If You Don't Do This, Old Age Will Destroy You

Getting older doesn't age you as much as just becoming weak - and a single trip over your living room threshold shouldn't be a death sentence.

In this episode, personal trainer Jermiah Blount explains why progressive overload and traditional barbell strength training act as the ultimate anti-aging drug for adults aged 45 to 85. He breaks down how shifting the focus away from light-weight aesthetics and onto heavy compound movements—like deadlifts and squats—safely reverses age-related muscle loss and dramatically improves bone density. Ultimately, Blount illustrates how stepping into the gym later in life reconstructs a person's physical foundation, transforming day-to-day survival back into vibrant, independent living.

0:00 - Meet the Trainer
0:46 - What Is Strength Training?
2:04 - The Anti-Aging Drug
4:27 - Sitting Still Ages You Faster
7:59 - Why People Avoid the Gym
12:32 - It's Easier Than You Think
21:05 - Why the Barbell?
23:28 - Train with a Coach

"We all know a story of a grandparent or somebody over the age of 65, they fell, they broke a bone and then within a year they pass away from a common cold, unfortunately. And what we can do and what we know is by training and building the muscle around the bone, that it's going to protect it, so that way when they fall, they can get up."

"There's no magical scale on your body that says, 'Hey, you need to do this.' As long as we are progressively overloading even small incremental weights at a time, it could be as low as 2.5 pounds... As long as we are overloading the muscle, you are gonna grow."

"If I only had one movement to do for the rest of my life, it would absolutely be the deadlift, and that's just because it's a full body workout. We want things to be heavy. We wanna stress the body. We wanna push the body. We wanna hit our system in every aspect."

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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 #fitnessover40

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to It's Supposed to Be Heavy with Jeremiah Blount, 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_02 0:16

Hi, I'm Jeremiah Blunt. I'm a personal trainer in Franklin, Tennessee and the creator of Heaviest Method.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

And tell me what you do. Tell me who you work with.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Individuals 45 and up, they range from early 40s all the way up to late 80s. There's no perfect time to start training. You could start training at any age. The biggest thing is consistency and overloading, right? There's no magical scale on your body that says, hey, you need to do this, hey, you need to do that, right? As long as we are progressively overloading, even small incremental weights at a time, it could be as low as 2.5 pounds. There's no reason or need to jump up five pounds. There's no reason to jump up 10 pounds. As long as we're overloading the muscle, you were gonna grow. What is strength training? So strength training is very unique compared to bodybuilding when it's compared to CrossFit or any of these other platforms that people use to improve their health. A strength training is solely focused on getting stronger, right? We help with bone density, we help with muscle growth, right? You're not necessarily looking at building a physique, but improving your life. As we get stronger, our life gets better from day-to-day activities to just changing your mindset about your life. Every time we do this, every time we pick up something heavy, every time we stress ourselves in a positive environment, we start changing our brain chemistry. Once we have changed our brain chemistry for the better, you'll start using that as a reflection in your entire life. With strength training, you're focused more on our compound movements, the movements that have been proven over time to significantly impact your life. We're looking at the bench press, we're looking at the deadlift, we're looking at the overhead press, we're looking at the squat. Using a barbell with heavier weights to improve your overall strength. You're not training for reps of six to 12, you're not training in higher repetitions. What we're doing is overloading the weight on the bar to stimulate and grow the muscle tissue that you are working.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

So today's podcast is about why strength training is the closest thing we have to an anti-aging drug. Why do you think that? Why do you think strength training is this anti-aging drug that nobody talks about?

