The Barbell Prescription
The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40 directly addresses the most pervasive problem faced by aging humans: the loss of physical strength and all its associated problems - the loss of muscle mass, bone mineral loss and osteoporosis, hip fractures (a terminal event for many older people), loss of balance and coordination, diabetes, heart disease related to a sedentary lifestyle, and the loss of independence. The worst advice an older person ever gets is, Take it easy. Easy makes you soft, and soft makes you dead. The Barbell Prescription maps an escape from the usual fate of older adults: a logical, programmed approach to the hard work necessary to win at the extreme sport of Aging Well. Unlike all other books on the subject of exercise for seniors, The Barbell Prescription challenges the motivated Athlete of Aging with a no-nonsense training approach to strength and health - and demonstrates that everybody can become significantly stronger using the most effective tools ever developed for the job.
Stats for nerds
9recommend
14mentions
11people
2018–2025years
86% recommend14% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- These comments are spot-on as far as physical health is concerned. Make an effort and you'll significantly improve your quality of life. I'd say you don't necessarily need to run marathons or triathlons, though, and I'd also suggest that cardio is not the best way to maintain good health, strength training is better.
I have been lifting weights for years now, and it does wonders for my health (for example: all my back pain and back injury problems are totally gone).
I would highly recommend to past myself reading "The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40" (https://www.amazon.com/Barbell-Prescription-Strength-Trainin...) and starting earlier.
Or you can be a couch potato and suffer.
- THIS.
You can also check out "The Barbell Prescription" by Andy Baker. This book is like Starting Strength but for the 45+ demographic. (Interestingly, Starting Strength can be used for this demographic also.)
There have been documented instances of older folks reversing degenerative conditions after picking up strength training. You're also never old enough to get stronger!
That said, finding a trainer that knows what they are doing is the fastest way to progress. I'm biased towards the Starting Strength community as these trainers undergo an intensive program before they are certified to be an SS coach (on top of their past intensive training), but there are many other qualified trainers out there.
- My favorite introduction to this is the book "The Barbell Prescription", together with "Basic Barbell Training, 3rd Edition". They got me out of just getting sweaty and tired in the gym to actually training and increasing my strength.
The people behind these books also run the YouTube channels https://www.youtube.com/@GreySteel and https://www.youtube.com/@startingstrength, respectively. Lots of highly educational videos on these!
- The books "The Barbell Prescription" and "Practical Programming for Strength Training" contain a lot of info on how to branch out from the novice program. The latter contains a small section on lifting for sports, while on his podcast Rippetoe emphasizes that you do general strength development for any sport and spend the rest of the time practising that sport.
I was at a Starting Strength seminar recently and the coach explicitly said that the beginner's program is not the end-all, so I'm not sure where that criticism is coming from?
- Read Barbell Prescription by Andy Baker. It's specifically written for 40+ year old lifters.
- > It's safer to use lower weight, more reps, good form, don't strain too much.
This is utterly, completely wrong.
And this book goes into tons of detail about why. It's partly written by a medical doctor and includes many (many) research citations.
The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40 https://aasgaardco.com/store/books-posters-dvd/books/the-bar...
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