How to Build Muscle At Any Age (7 TIPS!)

"I'm too old to gain

muscle

. Stop lying to yourself." Stop giving yourself an excuse not to work hard and keep going. While our body's needs and goals change as we age, and yes, it becomes 100% more difficult to

build

and retain

muscle

, we can still achieve fabulous results and

build

muscle at any age. Honestly, often the reason we don't see the results we want as we age is because we're clinging to poor diet and exercise practices that we may have gotten away with when we were younger. But at each stage of life, we must adjust our diet and training.

Nothing works forever. Our body and lifestyle are constantly evolving, as are our diet and training habits to get to the point we are at today. Therefore, we can always move forward and be functionally strong until our last day on this planet. That's why I want to share with you seven

tips

to maintain your lean muscle mass and even gain muscle mass as you age. The number one tip is "Use it or lose it." Very often, the reason we see more dramatic changes in body composition and lose more muscle mass as we age is because we have stopped doing what makes us fitter and stronger.

We simply accept decline and use age as an excuse instead of finding ways to truly challenge ourselves. Things get more difficult. We may feel more uncomfortable with balance movements. We may feel like we recover even more slowly. We may even not like coordination movements because they are uncomfortable. Even the mainstream media has been telling people to stop doing what kept them strong in the first place. But if you don't use it, you will lose it. If you want to keep your mind-body connection strong, which can lead to better muscle hypertrophy or muscle gains, you should do movements that challenge your coordination.

And if you want to not only gain muscle but stay functionally strong and avoid falls, you have to do those awkward balancing moves. Use it or lose it. Keep challenging yourself and training those movement patterns in the gym to move better in daily life. Tip number two: stop dieting. Muscle helps keep our metabolic rate higher. It helps us burn more calories at rest and stay slimmer. As we age, we become less able to use protein as effectively, making it even more difficult to build and retain lean muscle mass. But that's why it's even more important that we stop extreme diet deficits.

While it may seem increasingly difficult to lose the weight we've gained, so we feel like we need to resort to ever-larger calorie deficits, this ultimately sabotages our results. It leads to more muscle mass being lost in the process of trying to lose weight, which only leads to metabolic adaptations and worse body composition. This makes it more difficult for us to lose weight and keep it off. Plus, metabolic adaptations mean we burn even fewer calories at rest. This leads us to reduce our calories more and more to try to continue losing weight, perpetuating the horrible cycle of weight gain as we age.

Instead, we should focus on fueling that lean muscle mass. First we need to focus on the macroeconomic aspects and a very slight caloric deficit so that we can help ourselves maintain that lean muscle even when we want to lose fat. We may even find that we need to retrain our body to eat more first, so that we can build that lean muscle with a small calorie surplus before we even consider creating a slight deficit to lose. Tip number three: do moves that challenge you. Many of us have heard that strength training is key to gaining muscle, especially as we age.

Forks. By challenging our muscles, we force them to rebuild and strengthen. That's why we don't want to be afraid of lifting heavy objects as we get older. The key is to recognize what lifting heavy objects means to us. It may mean starting with bodyweight training, especially if you haven't trained before or haven't trained consistently for a while, or perhaps using resistance bands or dumbbells instead of barbells. The key is to not be afraid of burdens and really challenge yourself instead of going lighter just because you've reached a certain age. Fitness is about skill, period. We always have to meet ourselves where we are.

This also means that we cannot avoid strange or uncomfortable movements that challenge our mind-body connection. Neuromuscular efficiency or the ability to recruit muscles quickly and in the correct sequences to perform movements is key to moving well and even improving our reaction times and coordination in everyday life. Not to mention that ability to recruit muscles quickly, that muscle activation will also improve your muscle hypertrophy results. So if you want to be able to gain more muscle, you need to improve that mind-body connection with movements that challenge your balance and coordination while also challenging you with loads. Tip number four: increase your protein servings at each meal.

As we age, we can develop anabolic resistance and are less able to use protein as efficiently. This means we actually need to increase our protein intake, especially when we train hard and lift weights to build muscle. Because our muscles do not respond by increasing muscle protein synthesis in the same way when we are younger. Increasing a serving from 20 grams of protein to 30 can be very key, and if we train harder, you may see an even greater benefit with 40 grams, especially after an intense training session. However, the reason I'm not saying to simply increase protein intake overall is that as we age, we can often see a decline in our appetite as well.