SPEAKER_02 2:25

It is something different compared to, let's say, bodybuilding, let's say CrossFit. When you strength train, you are specifically training to grow strength. And the way your body develops is going to be a little bit different, right? So you may take a bodybuilder who trains with a lighter weight and does 20 to 30 reps, right? So what they're trying to do is really tear the tissue and grow the muscle, where we do very similar, but what we're trying to do is overload the muscle to get stronger. And as we get stronger, the repercussion is that your muscles will grow, right? And not only that, when you strength train and you use heavy weights, now you're focusing on bone density, right? You're trying to make those bones stronger because your body reacts to stress. And what we're doing is they're stressing the body with these weights to make everything better.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

But conventional wisdom says that as you get older, you should lift lighter or you shouldn't lift at all, that things like deadlifts and squats are dangerous. And why do you think people 45 to 85 or even older should be lifting traditional barbell weights?

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Just like anything else, things change over time. Several years ago, when people were taught to squat and not put your knees past your toes, things along those lines. It's just with culture and science, and the more we learn about our body, things change all the time, right? And at one point in time, it was believed that, hey, maybe they shouldn't. But as we see the issues that we're having with older people with osteoporosis and things like that, because they become sedentary, over time, especially over the age of 40, we start losing muscle mass. Once we reach that certain age, we've lost quite a significant amount of muscle mass. And what we need to do is train so that way we can protect our bones and things along those lines. So that way we don't get injured, we don't get hurt. We all know a story of a grandparent or somebody over the age of 65. They fell, they broke a bone suffering from a major injury, and then within a year, they pass away from a common cold, unfortunately. And what we can do and what we know is by training and building the muscle around the bone that is going to protect it. So that way when they fall, they can get up. That way, if they hit a femur or something along those lines, the chances are reduced of them actually breaking one of those major bones.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

You know, I've heard you say getting older doesn't age you as much as just becoming weak.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

It's not just becoming weak, it's having that sedentary life, right? The human being is designed to move around. We don't need to be sedentary. It happens all the time where you'll have somebody that, especially a grandfather, that was a hard working man. He worked up into his 80s and then he became sedentary, and then within six months, his health starts declining, right? But what if he stopped working and then he continued his strength training? He was still stressing the body, still stressing those bones, still stressing that nervous system to help prolong his life. So that way he just isn't living that sedentary life would be significant and all around.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

So when you see people who are 50, 60, 70, and they've never stepped in a gym ever, they never picked up a barbell, they're scared to lift something heavy. They're not the kind of person that would go to a gym and work out. They didn't learn it when they were younger. And somehow you intersect them and they start lifting weights. What happens to those people? What's the transformation that they go through at a relatively short period of time?

SPEAKER_02 5:42

So they're gonna start noticing little things first. As we get older, obviously it's gonna be harder to put on muscle mass and things along those lines, but consistency is key just like being younger, just like being middle-aged. Same thing with older and starting off slow, right? But what we need to do is narrow down what issues they are having, right? Where is the focus point? Are they having issues walking? Are they having issues in the shower just standing up? Strength training is what they need, and depending on the individual person, what we could focus on is would improve and therefore improve the rest of their lifts. So let's say someone was having issues in the shower and they were shaky and they couldn't stand. Let's start off with something, right? It doesn't necessarily have to be a barbell right in the beginning, but still working with those free weights. Let's do a chair test, let's have them sit up and down several times in a chair, see how winded they get, see how they feel, right? If they can do at least 10 reps, let's go ahead and start with a smaller weight, right? They're adding that overload method to it, right? Like I said, it doesn't have to be big, huge weights in the beginning, but they can build up. I started off with an older gentleman, he was 87 years old. He wasn't deadlifting or anything along those lines, but he was on a health journey. By the end of his journey, he was deadlifting 260 pounds, he was squatting 150 pounds at 87 years old. That's phenomenal, you know, and he had pre-existing health injuries. But the biggest thing is that it improved his life and it gave him purpose back in his life. He was excited. He came to me and he was like, Hey, I took a shower for the first time and didn't have to hold on to anything. Little stories like that give reason for mature individuals to push and start at any given time. He didn't start his journey until he was 70. So that just shows even at 70, you can still jump in and you can still get it. You just need to have proper technique and a trainer to guide you along the way.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, because people wake up when they're in their 50s, even in their 40s, and they can't get up and down off the ground as easy as they once could. Or they go to pick up a grandkid or a baby or a dog and they can't pick the dog up or something simple like picking your groceries up.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

I've trained a lady before, and she came to me as she was talking about being able to pick up paint cans from one side of the garage to the other. We take for granted what we have in our youth. And then when we stop using it, we don't realize what we lost until it's too late, right? So it's never ever too late to jump in. You just have to be smart about it.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

So why is strength training so magical and why don't more people do it? What keeps people from strength training?

