As you get older, the way you approach life changes.
You have more wisdom than you did when you were a young man from all your years of experience—but in some settings, like the gym, you’ll need to adjust your behavior to keep up with the changes that happen to your body when you age. That’s why men over 40 should take a slightly different approach to fitness than their younger peers, with an emphasis on careful, calculated programming.
The Men’s Health Muscle After 40 book gives you that smart, measured plan you need for your workout as an older man.
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The 12-week fitness guide doesn’t give you handicapped workouts with instructions to play it safe—the plan is designed to bring out the best in you while allowing you to rest and recover within your body’s capacity. Muscle After 40 is split into 3 distinct phases, each of which consist of 3 weeks where you’ll train 3 times.
This is Phase 1, Week 1.
Warm Ups
If you know what works best for you, keep doing it. That said, if what you do is walk into the weight room and start lifting with no warmup at all, I predict it won’t work for much longer. The older you get, and the more miles you put on the chassis, the trickier it is to get your body ready for a good workout.
Your warmup should at least have these two components:
What You’ll Need
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This program requires basic equipment you’ll find in most commercial gyms. Don’t worry if your gym doesn’t have everything on the list. It’s easy to substitute similar exercises.
Full range of dumbbells, including weights that seem much heavier than anything you’d consider lifting right now
Overview
You’ll train three times a week for four weeks. Most will use the classic Monday-Wednesday-Friday or Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday schedule. Remember to include at least one full day of rest between workouts. You’ll do each exercise as straight sets, completing all the sets of one exercise before moving onto the next.
Weight Selection
For the first exercise on Day 1 (dumbbell incline bench press) and Day 2 (trap-bar deadlift) you’ll use the sets across method, which means you’ll use the same weight for all your work sets. (It’s the opposite of ramping sets, in which you use a heavier weight on each set, building up to a final set with a max weight.) With the sets across method, you don’t increase the weight until you hit all the reps on every set.
Let’s say you’re doing 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps. After doing a warmup set with a lighter weight, you select a weight you figure you can lift 10 times. You easily complete 8 reps the first set, and could’ve done at least two or three more. On the second set, you also get 8 reps, although this time you only have one or two left in the tank. On the third set, you can only complete 7.
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The next week, you use that same weight for all your sets, with the goal of getting 8 good reps on each one. More important, you feel like you could’ve completed at least one or two more on every set. That means you’re cleared to increase the weight by 2.5 to5 percent for the following week.
With the rest of the exercises in Phase 1 that are not indicated as using the sets across method, you can use more weight on subsequent sets if your first-set weight was too light and you easily completed all the reps. Increase the weight when you exceed the range by 2 or 3 reps on every set. So if the workout calls for 2 sets of 12 to 15 reps, and you hit 17 or 18 on the final set, use a heavier weight the next time you do that exercise.
Rest
In Phase 1 and Phase 2, I don’t specify how to long to rest between sets or exercises. Here area couple of guidelines to follow:
Volume
You’ll see some progressions in volume within the workouts, specifically the number of sets. With some exercises, you’ll increase the number of sets (from 2 to 3) after Week 1. Then, in Week 4, you’ll decrease volume across the board, doing 2 sets of every exercise to give your muscles a break before starting Phase 2.
Want the full program? Check out Muscle After 40 before you get started with Phase 1.
The Workout
Week 1, Day 1
Dumbbell Incline Bench Press
3 sets of 6 to 8 reps
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Seated Cable Row
3 sets of 6 to 8 reps
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Dumbbell Curl
3 sets of 8 to 10 reps
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Dumbbell Incline Triceps Extension
3 sets of 8 to 10 reps
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Goblet Squat
3 sets of 10 to 12 reps
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Lying Leg Curl
3 sets of 10 to 12 reps
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Plank
3 sets of 30 second holds
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Week 1, Day 2
Trap Bar Deadlift
3 sets of 8 to 10 reps
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Dumbbell Split Squat
3 sets of 8 to 10 reps
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Dumbbell Bench Press with Neutral Grip
3 sets of 10 to 12 reps
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Dumbbell One-Arm Row
3 sets of 10 to 12 reps
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Lateral Raise
3 sets of 12 to 15 reps
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Dumbbell Rear-Delt Raise
3 sets of 12 to 15 reps
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Standing Calf Raise
3 sets of 25 reps
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Week 1, Day 3
Lat Pulldown
3 sets of 10 to 12 reps
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Cable Fly
3 sets of 10 to 12 reps
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Rope Hammer Curl
3 sets of 12 to 15 reps
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Rope Pressdown
3 sets of 12 to 15 reps
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Leg Press
3 sets of 15 to 20 reps
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Leg Extension
3 sets of 15 to 20 reps
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Back Extension
3 sets of max reps
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