
^ Read the above again and let me give you 3 examples for further clarification:
* you can perform rope tricep pushdowns without a problem but if you use a straight bar instead of a rope, your elbow hurts
* belt and goblet squats are OK but a barbell back squat makes your low back cry
* close grip barbell bench press feels great but a guillotine barbell press cripples your shoulders
I can’t count the times where a simple equipment tweak minimized or even eliminated joint pain. Many times, even a small positioning (aka how you place your limbs) tweak is enough. Again, you need a good coach in your corner for this, or you can spend 100’s of hours reading, researching, and trying stuff.
Up next comes the workout part.
This is a complex topic, so I’ll just talk about one part of it — exercise sequencing.
Believe it or not, the way you sequence exercises in your workouts can aggravate joints or keep them healthy.
Example of aggravation: Doing dumbbell front shoulder raises and following up with dips. Most times, your shoulders will hate you for this.
Example of keeping your joints healthy: Machine leg curls before squats. Your strength levels on the squat will take a small hit, but your knees will feel stronger, stabler, and happier.
As always, countless examples for exercise sequencing.
By the way, did you notice what’s my goal so far?
It’s not stupid shit like “boost your muscle growth by 34990289%” or any of that malakies (that’s B.S. in Greek)
It’s keeping you pain free because, as we shared above, you need workout momentum if you’re going to build muscle. And you can’t have momentum with pain.
Sure, we utilize the perfect workout split, the right number of sets and reps, the most-efficient intensity methods, and more. But everyone talks about this stuff and it’s clear they rarely help unless you first consider what I’ve shared so far.
I prefer going against the grain by telling you what works. It won’t win me an interview on Men’s Health but it will help me sleep peacefully at night.
Alright, enough yapping for today.
For more tips and strategies on looking great with your shirt off, start by grabbing my one sentence muscle building plan at:
Your Greek buddy
Fotis Chatzinicolaou
