Building muscle after 50: the ultimate guide

Is it possible to build muscle after 50?

Absolutely!

• It’s never too late to start strength training. You can build muscle and become stronger no matter how old you are.
• A proven training program for building muscle after 50 is one where you lift weights two or three times a week and do 10 sets per muscle per week with somewhere between 8–15 reps per set.
• Eat a healthy, protein-rich mixed diet. You don’t need a special diet to build muscle. A protein powder makes it easier to get enough protein if you have trouble getting it from your regular diet.
• Other supplements that can help, but are not necessary, are creatine, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamin D.
• Building muscle after 50 is not only important for looking better naked and counteracting the ravages of time. It is also necessary if you are looking forward to a long life filled with healthy aging in a strong body.
• Contrary to popular belief, age is not an obstacle to strength training and achieving results in the form of more muscle. Strength training is both effective and safe for older people.
  

In this article, we will guide you through everything you need to know to start building muscle if you are over 50.

Remember: it’s never too late.

Table of contents

Your muscles after 50

As you get older, in fact as early as sometime after 30, you start to lose muscle mass. At first, it happens so slowly that you don’t notice it. But as the years go by, this process happens faster and faster, and suddenly you discover that you can’t do the same things you could 10 years ago.

As if that weren’t bad enough, you lose strength even faster than you lose muscle. In addition, fat finds its way between your muscle fibers, reducing the quality of the muscle mass you have.

Does that sound bad?

It is.

This process leads to impaired physical function and a poorer quality of life, perhaps even disability and premature death if it continues unchecked.

Fortunately, you don’t have to sit and watch while the decline happens. On the contrary, there is definitely something you can do about it.

The remedy is called strength training.

Strength training is your primary tool for slowing down age-related decline for many decades. Not only that, but you can even reverse the decline and build muscle and become stronger instead. Best of all, we’re not talking about medication with unpleasant side effects, but a fun, effective, and safe activity.

I’m over 50. Is it too late for me to start exercising?

No.

This chapter could have ended there, with a resounding “no,” but let’s look at what science says.

Not only can you build muscle and become stronger with strength training even after 50, you also get the many health benefits that physical activity provides. Some of these are unique to strength training.

Both men and women over 50 increase their muscle mass and strength through strength training. In fact, both men and women achieve equally good results. Men usually have more muscle mass to begin with and therefore gain more muscle from strength training in absolute terms. But women achieve just as good gains in relative terms, in relation to the muscle mass they have.

In just a few months, you can expect to increase your muscle mass significantly while losing body fat. In one study, male participants with an average age of 60 gained two kilograms of muscle and lost two kilograms of body fat in 16 weeks when they followed a strength training program. 7 Here’s a myth you may have heard: that it’s impossible to build muscle and lose fat at the same time. We can dispel that myth right away. On the contrary, that’s exactly what usually happens when someone starts strength training, young or old.

Is it harder building muscle after 50?

Yes, it is. You no longer have the many advantages of youth to rely on. But just because something is more difficult doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Nor does it mean you have to train like an elite athlete or spend hours every day in the gym. You definitely need to challenge your muscles if you want them to get bigger and stronger, but the key is to train smart.

A couple of important things are different compared to when you were young.

• Recovery. You probably don’t recover as quickly from a workout. However, recent research shows that this is not as relevant for strength training as it is for cardio training, and you don’t need to worry that your slightly poorer recovery ability will impair your results.
• Hormones. Your muscle-building hormones are not what they once were. As we age, the levels of hormones that control our muscle mass, such as growth hormone, testosterone (in men) and estrogen (in women), decrease. You can counteract this in a natural way, primarily through a healthy lifestyle. Poor health causes these hormones to decline more rapidly over the years than they should. Physical activity, of which strength training is an important part, and a good diet are crucial components of a healthy lifestyle that keeps your hormones at a youthful level.
• Anabolic resistance. When you are young, you powerfully stimulate muscle protein synthesis (the rate at which your body creates new muscle protein) every time you eat something protein-rich or lift weights. Sometime after 50, your muscles begin to respond less well to exercise and food intake. You still build muscle when you exercise and eat, but not quite as much as before. This phenomenon is called “anabolic resistance.” Inactivity and inflammation that come with age are two likely culprits. Fortunately, you can combat these culprits. A generally healthy lifestyle, including strength training, takes care of inactivity, and physical activity is also one of the best ways to counteract age-related inflammation. Combine this with a reasonably high protein intake at the right times, and you probably don’t need to worry about age on this point either.

