Scan came back lower than my doctor wanted and the advice was resistance training, which I have never done. I walk daily and that is the extent of it. What I cannot find anywhere is what people actually did week to week rather than the general advice to lift weights. If you started lifting in your forties or fifties for this reason, what did the first six months look like and what did you get wrong?
Eighteen months in from a similar starting point. My honest report: the follow up scan change was small and my doctor described it as a good outcome rather than a dramatic one, and I am not going to pretend the number transformed. What did transform was everything else. I carry the shopping in one trip, I got off the floor after gardening without thinking about it, and my balance is noticeably better.
The protocol my physio pointed me at was built around a small number of heavy-ish compound lifts plus some impact work rather than lots of light repetitions. I cannot quote you the research and I would not try. Ask your own doctor about the impact component in particular, because that part depends on your scan.
Gently disagreeing with heavy from the start, which is where the popular advice goes. Coming from nothing at 48, muscle adapts in weeks and tendons and connective tissue adapt over months, so the first eight weeks want to be about technique and consistency with loads that feel almost too easy. I skipped that and got a very sore elbow that cost me more time than the eight weeks would have. Heavy is the destination, not the starting position.
No disagreement here at all. Progressive means starting somewhere and going up, and a lot of people read lift heavy as start heavy.
My mistake, in case it saves you six weeks. I went in enthusiastic, added weight to the deadlift every session because it felt fine, and hurt my lower back in week three with a hinge that had quietly turned into a rounded pull. Get someone to watch the hinge from the side, film it if you have nobody, and add weight fortnightly rather than every session. Nothing about this needs to be fast at our age, and six weeks off is much slower than adding two and a half kilos a fortnight.
The thing I would add is the impact side, cleared with a physio first because it depends entirely on your scan. For me that meant a small number of hops and step-downs at the start of a session, thirty seconds of work total, alongside the lifting. It felt trivially easy compared to the lifting and it was the part my physio was most specific about.
Something nobody warned me about when I started in my forties: the first four weeks are mostly admin. Learning where things are, how to set up a rack, how long a session takes, how sore you will be. It felt like nothing was happening and I nearly stopped. The training does not really begin until that stuff is automatic, so judge the experiment at three months rather than three weeks.
@swayback_sue · 3d ago · 3 replies
Started at 51 for the same reason. My week for the first six months, and this was set with a physio who knew the scan results, which is the part I would not skip:
Two full body sessions a week, about 45 minutes. Squat pattern, hinge pattern, a press, a row, and a carry. Sets of eight to ten for the first eight weeks, then gradually heavier for sets of five to six.
The progression is the whole point. It is not lifting weights, it is lifting weights that keep getting heavier, and I did not understand that distinction for the first two months. Your doctor and a physio should set the boundaries for your situation because scan results differ, but nobody could tell me what a week looked like either, so that is mine.
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@beatriz_moll · 3d ago
Five patterns twice a week is so much less complicated than what I had imagined I was being told to do. Thank you.
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@capsule_curious · 2d ago
The carry is worth keeping. It is the one that showed up in ordinary life fastest for me, and it is very hard to do badly.
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