SPEAKER_02 8:15

I think strength training, people they don't have a solid understanding about it. Also, when it comes to social media and things along those lines, they see a lot of people that are driven towards a younger crowd. They have people that are very hardcore about it, which some people need that. Everybody needs a different coach, but they don't have an understanding of, hey, you can start at this point. It can be a bar, right? Like I said, there's no magical skill on your muscles that say, hey, this is where you need to be, right? If it's heavy. And for some people, that may only be 25 pounds, right? But that's a starting point, and then we'll continue to grow from there.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Do you think everybody should lift weights?

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Absolutely, everybody should lift weights. We all need to be strong, right? Men, women, children, everybody needs to lift. Depending on the purpose of the lift is what you should focus on. We all develop differently, everybody all has genetic areas of growth. The biggest thing is finding your weakness, focusing on it, and then balancing your body. You never want to be overdeveloped in one area or another, right? As long as we are balanced, as long as we are training hard, lifting heavy, then we're gonna have a better life, right? Children, it's good for them to train for sports and activities and stay inactive. Middle-aged individuals, right in the cusp of where life is getting busy and you're stressed about your family, you're stressed about your work, you're stressed about all these things, go in, lift heavy, get that out of you. Not only are you improving your health, you're improving your mental state because you have an outlet. When we get older, things become a challenge that you never thought of. Going down the steps, sitting down, standing up. As we even elevate the age even more, if you fall, getting up off the ground, that's a challenge in itself. How many stories have we heard of someone falling on the ground and then not being able to get back up? And it's two or three days later, right? So all these things in every different aspect of our life, strength training can be involved and can improve in different areas.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

It seems if you watch social media or listen to stories that the conventional wisdom is when you were 40 or 50 and your health starts to decline. You just are getting older, you age. You feel like I need to get in shape, I need to lose weight. So you go to the gym, you get on a treadmill, you start eating less, and you put yourself in a calorie deficit, and you don't really lose weight, or if you lose weight, it comes right back, and you definitely don't get stronger. What's wrong with that methodology of getting your life back in order?

SPEAKER_02 10:38

The general understanding of getting your life better is broken. We automatically think, hey, I need to cut carbs to lose weight. Hey, I need to drop all this weight super, super quick. Hey, I need to go get a shot, which I'm not saying all of them are bad, but to use it responsibly is what needs to be done. Instead, what people need to focus on is the marathon, right? And what I mean by that is it took you years to get in the state you are. It's gonna take time to get even better. The fastest way isn't always the best way. I know as a human race, we are impatient. I know that we want things right now, but I promise you, being consistent, taking your time, growing those muscles, right? So when we walk, we're walking, we're burning, burning, burning calories, right? But then once we're done, not much is going on in the body. But when we strength train, we can burn calories in some cases up to 24 hours, right? And the bigger the muscle, the more calories you're gonna burn. As simple as that. So being consistent, changing your body composition, all those things are what we need to focus on, not focus so much on the scale.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yeah, and so I think sometimes people will think, and I've heard you say it in our sessions, people will go out and they'll start running around the block and they'll eat less and it stresses their body out. They actually get weaker.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