So, yes, building muscle after 50 requires a little more effort than if you were, say, 25 years younger. But challenges are there to be overcome. Both anecdotal evidence and documented scientific evidence show that you can build muscle and get excellent results from strength training even when you are 50, 60, 70, and so on.

Do you need to consult a doctor before you start strength training?

Maybe, but probably not. Standard recommendations for older people who want to start strength training used to be to always consult a doctor first. Today, however, we know that the risks of sitting on the couch far outweigh any minor risks associated with exercise. If you are considering starting strength training but feel perfectly healthy, having to see a doctor first is yet another obstacle to getting started. It is an obstacle that prevents many people from starting at all, which is definitely bad for their health.

That is why the American College of Sports Medicine changed its recommendations in 2015. 16 You do not need to consult a doctor before you start exercising if you do not suffer from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or kidney disease and do not have symptoms of any of these diseases.

Even the Swedish Healthcare Guide now recommends that you consult your doctor if you want to start exercising and have risk factors such as high cholesterol, diabetes, or obesity, but not otherwise.

If you are healthy and symptom-free from these conditions, you are free to start exercising.

Now, I’m not saying that you should jump straight into a training program for an elite weightlifter, bodybuilder, or high-level athlete from the start. That would be a bad idea, regardless of whether you are young or old. A good training program will guide you into the world of the gym with a relatively gentle hand and become more challenging as you get used to the training.

If you want to be on the safe side, you are of course free to consult a doctor and have a health check before packing your gym bag. There is no harm in doing so, of course.

Everything you read in this article assumes that you are healthy and do not suffer from any serious illnesses or medical conditions. Minor ailments that are more or less part of aging are one thing and part of everyday life for most older people, but if you have any serious illnesses, injuries, or other health problems, you should definitely talk to your doctor first.

Building muscle after 50: the basics

The same basic principles for building muscle and strength apply to those over 50 as they do to hormone-filled 20-year-olds.

You need to challenge your muscles by forcing them to do something they are not used to. To build muscle and become stronger, you need to lift more and heavier weights than you have done so far. If you go to the gym and only lift weights that you can easily handle, it won’t do much, if anything at all.

The best way to challenge your muscles is to gradually increase the weights you use, lifting a little heavier and heavier all the time. Choose a heavier pair of dumbbells, add a small weight plate to the bar, or move the pin on the exercise machine up a notch to a higher number. You can also constantly strive to perform one more repetition than you did before. In any case, you must constantly try to do a little more and lift a little heavier.

This is called progressive overload. It is the basic principle of building muscle for both young and old, and a principle you cannot escape.

If you always lift the same weights a certain number of times without exerting yourself particularly, there is no reason for your muscles to get bigger and stronger. They can already handle all the demands you place on them!

When you have just started training, it is of course important that you first learn how to perform the exercises properly and how to use the right muscles. But soon you will be comfortable and able to perform the movements properly and feel coordinated and comfortable with the lifts. Then it’s time to start adding more weight and challenging yourself if you want to see results from the time you spend in the gym.

How many times a week should you work out?

Research shows that healthy older individuals who strength train two to three times a week build muscle effectively.

You can divide your body into several training sessions where you train a couple of muscle groups each session, or you can train your whole body each time. I suggest the latter approach if you are new to the world of strength training. That way, you work all your muscles more often, which makes it easier to coordinate the cooperation between muscles, brain, and nervous system so that you learn to perform the exercises in the best and fastest way.

Training every other day during the week is a perfect way to both stimulate your muscles frequently and give them enough rest. If you train on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, for example, you get the weekend off, but you can of course plan your training week around your own life and daily routine.

Which exercises are most effective for building muscle?

You will get the most “bang for your buck,” i.e., the greatest return on your invested time, if you focus on multi-joint exercises and basic exercises. These are exercises where you activate several muscles at the same time, exercises where the movement goes across several joints. Isolation exercises, i.e., exercises that isolate a specific muscle, also work well, so you don’t need to feel locked into certain exercises. Once you are used to strength training, you can benefit from adding isolation exercises, especially for muscles that you feel need a little extra love. However, basic exercises should be the foundation of most people’s exercise arsenal.

