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Comment by nonninz | Hacker News Reader

One of my hangups to start strength training at the ripe age of 41, is that I'm terrified of hurting myself.

Apparently to do "proper" strength training you need to focus on the free weights, or compound lifts, rather than gym machines that guide your movements. I.E. squats, deadlifts, bench presses, etc.

The problem is that these are EXACTLY the type of exercises that an untrained, anterior pelvic tilted computer long-time dweller will do wrongly as they don't have the right flexibility or skills or knowledge about how to do them right.

I remember how close I was to messing up my back permanently with deadlifts, and that was in my 20s. Thinking about going to the gym and starting doing them again unsupervised at my age is, to me, madness.

I really wish if someone could give me some advice in this matter...

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The age old advice that bad form will wreck your body is false. Now, yes, extremely bad form when lifting heavy weights may cause injury. But when starting out and learning the movements, the weight should be light. Usually it's not the technique that causes injury but other things like increasing volume too quickly from what you're used to, life stressors, lack of sleep etc.

It's very rare to start doing a set of squats for example and all of a sudden have a catastrophic back tweak because of your bad form. Lifting is safer than most sports!

Check out this article on barbell medicine about pain and their other stuff too:

https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/pain-in-training-what-d...

As a beginner, you are too weak to move weights that can really hurt you. 41 also isn't really old for lifting. People still set world records at that age.

Strength sports are statistically among the safest. They are significantly safer than team sports or even cycling.

If you ease into it, progress slowly, make sure pain does not go above 5/10, you are unlikely to injure yourself. In fact, you will likely prevent future injury. You're not going to injure your back lifting your nephew when you are deadlifting over 100 kg.

If you check out barbell medicine, Alan Thrall, or Dr. Mike Israetel on YouTube, you will find simple form tutorials.

Finally, of course you can get stronger using machines. Compound movements may be the most efficient ones but as long as your muscles are generating force close to their maximum capability, they will get a training impulse.

I started strength training this year (I’m 40). I started StrongLifts 5x5 on Jan 1 and have been consistent with the 3x per week. You start with just an empty bar to focus on form, and build up, 5lbs per exercise per day until it becomes too much and then you slow the progression. It was perfect for building proper form and then building strength. Haven’t been injured yet and I’d recommend it easily to anyone our age who is a beginner. The website is extremely informative and there are lots of YouTube videos to supplement for form cues.

There are plenty of ways to injure yourself on machines.

There are some specific dangers to free weights that aren't there with machines, e.g. if you are bench pressing outside a rack and you drop the weight on your throat, that's not the sort of thing that can happen with a machine, but... just bench press inside a rack if you don't have a spotter.

Either way, I'd recommend you get a trainer. Find a gym focusing on free weights. There's Starting Strength and affiliated gyms all over the country, there's barbell focused gyms everywhere, etc. At the very least when starting out, having someone that can help you get into proper form is really beneficial. You don't need to keep them long term, but they can be invaluable starting out.

There's also lots of places where you can record yourself working out and post a video and get feedback. You're not going to sever your spinal column squatting the bar or deadlifting with a pair of 10lb plates even if your form is garbage, so you can start light and have people help you get your form fixed.

I started at 43.

Start light, take a class (or get a trainer if you're rich) to correct your form issues. I went to a class, and the coach literally had me doing dead-lifts on a broom-handle while others were stacking the 100# plates on the sides of their bars. Everybody was super encouraging too.

You can hurt yourself on hack squat and leg press machines just like you can with a barbell

Get a trainer.

THIS.

You can also check out "The Barbell Prescription" by Andy Baker. This book is like Starting Strength but for the 45+ demographic. (Interestingly, Starting Strength can be used for this demographic also.)

There have been documented instances of older folks reversing degenerative conditions after picking up strength training. You're also never old enough to get stronger!

That said, finding a trainer that knows what they are doing is the fastest way to progress. I'm biased towards the Starting Strength community as these trainers undergo an intensive program before they are certified to be an SS coach (on top of their past intensive training), but there are many other qualified trainers out there.

And by Jonathan Sullivan!

Yes! Thank you!

Yeah if you come into strength training with a lot of imbalances you may very well have a bad time. Unless you're particulalry fucked, it doesn't manifest right away. But injury risk does scale with weight lifted - the more weight your move the worse strains if you misgroove because bad leverages/geometry magnify with weight. Bar path being off a couple inches lifting 135 feels very different lifting 495.

On the other hand, nothing like desire to improve numbers to drive one to unfuck their their body.

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