Elite Physique The New Science of Building a Better Body

278 Elite Physique
Skateboard Your Way to Better Health and Performance
As a kid, you spent your days running, jumping, climbing, and chasing your sibling
who stole your favorite toy. Now that you’re older, you spend most of your day sitting
or walking to your car or standing in line at the grocery store. So it doesn’t take a
neuroscientist to understand why your older self has poorer balance: You don’t train it.
If you’re over 25 years old, it’s almost certain your brain has reached full maturity.
After that age, scientists long believed that any significant changes within the brain
were no longer possible. Sure, you could learn a new language or memorize a list
of random facts at any age. But the formation of new neurons that we experienced
early in life was thought to be science fiction.
Around 2002, that thinking started to shift (Shors et al. 2002). Today scientists
know that neurogenesis, the process of creating new neurons, can occur in your
hippocampus throughout life. But it won’t happen on its own: You need to give it a
good reason. Social interactions, exercise, and learning a new skill are three such
reasons (Curlik and Shors 2013; Opendak, Briones, and Gould 2016; Sun, Sun,
and Qi 2017).
It’s not a shock that as adults age, they lose their balance more easily (Khow
and Visvanathan 2017). That’s why I like to have my patients promote neurogenesis
each day through skill training that challenges their balance. You can start with a
simple task, such as standing on one leg with your eyes closed, and work to double
or triple your time. Then move on to a more challenging activity such as martial arts
or tai chi. From there, if you have the drive, work to more youthful challenges such
as learning to surf or skateboard. The key is to constantly try to learn new skills to
keep your brain healthy and strong throughout life.
Practical Strategies for Older Lifters
Let’s make one thing clear up front: You don’t have to stop doing everything you
enjoy in the weight room and switch to an “over 50” training program. An older
lifter is still a lifter. But to continue lifting safely and successfully, you need to
acknowledge your body is different from a young lifter’s.
That’s not really bad news. Your experience has made you smarter. You
know what works for your body, and you probably do it with better form than
the crazy dudes whose workouts would leave you with crippling pain. (I say
“dudes” because we rarely see young women lifting near-maximal weights with
poor form.) Here are some simple ways to take advantage of your hard-earned
knowledge.
Volume
All the program design principles in chapters 8 and 9 are still in play for an older
lifter, except one: volume. More is rarely better. For you, less can sometimes be
more. But getting more done with fewer sets requires more focus on each one.
You aren’t just grinding out repetitions. You’re feeling each rep, especially as you
get near the end of a set. Make sure the targeted muscles are doing the work and
achieving the optimal level of fatigue. Get it right on the second or third set and
there’s no need to do a fourth, fifth, or sixth.