It is important to train your entire body to avoid muscular imbalances and achieve balanced development of all muscle groups.

Starting from the bottom and working our way up, a good selection of exercises for the entire body might look like this:

• Squats. One of the best exercises for building muscle and strength throughout the body. It primarily works the front of the thighs, buttocks, adductors (muscles that bring your thighs together), and lower back, but many other muscles are also involved in the lift. If you prefer to train on machines, the leg press is an excellent alternative.
• Bench press. The bench press is often called the king of upper body exercises, and for good reason. With the bench press, you train your chest, front shoulders, and triceps. You can also perform the exercise with dumbbells or on a chest press machine, either for variety or if you simply prefer to do so.
• Deadlift. This is a hip-dominant exercise that strengthens basically your entire body, but with a focus on your back, glutes, and hamstrings. As an added bonus, you also train your grip strength with deadlifts.
• Barbell row or cable row. These two exercises are excellent for training your back, especially the middle of it. They also train your biceps. You can perform machine rows instead for more stability.
• Lat pulldowns. Another back exercise! This exercise activates your lats better than rows. You also train your biceps with lat pulldowns.
• Presses. This fantastic exercise trains large parts of your upper body, but with a focus on your shoulders and triceps. You can perform the exercise standing or sitting with a barbell, with dumbbells, or in the form of a shoulder press on a machine.

If you incorporate these exercises into a full-body workout 2–3 times a week, you will have an excellent foundation for building muscle. You will work all the important muscle groups in an effective and time-efficient manner.

Most of the exercises in the list above are free weight exercises, but if you prefer the machine versions of one or more of them, that’s no problem. The important thing is that you challenge your muscles, not which tool you use to challenge them.

What about my arms? When do I train them?

All of the upper body exercises I went through above activate both your biceps and triceps very effectively. In fact, studies show that pulling exercises provide good bicep training. Lat pulldowns build biceps just as much as pure bicep exercises.

There is nothing wrong with training your biceps and triceps separately, but I suggest you start by focusing on multi-joint exercises that train large parts of the body, including your arms. At a later stage, you can add isolating exercises for your biceps and triceps if you feel you need to.

Example of a workout

Let’s take the exercises above and construct an example of a simple but effective workout:

• Squats: 1–4 sets
• Bench press: 1–4 sets
• Deadlifts: 1–4 sets
• Cable rows: 1–4 sets
• Presses: 1–4 sets
• Lat pulldowns: 1–4 sets

Of course, you can choose alternatives to these exercises, such as leg presses instead of squats, for example.

Start with one set per exercise and gradually increase by one set at a time until you reach four sets per exercise and workout.

If you want to train four times a week, Styrkelabbet’s upper/lower body program is an excellent choice. You can find this program, and many others, in our StrengthLog app for iOS and Android.

And while we’re on the subject of sets…

How many sets should you do?

As with the number of exercises, take it easy. Start with one set per muscle group and workout and add one set every week or two until you are doing three sets per muscle group. If you do three sets per muscle group three or four times per week, you’ll be at the optimal training volume for building muscle. If you only feel like or are able to do two full-body workouts per week, gradually increase the number of sets per muscle group until you’re doing four or five per workout.

Even a single set per muscle group is better than zero sets, but more is better. If you do two sets instead of one, you can expect 40% better gains. Up to 10 sets per muscle group per week will give you even better muscle growth.

How many reps should you do?

A recent study revealed an interesting and relevant fact.

Contrary to popular belief, you build muscle just as effectively regardless of how many reps you do. Both light training with many reps and heavy training with few reps result in equal increases in muscle mass. This also applies to older lifters over the age of 50. Research shows that you gain just as much muscle when using weights you can do 20 reps with as when lifting heavy weights and only managing eight reps.

When older people use really heavy weights and do few reps, their fast, explosive muscle fibers grow less than with lighter training with moderate weights.

Few reps with heavy weights are most effective for increasing your maximum strength, but that method may not be the best for you as an older lifter. You should probably not focus exclusively on lifting as heavy as possible. You will get similar results if you use moderate weights and do a few more reps, while also reducing your risk of injury. Strength training is a very safe form of exercise with a low risk of injury, but lifting maximum weights all the time puts more strain on your body than moderate weights do.