This decrease in appetite may be purely age-related, but it may also be based on how we have struggled in the past to try to lose weight with more extreme deficits. It can also be difficult to eat a ton of protein in one sitting because it can make us feel fuller. By increasing our intake at each meal instead of trying to get a ton of protein in a single meal, and even adding a pre- and post-workout snack that is protein-focused, we can split up our protein intake to see results. You may even find that you may see an additional benefit from BCAA supplementation during your workouts, as leucine is especially critical for stimulating muscle protein synthesis.

It may also be beneficial to split your protein intake to maintain a positive protein balance several times a day to promote better muscle growth. Tip number five: do your Mobility work. We may see changes in our recovery and may feel the aches and pains build up much more as we age; Too often we simply blame our age for recognizing movement compensations, imbalances, overuse and overload that have been occurring for years. that we have not addressed. But whatever the reason, we cannot ignore these problems if we want to be able to train hard consistently to see results.

That is why working in mobility is so key. It can help us move better and recover faster, even helping us better manage chronic inflammatory conditions that could combat our muscle gains so we can train consistently and challenge ourselves to build that lean muscle. Without proper recovery, we end up training to a point of diminishing returns where we are constantly beating our body into not allowing for proper recovery and growth. When we rest we rebuild. In the video description, I will link a full-body mobility routine to the complete three-step rehabilitation process to address common aches and pains.

But it's key that we do this mobility work in every warm-up so we can train to build that lean muscle more efficiently. You'll be surprised how much even five to ten minutes of mobility work a day helps you train harder without needing additional days off to recover. Tip number six: Be strategic in your meal timing. I say this as someone who personally loves intermittent fasting as an eating schedule. Fasting can be counterproductive when your goal is to gain muscle, especially if you are a difficult gainer. And as we get older, we must realize that fasting and fasted training can prevent us from gaining muscle.

In a fasted state, muscle protein balance is negative. Basically, you break down more muscle than you build. Therefore, we are at greater risk of losing muscle the more we put ourselves into this negative protein balance. Not to mention that when you train fasted, you don't necessarily have that stored fuel available that you need to really push yourself during a session and rebuild after you've created muscle tissue damage. Therefore, consider including a pre-workout meal with protein to have amino acids readily available in your system and even a source of carbohydrates for immediate fuel that will allow you to push harder in your sessions without fatigue.

Studies have found that resistance exercise combined with amino acid ingestion elicits the greatest anabolic response. It can help older people produce a youthful muscle protein synthetic response, as long as enough protein is ingested after exercise. This post-workout protein consumption can even help you improve your recovery so you can fit in more intense training sessions throughout the week. Tip number seven: stay active on your days off. Recovery and rest days don't have to be "do nothing" days, and the more we can use these days to prepare our body to move better during our training sessions, the better off we will be.

Include mobility routines of five to ten minutes, go for a lot of walks. Honestly, walking is one of the most underused tools we have to stay functionally stronger and improve our body composition even as we age. Walking can help us avoid unwanted fat gain, keep our aerobic base strong, and even help us recover from previous training sessions without being catabolic to our muscle mass. Unlike more intense forms of steady-state cardio, walking can also be a great way to de-stress and help our mind and body recover. So, as hard as it is to take a day off, your body needs it.

Your muscles repair and rebuild when you give them time to recover. But to stay active, don't be afraid to include light movement and mobility work on those days off. You'll be surprised how much even this light activity helps you sleep better. We can and should focus on building muscle at any age. We are never too old to see results, and our exercise routine and diet should always be based on our needs and goals, getting us closer to where we currently are. But our age, that simple number, should never determine what we can or cannot do. We have to remember that if we want to stay strong, it really is a matter of using it or losing it.

So, use these seven

tips

to help you feel lean, strong and fabulous until your last day on this planet. And for even more motivation to never say you're too old, check out my Fitness Hacks podcast that I linked to in the video description. If you like the video, be sure to like it. Comment below if you have any questions and subscribe. We publish new videos every week.