Male Muscle Building

by Jade Teta, ND, and Keoni Teta, ND

You lose muscle as you age, there is nothing you can do about it, and it has devastating consequences for your health. For most people, this is not a surprising or controversial statement.

For years, study after study has told us that older populations have lower muscle mass. These same studies show that loss of muscle is also associated with fat gain, frailty, and negative health outcomes.¹

But there is a problem: the statement is simply not true. Consider a September 2011 study out of the journal The Physician and Sportsmedicine.² This study looked at masters-level athletes ranging in age from 40 to 80 years old.

The researchers ran a battery of tests including in-depth questionnaires. Participants had muscle mass determined as well as muscle strength and fat percent, among other tests. All the athletes maintained a rigorous training schedule of at least 5 days per week.

What did the researchers find? Not what you would think. Most of these highly active individuals maintained their muscle mass and strength and had little fat accumulation compared with their younger counterparts.
The one thing that the researchers did find is that after age 60, there was a slight decrease in muscle strength of the legs in both men and women. However, this change was small. Most remarkable is that even athletes in their 80s had maintained their muscle and strength compared with athletes in their 60s.

What Determines Muscle Loss As Men Age?

The results of this study, and others like it, calls into questions our old assumptions about muscle loss through the aging process.³ The old way of thinking was, “Get old and lose it”; the new understanding brings us back to what we say to younger men, “Use it or lose it.”

But there are two potential issues that we need to consider as health-care providers or savvy health consumers: (1) anabolic potential; (2) injuries and deconditioning

As muscle ages there does seem to be an “anabolic resistance” that develops largely as a result of protein absorption and utilization by the muscle. There has been debate about the mechanisms involved because older men tend to eat less protein compared with younger men.

However, there does appear to be a “blunted anabolic response” to protein that is eaten in older men.⁴ Luckily, the research also gives us some good workarounds to this issue. These include increasing protein intake, especially leucine-rich protein sources, and timing protein intake post workout.

Aging Muscle and Protein

While controversial in some circles, an acute bout of exercise has been shown to reverse this anabolic resistance. A fantastic review on all the particulars related to protein nutrition, as well as exercise type and timing in the elderly, was published in the November 2014 issue of Sports Medicine.
We highly recommend that health-care providers and savvy health consumers read this article if they have the time and education. But here is a brief synopsis of the findings of the review and current state of understanding.

It appears that postworkout protein ingestion is important and that this timing can be up to 24 hours after the session. This means that daily movement with adequate protein intake is key.

The question then becomes, what is “adequate protein intake” according to the studies? Several studies show that amount matters. Given the totality of the information gained in research so far, the threshold seems to be about 30 g or more per meal. Science has not yet given us an upper limit, but there are studies showing 40 g to be better than lower amounts. So, the consensus on amount of protein is 30 to 40g per meal.

Another consideration is, large meals versus smaller meals? 30 to 40g per meal and at each meal during the day is better than doing lower amounts at some meals and higher amounts at others. One exception to this rule may be a very high amount of protein at one meal, 80g in one study, can be effective too.

And then there are protein quality issues. Whey protein, with its quick absorption properties and high leucine content, reigns supreme in studies on protein quality. If we had to sum up the advice on protein related to overcoming anabolic resistance in an aging male, we would say the following:

1. Protein intake should be spread evenly over each meal;

2. each meal should contain 30 to 40g protein;

3. whey protein is a convenient, highly effective protein delivery system;

4. daily exercise is critical to reverse anabolic resistance and works synergistically with protein intake in older men.

What about exercise?

As stated above, exercise is the critical component. Aging men have special challenges, especially if they have been inactive for any length of time. How do we make sure that we don’t injure patients as we ramp up exercise intensity?

The first thing to realize is that weight training is crucial. While studies show that athletes who have stayed active with running and other pursuits can maintain muscle, weight training is essential to build muscle.

The concerns of weight training largely stem from the belief that heavy loads need to be employed to see benefit. This is an old belief. A 2012 study out of the Journal of Applied Physiology showed that workouts using light weights in higher repetition ranges (i.e., 3 sets of 30 reps) produced just as much muscle growth as did heavy weights in lower rep ranges.² That is very good news for older bodies, especially the deconditioned ones.

Three other tricks to accentuate muscle gains, be safer, and potentially repair damaged joints include training to failure, slow-motion weight lifting, and eccentric contractions.

For those less familiar with weight training, “failure” simply means lifting a weight until the muscle can no longer muster the force to complete the lift (i.e., muscle exhaustion). This style of training is more safely done on machines and has been shown to deliver similar muscle growth to very heavy loads.⁷

Slow-motion lifting usually involves slowing the weight-lifting movement down from a 1–2 second up-and-down cadence to a 4–10 second up-and-down cadence. This approach has been shown to produce size and strength gains similar to heavier load weight training but with less potential risk.⁸

Finally, eccentric contractions focus on the lowering portion of a lift. The idea in this style of training is to lower the weight under a slow controlled cadence. This style of contraction has shown special benefit toward tendons, including the Achilles and the tendons responsible for golfer’s and tennis elbow.⁹

If you were to ask for our recommendation regarding a loading program for muscle development in this age population, it would go something like this:

1. Perform 3 sets of 10 reps of slow-motion lifts for each exercise.

2. Use a 4-second up cadence and a 7-second down cadence.

3. Do a fourth and final set to exhaustion.

4. Repeat this for all major muscle groups 1 to 2 times per week.

Final Thoughts

The idea that older men and destined to lose muscle and suffer all the well-known complications has been proved wrong in the science. We now know that much, if not all, of the muscle loss that occurs with aging is likely a result of inactivity and poor protein intake and utilization. It is not at all difficult to overcome the “anabolic resistance” of aging by correcting these shortcomings. Weight training is critical, as is getting sufficient protein at thresholds levels at each meal. Concerns regarding safety of weight training can be addressed while still providing the same benefits involved in heavier and more risky weight training.

Notes

1. Newman AB et al. Strength and muscle quality in a well-functioning cohort of older adults: the Health, Aging and Body Composition Study. J Am Geriatr Soc. March 2003;51(3):323–330.

2. Wroblewski AP et al. Chronic exercise preserves lean muscle mass in masters athletes. Phys Sportsmed. September 2011;39(3):172–178.

3. Power GA et al. Motor unit number estimates in masters runners: use it or lose it? Med Sci Sports Exerc. September 2010;42(9):1644–1650.

4. Moore DR. Keeping older muscle “young” through dietary protein and physical activity. Adv Nutr. September 2014;5(5):599S–607S.

5. Wall BT et al. Dietary protein considerations to support active aging. Sports Med. November 2014;44 Suppl 2:S185-194.

6. Mitchell CJ et al. Resistance exercise load does not determine training-mediated hypertrophic gains in young men. J Appl Physiol. July 2012;113(1):71–77.

7. Schoenfeld BJ et al. Effects of different volume-equated resistance training loading strategies on muscular adaptations in well-trained men. J Strength Cond Res. October 2014;28(10):2909–2918.

8. Tanimoto M et al. Effects of whole-body low-intensity resistance training with slow movement and tonic force generation on muscular size and strength in young men. J Strength Cond Res. November 2008;22(6):1926–1938.

9. Murtaugh B et al. Eccentric training for the treatment of tendinopathies. Curr Sports Med Rep. May–June 2013;12(3):175–182.