You should still strive to lift heavier weights all the time, but for the majority of your training, I suggest staying within a range of 8–15 reps. This seems like a sensible way to build muscle and strength, with less risk of injury, without compromising the effectiveness of your training.

Failure or not?

The concept of failure is directly linked to repetitions. Failure is when you perform so many reps in a set that you cannot do one more without compromising your form. It is unclear whether young lifters build more muscle by going to failure, but some studies suggest that this is the case. For older people, however, research shows that training to failure is not necessary. You will probably get just as good gains in strength and muscle mass if you stop your sets a couple of reps before reaching failure.

Training to failure every now and then does no harm. It can be fun to challenge yourself a little extra sometimes. But if you do it all the time, it may cost you more than it’s worth. You put more strain on your muscles than you need to and stress your nervous system, which negatively affects your recovery. Therefore, I recommend that you perform the majority of your sets until you feel that you could do a few more reps if you really had to, but don’t go all the way to total failure. Leave one or two reps “in the tank.”

How long should you rest between sets?

As a general rule of thumb, you build muscle and strength more effectively if you rest for a relatively long time between sets, around three minutes or so. However, the difference is not dramatic. If you rest properly between sets, you will regain a large part of your strength before you grab the barbell again. Then you can perform more repetitions, which means a greater training volume. Your training volume is one of the major factors that drives muscle growth.

The above reasoning may not apply to you if you are over 50.

One might think that young people recover faster from training. This may be true if we look at the hours and days after a workout, but between sets, the opposite is probably true, even if it sounds illogical. Young lifters may need twice as long a rest between sets to recover sufficiently.

As you get older, the composition of your muscles changes. Your fast muscle fibers, which tire more easily during exercise, shrink, while you develop more slow muscle fibers. Slow muscle fibers are more resistant to fatigue. This explains, at least in part, why you don’t need to rest as long between sets as you get older.

Scientific research supports this explanatory model in practice as well. In one study, 22 older men increased muscle mass and strength more effectively when they rested for one minute between sets compared to four minutes.

So, if you feel ready for the next set after 1–2 minutes of rest, there is no reason not to do so.

However, if you want to rest longer between sets, go ahead. It will not have a significant impact on your results. On the other hand, your workouts will obviously take longer. If long workouts are not your thing, don’t worry about rushing them by only resting a few minutes between sets.

Building muscle after 50: diet

Strength training tells your muscles that they need to grow bigger and stronger to cope with what you are putting them through. However, they cannot get bigger and stronger without sufficient amounts of energy and nutrients. You build muscle both in the gym and in the kitchen, and you cannot ignore one or the other if you want to see good results.

Eating for muscle growth does not differ significantly after the age of 50. There are just a few things you need to think about a little more.

You can use a calorie requirement calculator to estimate how many calories you need. You should aim for just above your daily calorie requirement to build muscle effectively. A small calorie surplus provides a favorable environment in the body for increasing muscle mass. The exception is if you are overweight and want to lose weight and body fat. In that case, you need to eat fewer calories than you need to maintain your weight. As an overweight beginner to strength training, you can build muscle and lose body fat without much difficulty.

Protein

Protein is your body’s building blocks, and if you don’t eat enough protein, you will have difficulty building muscle.

Older people need more protein than young people. Research shows that older people need up to 1.3 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day to prevent age-related muscle loss.

But you don’t just want to maintain. You want to build.

That means you need even more protein.

Current recommendations say you should aim for 1.6 to 1.7 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day to build muscle effectively. However, these figures are usually based on studies with young participants. If you want to be sure you’re getting enough protein for maximum muscle growth, try to consume 2 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight per day instead. There are no known side effects to doing so, and it may be just what your muscles need to grow.

Here is a list of excellent protein sources, ranked by how effective they are for building muscle:

• Milk and dairy products such as yogurt, buttermilk, cheese, cottage cheese, quark, and protein powders based on casein and whey.
• Eggs
• Red meat (beef, pork, lamb, game, and ostrich)
• White meat (chicken, turkey)
• Fish and seafood
• Soy-based products such as tofu, tempeh, edamame, and soy protein powder
• Quinoa
• Beans and lentils
• Nuts, almonds, and seeds
• Grains and rice

Source.

You can choose to get all your protein from your regular diet, or you can use a protein supplement. Either for simplicity and cost, or because you may find it difficult to eat so much protein-rich food.

