Here’s a plan that will FITT your retirement
Nick Petruzzella is a Fitness Solutions reader, and a regular exerciser, who was wondering how he should proceed with his exercise program to build more strength. Here is his question:
Q: I will be 67 in a few weeks, have been retired for a year and have a gym membership. Prior to 2021, I concentrated mostly on aerobic training using the treadmill, stationary bike and rowing machine. I now do resistance training because of what I have read in your articles and my daughter telling me how resistance training might be even better for me. My warmup has been concentrated on keeping my lower back and core strong.
With resistance training, my weight limit is 50 lbs other than the abdominal crunch machine which is twice that. I use machines rather than free weights and my trips to the gym are three to four times per week.
I am no longer the 18 year old who once pressed 200 lbs, but, I would like to build my lifting limit up from 50 pounds to whatever I can get to. How do I know when I have to adjust my routine according to the FITT formula that you wrote about in the past?
A: Adding weight training to your regimen is probably more important than all of the cardio that you’ve been doing as you age and want to stay active. The overwhelming majority of seniors I have worked with who continue to ski, golf, play hockey and/or simply care for their properties place as much importance on their strength training as they do their daily walks.
In regards to the FITT formula, you might recall that is an acronym that can help you avoid hitting plateaus in your training by continually mixing up the demands that you place on your body in a variety of ways. For those who may not remember, FITT stands for frequency, intensity, type and time.
If you are like most retired people, you likely aren’t restricted in regards to the frequency that you can exercise or in the time spent working out. There may be periods when this isn’t the case, but, I’m assuming that for now you can go as often as you’d like and stay as long as you’d like. This leaves the intensity and the type of workout performed as the two variables left for you to tweak.
My suggestion would be to plan out training cycles which last up to 12 weeks where you adjust the intensity of your workouts as well as the type of workouts you are doing every four weeks. The reason for this is that your body quickly adapts to set routines so that the “return on investment” that you get from your efforts will diminish over time if the stimulus you put on your body doesn’t change every few weeks.
The easiest way to shake things up is to move from machine-based workouts to free weights and then back for set periods of time. It will mean a new challenge when you make the shift and that you’ll also benefit from the secondary work your body will have to do by balancing and stabilizing the free weights.
Here is an outline that might work well for you that you can use for a 12-week training cycle:
For the first four weeks of your cycle, use the machines available at your gym. Perform a full body routine each workout and complete three sets of 15 repetitions of each exercise. Keep your rest between sets to a minimum and move quickly from machine to machine. This workout can be done three to four times per week. Follow up your strength work with 12 to 20 minutes of aerobic exercise on your favourite piece of equipment and include speed “bursts” up to 30 seconds every few minutes.
For weeks five to eight, I would suggest switching to a free weight routine. During this phase, perform only “pushing” movements two times per week and “pulling” movements twice per week. Use weights that allow for eight to 12 repetitions per set and complete three sets of each exercise. Follow up your routine with a 20 minute steady state cardio workout.
For the final four weeks (nine through 12), move back to your machine-based workout, but, increase the weights you are using to allow for about10 repetitions per set. Take longer breaks so that you are completely recovered for each set you do. Your cardio exercise after the strength session can alternate between the “burst” training and the steady state workouts during the week. This cycle can be repeated four times per year and should allow for continual improvement in terms of fitness and strength. It also takes the guesswork out of determining when and what to change when it comes to the FITT formula. Medical Exercise Specialist Ernie Schramayr helps his clients manage medical conditions with exercise. You can follow him at erniesfitnessworld.com; 905-7417532 or erniesfitnessworld@gmail.com