They do get weaker, they actually don't improve because you're not adding that resistance to the body, right? We're not stressing the body like we should. There's a huge difference in the way we stress our bodies. Everybody's heard of the runner's body before, right? Everybody knows of a bodybuilder's body. I'm not trying to be negative towards either one. If you're trying to improve your health, they're trying to improve your health. But what I am saying, if you can balance or even just focus on strength training with getting your steps, and if you want to do that cardiovascular range for your heart health, and absolutely, right? But you can ask my clients when you're deadlifting and you're deadlifting heavy, your heart rate's getting up there. That heart rate is pumping, right? So, what I would focus more on is train more, get your steps in, and make small changes.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

There's a couple unexpected things when people start strength training with a barbell and a squat rack. You often tell people, like, you don't have to cut what you eat or watch your diet in the beginning. In some ways, it's easier than people think. They feel like they're cheating because they come in and they lift a set of four or five, then they rest for a few minutes, and then they lift another set of four and five, and then they rest. And for a lot of people, they have the experience that strength training is a lot easier than their preconceptions of working out.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

So when it comes to strength training, it is for the most part very simple and easy. What I have my clients do, uh, as you've seen before, is I don't necessarily focus on the diet right off the bat. I want to make it an experience where they can see improvement in themselves and that switch turns in their head. There's a lot of information out in the world about diets and things along those lines and people shoving this in your face when the best way to get somebody to do it is let that switch turn on their own. So when you come in, I can get most people to get stronger in the beginning without necessarily focusing on the diet. Of course, we need hydration, of course, we need our sleep. And as long as you're eating your calories, you're gonna get stronger. Now, there's gonna be a point in your journey, especially when you're training with strength. Where do you want to go? Right? So, do I want to devote it and put more effort into it and start getting good, clean calories, start eating properly, start doing all the tricks that we know of, all the important things, sleep, rest, and recovery? Or is it one of those things of I want to get stronger and then see how we go? Which in my case, most people, I would say the high majority, once they get in there and we track the numbers and we're getting stronger and every week, and then they're doing things they never thought, that switch turns on their own. If I can do this, let's make little changes. And it doesn't have to be big changes in your life. We can do little things. If you like some beer, why don't we switch to some light beer? Right? If you're eating out every day, why don't two days a week we start packing a meal instead of eating out every day? Those little changes slowly add up over time, and then they become big changes. And after six months, you created a habit. So start changing now and doing the little things. You hear it all the time, get more steps, stuff like that. If you can do little change after little change after little change, and in the beginning, all you had to do is come in and lift, then now you've created this whole dynamic of a new life and a new you.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

I think for me, like these are the things that really stood out to me as a when I started my drink, because I was 55 and overweight, all the bad stuff. You're like, look, you don't have to do cardio, don't worry about it. You don't have to really worry about what you eat, even. Just eat enough so that you feel comfortable and come in and do the work. And for a lot of people, that's just I feel like I'm cheating.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

One of the things I tell my clients in the very beginning is don't necessarily worry about cardio. Don't necessarily worry about dieting in the beginning. Just create those small steps. Just show up, right? Show up and lift heavy, right? And as we slowly get stronger, let that switch turn in your brain.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

And so let's talk about some of the points. Why is grip strength important for somebody over 45?

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Grip strength is important for everybody, especially over the age of 45, because you got to look at how often we use our hands. How many times do we want to do things? Well, you don't want to be a 50-year-old man and then have the love of your life you've been married to for 25 years, ask you to open up a jar, and then you got into the point where you can't even open up the jar. How do you feel as a man when you can't do that? Using your hands, trying to reduce the time that we use straps or tools to grow that grip strength impacts a lot of things, right? You never know. You may have to hold on somebody on the side of a cliff. What is grip strength? So there are studies that show that grip strength do correlate with longevity of life. If you've got a good grip strength, it shows you your overall health and that you are healthy. There's many different indicators of that, but having a good grip strength just improves a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Starting strength founder talks about how like strength training and just getting stronger makes you harder to kill. What does he mean by that?