How much protein should you eat per meal, and how often?

You cannot use unlimited amounts of protein from a single meal for muscle building purposes. If you eat 90 grams of protein at once, you will not build more muscle than if you eat 30 grams. This applies to both young and old individuals.

A simple rule of thumb is to eat 0.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per meal. Spread your meals fairly evenly throughout the day, every three to four hours. This way, you constantly give your muscles what they need to respond to training and grow bigger and stronger. This is imperative for building muscle after 50.

Try to consume 40 grams of good quality protein after a workout. Twenty grams is enough for young lifters, but not for older ones.

Protein before bedtime

By eating or drinking some form of protein before you go to bed, you give your body the building blocks it needs to build muscle while you sleep. Studies show that you need 40 grams of protein before bed to keep your muscle building going throughout the night. This is another occasion where 20 grams is not enough.

However, there is not enough evidence to say for sure that you will build more muscle in the long run with this method, as long as you eat enough protein over the course of the day as a whole. But why not, right? It’s an easy way to get a little more protein into your daily intake, especially if you find it difficult to get enough during the day.

Fat

Fat is important for your hormones, the health of your cells, and your absorption of various vitamins, among many other things. In addition, fat gives you lots of energy to work and exercise.

A daily fat intake of 20–35% of your total calorie intake provides you with enough for both performance and health. For example, let’s say you eat 2,500 kcal per day. If you want 25% of these to come from fat, you need to eat about 70 grams of fat, as each gram of fat provides you with 9 kcal.

Swedish recommendations state that approximately one-third of your calorie intake should come from fat. This seems like a reasonable amount for most people. American recommendations from the Current Dietary Guidelines for Americans do not set any upper limits where your fat intake becomes unhealthy, as long as you stay within your calorie requirements. So you don’t need to follow any kind of low-fat diet if you’re training to build muscle. On the contrary, your testosterone levels will drop if you eat too little fat.

In general, the best range for most people is probably between 20-35% of total calorie intake. There are no harmful effects of going higher, but if you have a limited calorie budget, unlimited fat intake means that you will have fewer and perhaps suboptimal amounts of calories left over for protein and carbohydrates.

Saturated fat has had a bad reputation for many decades. Many blame it for increasing the risk of heart disease and other health problems. You probably increase your risk of cardiovascular disease if you replace all unsaturated fat with saturated fat, but saturated fat itself is probably not the demon many people think it is.

You can find unsaturated fat, often called “the good fat,” in olive oil, fatty fish, nuts, seeds, and avocados, to name a few sources.

Foods with high amounts of saturated fat, such as eggs, cheese, butter, and fatty meats, are not bad foods. In many cases, they are fantastic sources of nutrients, and for those who want to build muscle, they often provide the best protein you can find.

As long as you eat a varied diet based mainly on unrefined foods and avoid or reduce refined and ultra-processed choices, you probably don’t need to think too much about it.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates themselves do not build muscle, but that does not mean that carbohydrates are useless for those who want to build muscle. You store the carbohydrates you eat in your muscles as glycogen, which you then use as fuel when you exercise. Carbohydrates are your best fuel for intense exercise such as strength training.

It’s quite easy to calculate how many carbohydrates you should consume. First of all, calculate how many calories and how many grams of protein and fat you should eat, as I described above. Then simply add carbohydrates until you reach your target calorie intake. You will find a detailed example of such a calculation in the next paragraph.

Choose unrefined and healthy carbohydrate-rich foods over added sugar. You don’t have to avoid sugar, but view sugar-based foods and treats as a little extra rather than something to base your diet on.

Here are some excellent carbohydrate choices that will also help you perform well:

• Bread
• Pasta
• Grains
• Rice
• Potatoes, both regular and sweet potatoes
• Bulgur
• Quinoa
• Beans
• Lentils
• Fruit
• Berries
• Vegetables

Do you have to count calories?

No, you don’t. However, it can be valuable to do so for a few days. This will show you how much you actually eat compared to what you need to eat.

As an example, let’s go back to those 2,500 kcal we talked about earlier.

• You have decided to eat 200 grams of protein and 70 grams of fat.
• Each gram of protein and carbohydrates gives you 4 kcal, while one gram of fat gives you 9 kcal.
• 200 x 4 = 800 kcal from protein.
• 70 x 9 = 630 kcal from fat.
• 800 + 630 = 1,430 kcal from protein and fat.
• 2,500 – 1,430 kcal = 1,070 kcal left to spend on carbohydrates.
• 1,070 / 4 = 270 grams of carbohydrates.

