The Only Way to Stop Your Muscle Mass From Disappearing After 45

The older you get, the more expensive weakness becomes and lifting the same pink five-pound dumbbells for years isn't going to save your bones, your independence, or your life.

In this episode, strength trainer and creator of the Heavyish Method, Jermiah Blount, breaks down why adults over 45 must abandon fitness complacency and embrace lifting heavy. 

He redefines "heavy" as a safe, highly controlled, and individualized stimulus designed to tax the body and spark true muscle growth, rather than a reckless display of strongman power. 

By focusing on progressive overload and the four foundational lifts, Blount explains how mature adults can dramatically improve their bone density, protect their health, and reclaim their functional independence for decades to come.

0:00 – Why Adults Over 45 Should Lift Heavy
1:44 – What Does "Lifting Heavy" Actually Mean?
3:07 – Progressive Overload & Tracking Your Lifts
4:08 – Is Heavy Lifting Dangerous? Form & Safety
5:39 – Benefits of Strength Training as You Age
5:57 – The Top 4 Strength Training Exercises
9:20 – Bone Density, Recovery & Staying Active
11:53 – Myths About Strength Training & It's Never Too Late

"Once you stop, you're dead. Let's just be honest about it... Being able to find somebody, especially a trainer, to be committed to is gonna give you something to look forward to. It's gonna give you a purpose."

"My goal is to stimulate you, not obliterate you. You could be 70 or 75 and never lifted a barbell in your life and get started and make progress."

"It's supposed to be heavy. We're supposed to be pushing ourselves. It's supposed to be uncomfortable. If you're going to the gym and you're comfortable and not pushing yourself, you're never really gonna see true growth."

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it.

About Jermiah Blount: Jermiah has harbored a deep passion for health, fitness, and strength ever since his tenure in the Air Force. He finds fulfillment in assisting individuals in enhancing their lives by promoting strength, well-being, and proper nutrition through the utilization of Heavyish principles.

Check us out at:
https://www.instagram.com/heavyishgym/
https://www.tiktok.com/@heavyishgym

#strengthtraining #healthyaging #liftheavy

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to It's Supposed to Be Heavy with Jeremiah Blunt, a show about strength, longevity, and building a body that carries you well for decades. Because resistance creates adaptation. And some things are supposed to be heavy. Let's get to work.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

The topic of today's podcast is why adults over 45 should lift heavy. I'm Jeremiah Blunt. I'm a strength trainer out of Franklin, Tennessee, and the creator of the heaviest method.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

So why should people over 45 lift heavy? What does that mean to lift heavy?

SPEAKER_01 0:30

So when heavy is going to be relative to the individual, right? Somebody that's six foot four, 240 pounds versus somebody that's five foot eight, 150 pounds is going to be different, right? But overloading the muscle and putting the body under strain and lifting heavier weights from the ground and pushing yourself, stressing the body, stressing the nervous system, stressing everything, it's that is what's heavy, right? If you can come in and you just start going to town and you do your three sets of 15, right? So is that necessarily heavy or are you just going with the motions of the lift? What we want to do is we want to get a person into the gym, right? We want to work with them, roughly do a four by four setup, right? And really tax them, right? So what they're gonna do is we're gonna do general warm-ups. So what I mean by that is we're gonna slightly increase the weight, do a scale, see how they feel, and then really push them, right? So when we when we're doing lift, your heart rate should be up, you should be sweating, you should be grunting, right? But we should also keep proper form. We never want to break form and we never want to go overweight that we shouldn't, right? If you can properly execute a movement and you're keeping your form and it's heavy, you're feeling taxed, and by that last set, you just feel fatigued and out of energy, then that's right where we want to be, right? So lifting heavy is a little bit different. And depending on what your focus is, I'm not training power lifters, I'm not training strong men. I'm training your average person who wants to improve their life, and that's going to be a little bit different than you thinking heavy and you thinking of, oh, that's a strong man. He lifts up a car, or hey, that's a power lifter and he lift a thousand pounds. That's not necessarily what we're going for. What we're going for is you taxing your body and you putting yourself in a position to stimulate and grow the muscle.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

But it's also not two people go to the gym three times a week, and one person, maybe they're in their 50s, maybe it's a woman that lifts the pink five and 10 pound dumbbells for years. They never actually go up. They lift the same weights every time they go to the gym the same workout. The other part of the person that does a progressive overload work and maybe works out with a barbell or even on machines is starts out at a low weight, and then a year later they're lifting significantly more. So, what's the difference there?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

