How do I get stronger as I get older?
Updated: Oct 30
The fundamentals of getting stronger are the same whether you’re 20 or 60.
Lift progressively heavier weights.
Eat enough protein.
Recover well enough to do it again.
What changes as you drift away from your youth is how you accommodate your joints, recovery and circumstances.
At 20, you can probably get away with giving those things less thought. As you get older, you need to be more deliberate.
Why do I need to get stronger as I get older?
You don’t have to do anything. But if you’re interested in maintaining your quality of life, strength training has a lot to offer.
Being able to move comfortably, look good, feel energetic and keep doing the things you enjoy all matter. Lifting weights can help support those things.
As you age, you tend to lose muscle and bone density. That can affect your strength, mobility, metabolic health and resilience.
Keeping yourself strong is one of the most useful things you can do about it.
At the very least, work to maintain the muscle you have. Better still, build some more and give yourself a buffer.
Can I still build muscle in my 40s, 50s and 60s?
Absolutely. I’ve helped plenty of clients do exactly that.
If you’re reading this, it sounds like you're new to strength training, or you haven’t done it for a while, so here’s some particularly good news: your body is very likely to respond well to it.
In fact, one of the most rewarding things about coaching beginners is how quickly they improve.
I have a client who turns 70 at the end of this year and is still setting personal bests in the gym.
With that in mind, I think getting stronger well beyond your 40s is not just something to aim for, it's something you should expect to do.
How do I start strength training if I’ve never lifted weights?
If you don’t know where to start, my first recommendation is to invest in some time with someone who can assess you and teach you.
If you’re in your 40s, this could be a 50-year project
Learning how to train and understand your body is an investment you can use for decades.
If coaching is out of reach financially, my next suggestion is to start with machines in the gym. A simple starting point would be:
Those four exercises give you a straightforward way to train your whole body.
Start with a weight you can move comfortably for five controlled reps. Work towards three sets of ten, resting for around two minutes between sets. Once you can do that, increase the weight, return to five reps and build back up.
That won’t account for every mobility restriction or individual need. A programme designed around you can do more. But a simple routine like this can still take you a long way.
For more on upper-back movement and exercise technique when your neck feels tight, read What can I do about neck pain and tight traps?
If you want help choosing someone to teach you, read How do I find a good personal trainer?
Do I need to join a gym to get stronger?
No. But I think you should.
The first reason is equipment. A gym gives you more options, which makes it easier to personalise your programme and adapt it if something becomes uncomfortable.
With just a pair of dumbbells, you can still train effectively, but you need more exercise knowledge and skill to get the same variety.
The second reason is the setting. Going somewhere specifically to train helps you get into the right frame of mind. You arrive, do your workout and leave.
Training in your living room can feel awkward and inconvenient. For many people, that makes the routine harder to maintain.
If you dislike gyms, you can do an awful lot with dumbbells and a bench. My recommendation would be to have a dedicated training space, a decent programme and confidence in the exercises you’re doing.
The less equipment you have, the more you need to know how to use it.
What exercises should I do to get stronger?
The standard answer is squatting, lunging, hinging, pressing, pulling, rotation and some abdominal work.
That’s useful, but it doesn’t tell you where I would put the emphasis for someone who wants to stay strong and feel good as they get older.
I would give particular attention to hip strength, especially your glutes and hamstrings. These muscles often need work in people who have spent years sitting down, including many of the people I see with troublesome knees or lower backs.
Exercises I regularly use include:
For many clients, becoming confident and strong at Romanian deadlifts is a worthwhile longer-term goal. They train a lot of the areas I want to strengthen.
For the upper body, I would focus on getting a stiff upper back moving and building strength through pulling exercises. Rows and other pulling movements train the muscles around your upper back, including your lats and traps.
Exercises I regularly use include:
That would be my emphasis. Alongside training the rest of your body, you still need the presses, squats and other movements that make a programme complete.
How often should I lift weights?
My recommendation is twice a week, with around 30–45 minutes of focused work each time.
That gives most people an excellent return on their time and effort.
If you’re balancing work, children and everything else, you need a routine that earns its place in your week. Remember, this is something you want to maintain for decades.
In my view, going from one session to two makes a bigger difference than going from two to three. A third session can help, but I don’t think it offers most people enough extra benefit to make it essential.
Recovery matters too. You want two good sessions that challenge your muscles, followed by enough recovery to benefit from them.
You don’t need to be in the gym constantly. Start with two sessions and make them count.
How heavy should I lift?
Heavy. Relative to what you can do.
A useful way to judge that is “reps in reserve”. This means how many more reps you could perform before your technique breaks down or you can no longer lift the weight.
I recommend finishing most working sets with around one to three good reps left, particularly on your final set.
If you finish a set and could comfortably do another ten reps, the weight probably isn’t challenging enough.
The point of strength training is to give your body a reason to get stronger. Moving a very light weight around without much effort won’t do that.
Judging how many reps you have left takes practice. In my experience, people often underestimate what they could manage. That’s one reason I find the instruction “aim for one to three reps left” useful.
Keep good technique, but make sure you’re actually working.
Can I lift weights if I have aches and pains?
For the ordinary aches and pains I see in clients, I think strength training should usually be part of the answer.
Good training gives you a way to practise moving well and gradually build what your body can tolerate.
That means choosing suitable exercises, using good technique, working through a range you can manage and applying a sensible load.
The answer is often to adapt the training so you can do it productively.
I like thinking of the body as “antifragile”
It needs challenge to stay strong.
The important part is making that challenge appropriate to you. That is where a well-designed programme earns its keep.
For more on adapting your training, read What should I do if something hurts while I’m training?
How do I know if I’m getting stronger?
The clearest sign is that you can do something you couldn’t do before.
If six months ago you bench pressed 10kg for ten reps, and now you can press 12.5kg for ten reps, you’ve got stronger. It’s that simple.
This is why you need to record your weights, sets and reps. You need a reference point and something to aim for next time.
That is progressive overload: gradually increasing what you ask your body to do as you become capable of doing more.
You might lift a heavier weight or add a rep to one set. Small improvements count.
Progress won’t always be linear, but going into the gym with the intention of improving on your previous performance gives the session a purpose.
You may also feel stronger, notice changes in your muscles or find your clothes fit differently. But your training record gives you something concrete.
Are you lifting more than you used to? Are you doing more reps with the same weight? Those are useful answers.
Do I still need to do cardio?
Yes, I think you do.
If this is a decades-long project to maintain your quality of life, cardio belongs alongside strength training.
Well-structured strength training can improve your fitness compared with doing nothing. But there is more to gain from doing dedicated cardio as well.
My preference is to put cardio and strength training on separate days so each has its own place in the week.
The details deserve their own article. For now, my recommendation is straightforward: lift weights twice a week, make those sessions productive, and make room for cardio too.
How can I get help with my strength training?
I offer personal training in Kentish Town and Flexi Coaching.
We can review your programme, technique and progress, then make sure your time in the gym is doing the job you need it to do.
If you’d like help getting started, get in touch to arrange a free consultation.