A few grams here and a few calories there are irrelevant. The numbers are just a tool. You don’t need to weigh everything you put in your mouth and meticulously calculate grams and calories. Just keep a reasonable track of the averages. When trying to building muscle after 50, a little more food is better than a little too little food. If you eat too little, you risk not getting the results you want.

Meal frequency

Regular protein replenishment is beneficial for your muscles, as we discussed earlier, but you don’t need to plan your fat and carbohydrate intake with any particular precision. However, eating or drinking some form of carbohydrates before and after a workout is not a bad idea. Carbohydrates before your workout improve your performance, and eating carbohydrates after you’ve finished training quickly replenishes your fuel reserves.

Building muscle after 50: dietary supplements

A good diet is the nutritional foundation for building muscle and becoming stronger. However, it is not always easy to meet all your body’s needs with regular food. Or at least not easily and conveniently. This is where dietary supplements come in.

Protein supplements

As I mentioned earlier, you need more protein to build muscle effectively as you get older. You can, of course, get all your protein from regular food, but that’s not always convenient. Protein powder is an excellent way to increase your total protein intake.

Don’t expect any better results from a protein powder compared to the same amount of protein from regular food. It’s just a cheap and convenient source of protein. Food in powder form rather than a supplement, really.

You can choose from many different types of protein supplements, which can be confusing. Whey protein, casein protein, and soy protein are three of the most common options. Both whey protein and casein come from cow’s milk, while soy protein comes from soybeans. All three are excellent choices. Soy protein is, of course, the best choice if you don’t use animal products at all, but for muscle building after 50 purposes, whey protein probably has a slight edge. However, it’s not a decisive factor.

Drinking a protein shake with around 40 grams of protein after your workouts is a good way to ensure that your muscles have everything they need to grow bigger and stronger. Young lifters only need about 20 grams, but that’s not enough if you’re a little older.

When it comes to timing, you should try to consume some form of protein shortly after a workout. It doesn’t seem to matter for younger people, but it may affect muscle growth in older people.

You can also use protein powder like any other protein, as a snack or as a protein source in a regular meal.

Omega-3 fatty acids

Omega-3s are essential fatty acids that your body needs for many functions. They are crucial for the health of your cells and keep your heart, blood vessels, and immune system strong and healthy, among many other things.

In recent years, omega-3 has also gained attention in the fitness world, as it is linked to building and maintaining muscle mass, especially in older adults. One meta-analysis found that at least 2 grams of omega-3 fatty acids per day can help you build muscle and strength. However, another meta-analysis found no such effects. The latter did not look at strength training at all, only at omega-3 supplements in general.

There is currently not enough evidence to say anything for certain, mainly due to a limited amount of research, but a high-quality supplement that provides you with 2–3 grams of the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA per day will do no harm. Who knows, you might even get a small benefit from it in your training, in addition to any cardiovascular benefits.

It has also been found that omega-3 supplements reduce inflammation in the muscles after strength training. Young people get poorer training results from actively trying to dampen the inflammatory effects of training. 60 However, this does not apply to those over 50.

Older people often have chronic low-grade inflammation in their bodies. Anything that helps you manage this, such as omega-3, can also help you build muscle more effectively. Anti-inflammatory medications do the job, but also carry the risk of unpleasant side effects in the long term. A couple of grams of omega-3 a day does not.

Multivitamin and mineral supplements

These are supplements that provide you with most of the essential micronutrients – vitamins and minerals – in a convenient pill. Many of these are crucial for the health of your muscles, but don’t expect a vitamin pill to be the key to better training results. Think of it more as insurance. You don’t want to get too little of any of the vitamins and minerals you need for a strong and healthy body.

You can get all the micronutrients you need from a varied diet. But how many of us eat a varied diet that guarantees sufficient amounts of all nutrients? A high-quality multivitamin and mineral supplement is a sensible investment to ensure that your body and muscles get all the vitamins and minerals they need.

When choosing a multivitamin and mineral supplement, don’t go for something with many times the recommended daily intake of any nutrient. Getting enough is good, getting too much is not. Large amounts of certain vitamins, such as vitamin C, can even impair your training results rather than improve them. Some vitamins and minerals also have a toxic effect if you take a large overdose over a long period of time.