So the biggest fault for a lot of people is they get too comfortable. And that's in all aspects of health, not just weight training, right? And when you get complacent and comfortable and you're not tracking and you're not pushing yourself every time you come in, then obviously you're not gonna grow. Things change with stress, right? So if you're coming in and lifting the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, then your body's not being stimulated because your body's gonna adjust, right? We're human beings, we're adaptive. But if you're able to track it, that's why having a little book or even everybody's got a phone. Make a little note in your notebook. Hey, deadlift, 135 pounds this week. Next week, just try to go up to 137.5, right? And then you're gonna reach a point where it seems like, hey, I'm not getting stronger, I'm not getting stronger. Just try to get that one more rep, right? It doesn't necessarily have to be, hey, I threw 20 pounds on my lift this week, which there'll be a point in time in your lift, and especially if you're just starting off, that you're gonna feel strong and you're gonna be able to put a little bit more weight on the bar. But until then, just take it slow, right? Lift, challenge yourself. And then when you get in those later lifts, just focus on that one more rep. Once you get to that one more rep, so it would look like this, it would be like a four, three, two, one, right? The next week, try four, four, three, two, or just four, four, two, one, right? Just each time focus on that extra rep, and that's gonna show that you're getting stronger, even though you haven't put on the weight. Once you get to the point where you can go four, four, four, four, start it over again, add weight, keep pushing yourself, get past that plateau and keep working.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

And explain why when most people hear heavy lifting or lift heavy, they think that's gotta be dangerous. I'm surely I'm gonna hurt myself and I can't be safe. And what do you say to somebody when they say that?

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Usually when people say something like that is because they're not in a controlled environment. Form is key on everything. Even if you're a bodybuilder, form is key. Just the same thing with power lifting and the same thing with training for strength. Form is key. And especially when you're training heavy and you don't have the proper form, the risk is high, obviously. But if you're in a controlled environment, you have a solid coach who can nitpick every little thing, then you're gonna be safe and you're gonna be able to push past your limits and push past things that you never thought you're gonna be able to do when you're gonna be able to do it together.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

And so somebody who's 60 or 70 and has been training for a year or two with a trainer, how are they different when they wake up? What's different about the benefits of strength training for them?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

For them, especially when you get into a more mature age in life, you're gonna be able to do more things. You're gonna continue to be able to do things because the biggest thing is when we get to a certain age, especially in our older, when you get into the retirement age and things like that, people stop. Once you stop, you're dead. Let's just be let's just be honest about it. So being able to find somebody, especially a trainer to be committed to, it's gonna give you something to look forward to. It's gonna give you a purpose, right? You're gonna go in and you're gonna train for the hour at a time, two to three times a week, you're gonna train. And as you train, you're gonna slowly build the muscle and try to do the things that you need to do. And then the next thing you know, hey, you know you're 78.9 or 88, and you're still able to function. You're still able to do things, right? Also, it's been proven, especially for those people in the 30 to 45 range. Go ahead and start. It's gonna help prevent dementia. All these things come from strength training and stimulating and being healthy.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

So when you say strength training, what are your top four strength training exercises?

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Uh, bench press, overhead press, deadlift, and squat. These movements work the largest muscle groups, they're gonna stimulate the most muscle, and you're gonna be able to have a well-rounded body. I would literally, in the beginning, be able to work out with just those four movements, hit them hard two to three times a week, each session, and you will be impressed in six months where you started and where you would end.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

What do you see in the clients that have never lifted? A lot of people come to strength training and they've never done it, or maybe they did it in high school and it's been 50 years.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

The biggest things that I see is for one, that they are now doing something they never thought they were going to be able to do. Some of them have been to the gym and they worked at free weights and they worked with machines, but it's not the same thing, right? And it's not mentally the same thing. When you do a machine or you see the number you're pressing, there's cables, or everything's going on. But when you first get in there and you touch a barbell and then you slowly start watching that weight gain and gain and gain, next thing you know, hey, I'm shoulder pressing my dog. Then the next thing goes on for a husband, he's oh, I'm shoulder pressing my wife. These things people never thought they were able to do, and now you can correlate with something that they do day to day. And that's my goal is to improve your life. So if I can take this and improve your life by showing you things that you can correlate outside of the gym, then that's going to improve your life all the way around.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Because one of the concepts about strength training is the older you get, the more expensive weakness gets.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Time is the most valuable thing we have, right? We want to have kids, we want our kids to have kids, we want to see our grandbabies. You don't want to have your grandbabies or your great grandbabies and not be able to pick them up. Help around the house, help change a diaper. And in a lot of cases, for a lot of people, these are things that they never will get to do because they didn't train and they didn't strength train and they didn't incorporate that in their life. And now they're suffering and they can't do the things that truly mean something to them because they wouldn't take the time to do it.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

And can anybody strength train?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Is there a absolutely anybody can strength train? Now there's going to be a huge difference, right? So we're not 20, right? It's going to take recovery. And with strength training, recovery is super, super important. Well, I'm not training my clients four or five times a week. Uh, on average, we're training two to three times a week, plenty of recovery, rest. And in between, I ask them to at least get their steps, right? And you can get your steps by doing different things. You probably heard on several podcasts or YouTube videos, do this, park further away, and it's all true, right? Park in the back of the parking lot. If you're sitting down all day, have a stand-up desk, do little things to incorporate. If you're on a business call and you're the type of person that has a business call, walk around the office, put your headphones in and talk on the get your steps in. If walking isn't a good thing for you, then there's plenty of other things that you can do. Maybe look at swimming, go to the Y, go have a swim. There's little things you can do. They have little pedals that you can put under your work desk now, and you could just sit there and pedal as you work. As long as you're staying active and as long as you're moving, pairing that with proper nutrition, pairing that with sleep, pairing that with heavy training, you're gonna live an amazing full life.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Yeah, and one of the things that I've heard you say is that strength training increases your bone density. It makes your bones stronger. So what's the advantage of having stronger bones as you get into your 50s, 60, 70?

