6 Training and Eating Fixes for the Aging Athlete

Written by Dan Taylor, MS, CSCS, 50+ Fitness and Nutrition Expert

Dan's exercise physiology/sports nutrition education, NSCA strength and conditioning background, and work with a wide variety of active older adults since 1998 make him the ideal guide to help navigate the muddy waters of optimal eating and training strategies for the over-50 athlete and fitness seeker.

Are you over 50 and still making fitness and nutrition top priorities in your life? Were you an individual or team competitive athlete in high school or college? Have you struggled to dial in the best combination of eating and training practices for your current condition and lifestyle? You’re in good company. Most aging athletes have the desire and discipline to stay in great condition but don’t have the critical knowledge that will ensure success. But we think that we do have that knowledge, so we have become so entrenched in the program we’ve developed over the years that we miss the opportunity to sharpen our attack on old age with precision, elegance, and time-efficiency. In this article, you’ll find six simple but effective fixes (three for eating; three for training) that will help you break through performance, energy and body composition plateaus that you thought were unavoidable, and push you to a level for performance and body composition that you didn’t think were possible at this stage in your life.

What’s wrong with my eating?

The foundation of health and athletic performance is nutritious and energy-adequate (but not chronically excessive) eating practices. As we age, fit people look, appropriately, towards the intake habits of master’s athletes (generally, over 40 physically active people who pursue some regular form of athletic activity or competition). Why? Because master’s athletes (MAs) are at the forefront of managing the delicate balance of optimizing quality protein (PRO) intake, getting a robust and broad-spectrum array of vitamins and minerals (micronutrients), and accomplishing all that while avoiding overconsuming energy (kcals). The bottom line for achieving this peak state consistently is that if you’re not sure you’re doing this already, you are most likely not.

What’s wrong with my training?

Individual physical conditions, chronic injuries, recovery from surgery and training responses to medications (all of which should be discussed at length with your primary care physician and involve any fitness coach, personal trainer or strength and conditioning professional with whom you engage), there are very common fundamental physical changes that are both related to biological age and cultivated from long term habits that should be factored into the ideal training program for the older athlete. Common characteristics I observe include:

• Postural deterioration

• Strength and range of motion imbalances

• Lopsided conditioning levels between endurance, strength, flexibility, core stability and anaerobic power

• Poorly designed programs that preserve or exacerbate the elements mentioned above

• Accumulated injury related (especially back, shoulder and knee) compromised function

  
  

If you’re not presenting at least two of these problems (if not all, to some degree), you would be a physical anomaly, rather than the mere mortal I suspect you are.

Eating and training fixes that work

Like a gourmet meal, your eating and training practices need to not only include the right ingredients, in the right amounts, but they need to be combined and sequenced in a way that they’ll all work together to elevate the whole. And that needs to be, like any science experiment, planned, organized and consistently repeatable. It’s also important, given that our lifestyles and day-to-day-urgencies often interfere with our “plan A”, that we have back-up or substitute practices that accomplish the same objectives and can also adapt to the circumstances of the moment. 

Eating fix priorities

1. Improving your intake micro-nutrient density

While typically considered primarily PRO sources, lean meat, seafood, dairy and eggs (for omnivores) and soy, legumes and nuts/seeds are actually great sources for many essential micro nutrients. The same is true for whole grains, but to a lesser extent. But the real jackpot for vital micronutrients resides in the produce (vegetables and fruits) to which you may not be allotting enough of your food intake budget. If protein is the building material for muscles and countless biological processes, think of micronutrients as the design and craftsmanship that put up the floor, walls, and roof of your prime physique. It’s cliche to say “eat more veggies” (many people already eat enough fruit, in total), but there’s a simple approach that optimizes the nutrient-density equation I’ll share with you in a future article examining this “fix” in detail.

2. Optimizing your protein intake

Many older athletes are not aware that we gradually begin to lose PRO absorption sensitivity as we age. That means we need to eat more to retain enough, as compared to our younger counterparts. Recent research supports a boost of previous recommended levels for general population older adults, while athletic profiles, especially regularly strength-trained athletic older adults, have been guided to upwards of 1g per pound of ideal bodyweight daily, or even higher. No significant risk has been found for those without compromised kidney function at twice those levels. However, muscle protein synthesis (increased skeletal muscle volume and strength) does not appear to correlate with levels above 1g/lb. For most of us, though, getting that much protein from primarily food sources while also keeping total kcal intake low enough to maintain or gradually reduce body fat levels is the real trick. There will be more on that in my upcoming protein-specific article.

Related article: Overview on daily protein needs and options

3. Managing your goal-specific energy intake range 

This is the single most elusive goal in the fitness world. That’s partly because goals vary (are you a marathoner, a powerlifter, a waterskier or a multisport/no-sport fitness seeker?), and partly because every variable I mentioned earlier (and some I didn't cover like behavioral tendencies, work schedule and family eating and activity integration) affects the others and the ultimate outcome. So, how can you hope to master the formula? This will be broken down into a clear, understandable framework that anyone can master in a future article. But if you want a comprehensive and effective pathway right now, it’s here.

Training fix priorities

1. Balance your program components

This includes every major area of potential imbalance, including work-to-rest ratios, mode focus (cardio/strength/core/flexibility/agility, etc), muscle strength ratios (compound prime mover versus assisting and stabilizing muscles, upper vs. lower body muscles, dominant/non-dominant side capacities), range of motion limitations that improperly stress the spine and major joints and core-juncture stabilizing capacities. Leave something off this list and injuries become much more likely and can be severe, or even catastrophic. 

2. Set goal baselines for strength-to-bodyweight ratios, endurance capacity, and mobility that provide a firm foundation for sport-specific training  

Think of gymnasts, rock climbers and surfers. They all practice different sports, but the physiological requirements and demands for all are startlingly similar. And those precise similarities coalesce to both optimize athletic performance versatility while at the same time minimize inherent injury risk. There are simple ways to achieve these ratios of strength and mobility that I’ll examine in greater depth in a future article. But a valuable template and roadmap to get there (as well as to address the other two training fixes mentioned in this article) is right here.

3. Limit your sports skills training for ideal performance

This surprising piece of guidance is primarily to help you avoid two common but potentially devastating training pitfalls:

1. Over-training muscle capacities already addressed in your fitness base

2. Risking sub-par focus on specific skill development due to mental fatigue
   

The short answer on how to do that is to prioritize your fitness base training in both sequence and time allocation. More on that coming soon in my article on this sub-topic.

Get help from the right source – today

In future articles I will delve more deeply into each of these six fixes, and you can learn the crucial features of the ideal older adult training and eating practices that optimize your performance and light the path to ideal body composition while retaining strength and muscle volume in my comprehensive subscription program for mature athletes.

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Read more from Dan Taylor, MS, CSCS

Dan Taylor, MS, CSCS, 50+ Fitness and Nutrition Expert

Dan left a career in high-tech corporate finance in 1998 to pursue his mission - to lead others in elevating and simplifying the art of physical aging with the best fitness and eating practices for the mature athlete (and aspiring athlete). His online subscription program provides a clear and simple pathway to:

1. Achieve peak performance while lowering disease and injury risk,

2. Adopt powerful and principled eating practices that effectively support the training framework and,

3. Develop an individualized, manageable and adaptable template for both.