Creatine

Creatine is probably the most effective dietary supplement for anyone who wants to build muscle and become stronger, young or old. Older lifters may even benefit more from creatine than younger ones.

In older people, the combination of strength training and creatine has been shown to provide many benefits. Not only will you gain more muscle and become stronger than if you train without creatine, you will also improve your bone density and become more resistant to fatigue during workouts. In addition, you will be better able to handle physically demanding activities in everyday life. Creatine can even improve some of your brain functions.

Creatine is inexpensive and safe for older people. Your muscles will thank you if you use it.

Take 5 grams of creatine per day with a meal. Taking creatine with a protein drink after your workout is a good way to remember to take it.

When buying creatine, choose creatine monohydrate. It is both the cheapest and the best. Many other variants have appeared on the market over the years, but none have proven to be better than monohydrate, only more expensive.

Vitamin D

Your body uses vitamin D to absorb calcium and maintain strong bones. Vitamin D also regulates processes that control the immune system and cell growth, among many other things. You get vitamin D from the sun, from certain foods such as fatty fish, and from fortified foods.

Vitamin D is important for muscle development and performance. A 2019 study of more than 4,000 older participants found a link between vitamin D deficiency and lower muscle strength and poorer performance.

In other words, you don’t want to have insufficient levels of vitamin D if you take your training seriously. Unfortunately, vitamin D deficiency is common. Studies from the US show that more than 40% of the population has levels low enough to be considered deficient. Dark skin prevents you from converting sunlight into vitamin D, which means that more than 80% of black Americans suffer from vitamin D deficiency.

Consider a daily vitamin D supplement of 2,000 to 4,000 IU (International Units) to ensure you are getting enough of this important nutrient. This is especially important if you don’t spend much time in the sun and don’t eat fatty fish several times a week. It is a safe dose and a sensible measure to ensure that your body and muscles get enough.

The above are the supplements that I believe will be most beneficial to you. Most others are unnecessary or even useless. Some, such as caffeine, have scientific backing and help you perform a little better in the gym. However, the ones I listed above are the ones that either directly help you build muscle or ensure that you don’t get too little of something you need for good training results.

What if I’m over 50 and have been training for a long time?

This article is primarily written for men and women over 50 who want to start or have recently started strength training.

If you are an experienced lifter with years of training under your belt, you don’t need to change anything. Just listen to your body if it tells you that you need more recovery time to perform at your best now that you are no longer young.

The basic training principles and the parts of the article that deal with diet apply to you too, of course, but beyond that, you probably already know your body and what it can handle better than I ever could. Keep doing what you’re doing and what has gotten you where you are. You’ve already laid the foundation to be one step ahead of everyone else who doesn’t train in terms of health, strength, and muscle mass.

Of course, you won’t be able to keep building more and more muscle forever as you get older, but you already have a huge advantage over everyone your age who doesn’t strength train.

Building muscle after 50: summary

You can build muscle regardless of age. Strength training is proven to be effective and safe for older people.

You may need to give a little extra thought to some details in your training, diet, and recovery if you want the best possible results.

Training:

• Train each muscle group 2–3 times per week, preferably using compound exercises.
• Work your way up to 4 sets per exercise and 8–15 reps per set.
• Use progressive overload by increasing the weights you use when you can.
• Listen to your body and devote sufficient time and focus to rest and recovery in order to perform well.

Diet:

• Eat a balanced diet, preferably with a slight calorie surplus. Avoid trying to lose weight while trying to build muscle, unless you are overweight.
• Aim for a daily protein intake of at least 1.7 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.
• Eat 0.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight every 3–4 hours.
• Supplements that are beneficial for building muscle include protein powder (if you are not getting enough protein from your diet) and creatine. Omega-3, vitamin D, and a vitamin and mineral supplement are a sensible way to ensure that you are not deficient in anything important.

There you have it! That’s everything you need to know to start building muscle after 50.

Again, it’s never too late to start exercising and building muscle.

Respect your body, strength train regularly, challenge your muscles, and eat a healthy diet with sufficient amounts of muscle-building protein. If you follow these simple guidelines, you’ll be well on your way to a stronger, healthier, and more muscular version of yourself, regardless of your age.