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Well, obviously, the biggest thing is if you trip off the curve out here and you have weak bones, you're gonna break it, right? So having that bone density to protect yourself, having the muscle to protect your bones is super, super important, right? Because accidents happen in life. If we drive, someone rears into us or we're in a major accident. There's been plenty of cases where people get to the hospital after a major injury, and then the doctor said it's because of the shape this person was in or the muscle mass this person in is what saved them is because they were able to protect their internal organs, they were able to protect their bones, and essentially it saved their life.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

And one of the things that I found working out with you myself, it's fun. It's not it's hard work, but it's fun. Because really what you're saying is there's four movements and walk. And that's really all you have to be accountable for in the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah, in the beginning, that's literally all you have to be accountable for. I know there's a lot of gems that push people through a lot of fast pacing, but strength training is very important. And it's also the mentality of it, right? If you can come in and you thought, hey, I'm never gonna be able to do something like this, and I'm just like, show up, right? Show up. Let's just do this. Don't worry about this, don't worry about nutrition, don't worry about this right off the bat. Let's just show up, get under the bar or pick up the bar, and we run an hour session and it's a little bit slower paced because you have to rest a little bit longer with strength, things along those lines. It gives time for that bonding with a also coach as well, because you're building that camaraderie, right? If a coach can build camaraderie between his clients now, it's not the client being like, Oh, I gotta get up and go work out. It's like, oh, Coach Jeremiah's depending on me to be there. So I need to be there, right? And with that relationship, I'm making you better because now you're wanting to push harder for me and it's not just yourself.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

But it's not when you think about CrossFit and Hydrox, some of the other kind of ways of any people like work really hard for an hour and they're puking in the corner, and they're it's nothing like that strength training.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

No, also depending on the level you get to, I don't want to say there's absolutely not because things happen, the human body, but I'm not trying to run you ragged to make you puke. I'm not trying to build all that acid up just for you to get sick. My goal is to stimulate you, not obliterate you, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:46

You could be 70 or 75 and never lifted a barbell in your life and get started and make progress.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah, uh a hundred percent. And just like any caveat, things have to be adjusted when we get so long. If you've had issues with your shoulder, if you've had issues with your knee and you've had it for 30, 40 years, right? There's gonna be things that we may have to adjust, but the overall principle is still the same.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

That's awesome. What are some myths about strength training that you need to dispel to get people who are older in age or 40 and older?

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Well, a lot of them people think it's too late. And that's probably realistically it's too late, or I'm not in good enough shape for that, or there's no perfect time to actually start. Yeah. Lifting heavy is gonna, I'm gonna get hurt. People automatically think because you're doing something heavy, because Joe Small lifted a push lawn or in the back off the ground and threw it in the back of his truck and he got hurt. They want to correlate those movements that aren't natural and he did it completely wrong to strength training when it's completely different movement, right? So, you know, things like that. But the biggest two, I would honestly say, is it's too late or I'm not in the good enough shape for that.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

So is it too late? It's never too late. It's never too late. So if somebody wanted to learn about strength training and work with a trainer, how would they get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_01 13:00

They can reach out here at Heavyish and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. And then we'll set up an appointment. We'll do an intro call, we'll call, we'll talk about things. The biggest things I want to know is, you know, how old are you? I really don't care about what condition your health is, but I do want to know about pre-existing injuries, things along those lines. Cause when you strength train or you bodybuild or any of anything else, CrossFit, your old injuries will come out to bite you, right? So when you talk to a trainer, let them know, even if it was something that happened when you were 12 and you're 65 now, those injuries can still come up and rear its ugly little head. All right.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Tell us what it's supposed to be heavy means.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

It's supposed to be heavy. So I've been saying that pretty much since I've been a strength coach. If you're working with a private group or you're working with semi-private, or you work with a small group, you go around, you're checking on everybody. How does it feel? Most of the time they're gonna say it's heavy. And ever since then, I've said it's supposed to be heavy because it's true, right? We're supposed to be pushing ourselves. It's supposed to be uncomfortable. If you're going to the gym and you're comfortable and not pushing yourself, you're never really gonna see true growth.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Thanks for listening to It's Supposed to Be Heavy with Jeremiah Blount. Train hard, recover well, stay capable, and remember aging is mandatory. Weakness is optional. See you next time.