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Being stronger, having that strength, having that muscle does make people harder to kill. We gotta talk about it realistically. I know there's people that would jump on here and say, what about this? What about this? What about this? We're just talking about overall, right? So if we're strong and healthy, the chances of a common cold aren't gonna come in one day and wipe us out, right? If you're strong and healthy and you were in a situation where you had to defend yourself and your family, and all you had is yourself, that strength is gonna come into play. It's just strong people are tougher to kill. Let's look at MMA fighters, let's look at professional athletes. All these people are very strong.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Yeah, but not even MA fighters or professional fighters. A trip over the threshold in your living room.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And that's where we were talking about as we get older, having that muscle mass to protect our bones, and the only way you're gonna get that is from getting stronger.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Yeah. How does strength training help with human movements? And what is a human movement? When people talk about deadlifting and squatting and bench pressing and stuff, those help you with day-to-day human movements. They do.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

So we gotta talk. So human movements are just things that your everyday life, right? Let's say you're picking up a bag of dog food, right? Squatting's gonna help with that. Deadlifting is gonna help with that. If you fall face first and you gotta push from the ground, having a good chest, strong chest and shoulders are gonna help you with that. Sometimes you may trip and have to pull yourself up. So having a good strong back from a deadlift will definitely help you with those things. So just your everyday life, things that may eventually get hard from you, especially from age, or maybe you have injury in your back, depending on the injury and how you focus on it, lower, weaker erectors, things along those lines. But deadlifting could improve that, get you stronger. So those day-to-day movements that normally you would have issues with may not be such an issue anymore.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

And one of the things your clients say a lot, again, people that are 45 and older, is that they notice that their balance improves dramatically. They didn't even know their balance was bad until they noticed that it was good.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

And that's from hitting the right things, growing the body, getting stronger as we get weak. We're vertical people, right? So we can topple over. And if we get weaker and we don't have those muscles to keep us stabilized, then we're gonna topple over. So growing a good foundation is key. You don't want to buy a house with a bad foundation because what's gonna happen? It's gonna collapse. So building that foundation, especially focused on the lower posterior chain, is absolutely something we want to focus on.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Just some pucking points. Sarcopenia starts a lot earlier than most people think, as early as age 30, even for some people. Yes. It's a sneaky devil, like muscle loss and older. What do you think about that and why is strength training so important to combat that?

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Oh, well, adding that resistance, putting that body under stress, absolutely. But you have to look at it when you get into something more specific like that, you have to look at overall everything. When you're dealing with that, your nutrition is going to come into play, sleep's gonna come into play, hydration is gonna come into play, not only strength training, but adding heavier resistance training to stimulate and to grow that muscle is definitely something that we want to incorporate when we deal with a client like that.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

What what is lifting with a barbell and doing compound movements do for metabolism? Because when you're not talking about building bodybuilders, you're not gonna be like super ripped in muscle, more like a farmer strong strength, you're just naturally strong person, which is a healthier person. But how does that affect your metabolism? What happens in your body when you start to have more muscle mass and less fat?

SPEAKER_02 19:51

So when you have more muscle, your body's gonna burn more calories. And being active and being mobile and all these things, and using a barbell to really push yourself, you're going to stimulate that muscle, and muscles get hungry just like anything else, right? So they're gonna want to eat. And when you stimulate it and you can use that movement to grow and stimulate your muscles, then it's automatically gonna increase your metabolism.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Like I've noticed a lot of your people, if they have diabetes, they get rid of diabetes, they have more energy. What do you see? Muscle just changes the way your body deals with sugar.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Body composition changes, right? So that's what we focus on in body composition. We're not tracking by scales, we're not necessarily focused on any little thing, but changing and growing and stimulating and all those aspects, just moving more. And that goes back to what we were talking about before the little changes, right? In the beginning, I didn't tell you needed a diet, but as you went along in your journey, you're like, Wow, I'm doing this. Now, what if I change this? What if I do this? What if I do this, right? Little changes all add up. But if I got you in the door and got you started, and you can see, oh hey, I started and now I'm here. Now, what's gonna happen if I change this? If I change this, if I change this, if I change this, and now you're at a point where you're like, hey, I'm not diabetic anymore, I'm not this, I'm not that. And it's because starting off strength training and just getting your foot in the door, just taking that first step and then seeing results with the hardest thing is just picking up the weight, yeah, then that's gonna change that mindset all around.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

