It was early 2020 when I sat there thinking, “I used to be strong and fit.” But now I had pretty bad bowed legs, a limp, and my strength was non existent. My torn bicep was the only injury that required surgery but I had a long list of dings.
I guess my point is that I was feeling old before I should be feeling old.
The kicker was I had three personal training qualifications and yet still couldn’t figure out where I was going wrong.
I tried everything to get back on track and to be honest, that was part of the problem.
I thought I could be smart and figure out the secret sauce to fixing my issues but I never gave anything enough time to work.
So I went back to basics.
2020 was a waste of time due to not focusing on a single method. I rolled with foam, tennis balls, lacrosse balls. I tried all kinds of stretching protocols, FRC, ART, stim, physio…. blah blah blah. Some relief, no fixes.
2021 started to show me the value of consistency and focus as I stuck with VERY FEW things for at least 30 days before trying something new. I stuck with things like trying to go deeper into the bodyweight squat, EVERY DAY. And towards the end of 2021 I discovered Thomas Kurz and Dan John.
There was no hype in there and I realized my hinge pattern got out of whack somewhere amongst some other basic movement patterns.
Dan said, “Intelligent training focusing on the fundamental human movements will be far more effective for joint mobility and lean body mass than all the other crap you find yourself doing.”
I went back to BASIC basics. I relearned to squat and hinge using a wall for feed back and did some basic dynamic flexibility every day. It is basically front kicks and side kicks to loosen up.
It’s important to note that the above work HURT. I couldn’t bend my left knee, kneel or walk very long before I started to limp and straight leg it. I just kept grinding away day after day, week after week and about 3 months later of daily work…. no pain and almost full kneel.
The difference was night and day and from that point, I could apply myself to to getting stronger on the basics moves.
Getting Stronger On The Basic Strength Moves
So what are the basic moves you should be working for getting stronger in your 40s and beyond?
These basic strength moves are the: Loaded Carry – Squat – Hinge – Pull – Push.
The exercises you do under these movement banners can vary but here is what I do. And each one of them I had to learn from broomstick weight upward. Starting from scratch… because I was broken.
For the loaded carry, I do farmers walks and bear hug walks and not nearly as often as I should.
The squat, I do bodyweight squats and lunges. Goblet squats, overhead squats and front squats.
For the hinge, I do headstand leg raises, goat bag swings and kettlebell swings.
The pull, I do chinups, bent over rows, cleans.
For the push, I do dips, handstand pushups, military presses and pushups.
Now there is so much more you COULD be doing but until I reach certain levels of strength on these moves, I would only be majoring in minors.
Get This: Simple Methods To Building Basic Strength, Solves A Lot Of Problems
I needed a foundation of strength and for those numbers, I looked to Dan John’s writings to give me some reasonable strength guidelines that I knew would not be steroid fluff and lies.
So the 1st step for me was to master the bodyweight squat. I faced a wall because I was leaning too far forward in addition to lacking depth. Something I learned from the Thomas Kurz videos.
This was the biggest moment in fixing my, well, everything. I started far away from the wall. I put a 10 lb plate against the wall and thats where I lined up my toes for distance. As I got 2 sets of 8 reps I made the floor plate smaller. I held onto a 25lb plate to help pull me down and couldn’t do any ATG squats on day one. It took about 3 weeks, at 3 times a week to see that I was improving. Rinse and repeat until you can go to the bottom with your toes only a couple inches from the wall and without smashing your face into the wall.
The key is learning to PULL yourself down BETWEEN your legs if your squat sucks right now. From here, I moved onto increasing my numbers on the bodyweight squat.
Again from Dan John: “Build a foundation of basic strength. Generally, if healthy and fit, you should be able to do a double-bodyweight deadlift and a bodyweight bench press. I won’t say you need to military press bodyweight, but that’s what I insist on.
I expect everyone on the field to be able to bench press 200 pounds and deadlift 400. By the way, whatever you bench, you should front squat and clean, too.
So, day one the prospective football player looks at this list: Bench Press: 200 Front Squat: 200 Clean: 200 Deadlift: 400
Until you can bench with 115% of bodyweight for 6-8 reps,
Squat with 150% of bodyweight for 15-20 reps, and
Deadlift with 200% of bodyweight for 15-20 reps….
Lacking development of the inner head of the bicep, or the outer thigh or whatever bodypart is IRRELEVANT.”
So How Do You Build This Strength?
Again, there are lots of loading patterns, set and rep ranges and secret sauces. If you keep it simple, you’ll get further, faster, without analysis paralysis.
I strive for 8-6-4 and when I get it, I increase the weight. If I do small jumps of 5-10lbs then I can usually expect a week or two before getting 8-6-4 again.
Along your trip to 8-6-4 you could hit 3×3, 5×3, 3×5 and then a mish mash to your final 8-6-4.
My Personal Workout For Getting Stronger
If you look at this workout for getting stronger, you will see TRUTH. All the greats including: Randall J. Strossen, Stuart McRobert, Bill Starr, Dan John (linked above), Mark Rippetoe and Jim Wendler for starters all suggest the same sort of ideas.
What I try to do is hit three big workouts in 7 days. The workout looks like this:
Overhead Squat 8-6-4 reps
Power Clean 8-6-4 reps
Military Press 8-6-4 reps
Goblet Squat 8-6-4 reps
Bench Press 8-6-4 reps
Bent Over Row 8-6-4 reps
Increase weight when you get all the reps.
Let me tell you that this routine sucks. It’s a lot of weight to move, regardless of how strong you are. And it gets worse the stronger you get.
If I only get it in twice a week, that’s probably a good thing recovery wise but I like 3 days a week because that’s just my mental programming.
THE EXTRA
Because I had such bad movement patterns, I do a daily sequence to get my crap together. Some call it prehab/rehab. I just think less daily pain = good.
This little routine is done light as a continuous circuit. I don’t increase the weight. It’s just for blood flow.
15 Swings (I started with 10 but like 15 better now)
5 Goblet Squats
put the kettlebell down between your feet, under control Inchworm out to the pushup position
5 Pushups Inchworm back to the start
work down to 1
Biceps stretch with broom stick and lunge stretch for hip flexors and calves.
To put my dumbbell back where it belongs I do:
Waiter – rack – suitcase walk
Somewhere during the day I’ll be on the floor and will practice naked Turkish getups. Just a few reps per side without weight most times.
Sometimes it will be 5×2 with a dumbbell but honestly, between shift work and the main workout, I’m pretty tired and sore most of the time. But that beats being weak and in pain.
Honestly, this is pretty much it. Until the big numbers are reached and bodyweight is on the bar, nothing fancy needs to happen. Just time and effort.
I’ll keep journaling and please ask me any questions you may have.
You can always talk with me on twitter.