And I want you to preach to me a little bit about why you're an advocate of the barbell and why people who go to gyms and just work out on machines or isolate things, why is that often a mistake? Like why should somebody do the work to do traditional strength training with a barbell?

SPEAKER_02 21:34

If you want to be a bodybuilder, then free weights are the way to go. When you're building strength and being able to overload the muscle, you're not gonna overload the muscle the same way. I'm a huge advocate of the barbell, especially when it comes to your basic compound movements. Not only that, you're looking at safety as well, especially with an older client. When they're not having to think about this and that, and you get them down for a bench press or you get them set up for a squat, even a box squat, we're using A barbell, right? They're gonna feel comfortable because they don't have all these things going on, and you're taking all the little things out. What is this arm doing? What is this arm doing? What is this? What is this? What is this? What we're doing is we're putting them in in a compound movement like the squat, putting the bar on their back or using a safety bar, but it's still a barbell, and having them focus on what they need to focus on, right? Take all the little elements out, and that way they can push away the world and drive up and focus on that versus all right, I'm gonna do a curl here, I'm gonna do a curl here. And even then, people get really comfortable in machines. A majority of them. When you do a machine and do a machine, do a machine. There's been scientific studies that show that working with a barbell has overall increased people's muscle mass versus using a machine.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

And also, I think you, and you've explained this to me in our sessions, doing a compound movement like a squat, even if it's lower weight with a squat and or a deadlift, like there's balance and you're using all the muscles in your body. You're working your whole body, not just a part of your body.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Yeah, so when it comes to the deadlift, to me personally, is probably one of the most perfect movements. If I only had one movement to do for the rest of my life, it would absolutely be the deadlift. And that's just because it's a full body workout, right? You're hitting everything, especially with proper form. You're pulling from the ground, you're activating your lower chain, you're standing up. Once you're in the upper part, your your traps and everything, just your whole body is activated. And to take a movement like that and then being able to pull the weight like you do, not only are you adding resistance now, it's heavy. And that's what we want to do. We want things to be heavy. We want to stress the body, we want to push the body, but we want to hit our system in every aspect. And when you work with a barbell, especially with a deadlift, that is absolutely, in my opinion, one of the best movements you can do.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Talk to me a little bit about supervised lifting and why working with a strength coach if they're over 45 is so important.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

And why they're technical lifts, and also there's several different things, right? So we have ego lifting, right? I talk about lifting heavy, but I'm not talking about ego lifting. We don't want to ego lift, we want to lift heavy with proper and correct form. And when you have a supervised trainer, he's there to make sure that you're not gonna do those things, right? If you have a good quality trainer, he's gonna step in and be like, hey, this is what we need to do. You need to correct this, you need to correct this. Because just like anything, you can get hurt in the gym just like anywhere else. But if you have a proper trainer and he knows the technique and he knows what he's doing and keeping you in line, you're gonna grow, you're gonna be safe, and you're gonna lift heavy. The biggest thing a trainer should be is focused on safety, right? Once he focuses on safety, especially when you're over 45, and then incorporates the heavy lifting, you're gonna be lifting the rest of your life. The biggest thing is you try to go in and do it yourself, and then you have a really bad lift and end up really hurting yourself, and then you lose six, seven months of gains, pretty much. In that case, if you want to train, you want to lift heavy, you want to be in a safe environment, right? If you want to really be able to push yourself and then also have that accountability of a trainer, then reach out. We can book you an appointment, we can get you set up, we'll train with you and get you to the point where you feel comfortable and where you need to be.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

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.