Top 5 Workout Tips for Men and Women Over 30 to See Results

There’s no secret about it that things about health and fitness get a lot more challenging as you’re getting older, especially when it comes to building more muscle mass. While you may not necessarily want to get as huge and buff as a bodybuilder, it’s common to see the over 30 crowd aiming at growing the chest, arms, legs, glutes, etc., but they’re often shocked by the new challenges never encountered before.

Shedding fat after 30

In the Matthew Perry/Zac Efron movie, 17 Again, my favorite part was when Perry’s character, Mike O’Donnell, first transforms into Zac Efron, in which Efron is in basketball practice and amaz ed with how in shape everyone is when they’re young and how easy it is to gain weight after turning 30. Of course, when 17-year old Mike is speaking from the perspective of someone who already knows what challenges lie ahead in what’s to come 13 years from now, the surrounding teenagers have no clue about what he’s talking about.

As you enter your 30s and then your 40s, you encounter new challenges that make working out and seeing results more difficult, such as building more muscle. Being an older person, you need to be more conscientious about things like your protein intake, caloric needs, time management, supplementation, and recovery to make real progress. Just glossing over this list is the easy part, but today, we’re going to talk about how you can properly insert solutions to these issues into your lifestyle.

Protein Intake

Whether you’re over 30 and wanting to grow muscle or lose weight, how much protein you consume is going to play a big role in your pursuit of reaching such goals. Protein is important when it comes to building and maintaining muscle mass, and while the general recommendation of consuming 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of one’s weight (for example, someone who weighs 220 lbs, when converted to kilograms, they weigh 100 kg and should consume 80 g protein a day), however, research suggests growing muscle requires more than that.

How much protein does someone over 30 need to consume when they want to build up some muscle mass? Recent research indicates about 1 gram per pound of their lean mass per day as an effective amount. If you don’t have the ability to measure your body fat (by the way, those weight scales that measure body fat can be very inaccurate), in this case, about 0.8 grams per pound will suffice. If you’re wondering if you should still consume that much protein on your rest days, the answer is yes.

Caloric Needs

When a person over 30 wants to gain some muscle, this calls for a caloric surplus, meaning you’ll be consuming more calories than your body burns in a given day. This can get a little tricky because it requires that person to be smart about how many more calories they’re eating and the kind of training that will result in gaining muscle, instead of gaining body fat. If you’re already eating healthy, the increased amount of protein will suffice for the caloric surplus, but if you’re not sure, you may want to calculate your basal metabolic rate and adjust the macronutrient consumption (fats, carbohydrates, protein, and alcohol). A sensible surplus of 100-300 calories will help with building that muscle and limit gaining body fat.

Knowing that a caloric surplus helps a person over 30 build more muscle mass, it also helps to have a good idea on how many calories you’re consuming, which is why I suggest maintaining a food log for at least 3 days. If you find that using complicated formulas to estimate your basal metabolic rate and adjusting it to include your activity level, food diary apps like FatSecret and MyFitnessPal do the work for you when you’re creating your profile. These apps make it easy to get a good idea of your caloric consumption; although they require you to estimate the amount of each food you’re eating, which can get tedious, but this will be very valuable because it gives you a good idea about what 4, 5, or 6 ounces of chicken looks like.

Supplementation

What role should supplements play in a 30-something’s journey to gaining muscle? First, you need to acknowledge that they’re called “supplements” for a reason, and not “replacements”. Getting the necessary increased protein from food can be overwhelming for most, especially those that don’t have much of an appetite for eating 10+ ounces of beef or chicken in a meal, much less multiple meals a day. In this case, protein powders are an excellent way to close the gap between your target protein intake and the amount of protein you’ve acquired from food.

The most common mistake 30+ year old’s make when they’re taking supplements for their fitness goals is thinking that they can cover up for a bad diet. First off, it’s going to be way more expensive than necessary if you think that forgoing a healthy diet and relying on a plethora of supplements to meet your nutrition needs, instead of just eating produce and quality meats. You have to remember that a lot of the whole foods that are part of a balanced diet offers a wide variety of nutrients, macronutrients, and fiber, so you’re able to save yourself the headache of getting a bunch of supplement pills and powders to make up for what most junk foods are missing.

Slower Recovery

On an episode of Lebron James’s HBO series, “The Shop: Uninterrupted”, Lebron mentioned that in his first couple of years in the NBA, he had no problem playing games on back-to-back days since he was only 18 when he was drafted, but now that he’s 40, just putting his shoes on the day after a game is a struggle. When you enter your 30s, you finally start to understand what your parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. meant when they talked about soreness because you’re finally feeling it for yourself. Soreness is normal and a clear message that you need to be more conservative about your next workout, in other words, listen to your body.

Is there anything that can be done to speed up recovery? While things like drinking cherry juice has been shown to reduce soreness, the absolute best thing you can do to recover is something you’ve been doing since you were a baby — sleep. This is the time where your muscles have the best opportunity to repair themselves after a challenging workout, and when you’re eating a healthy diet, all of those important nutrients, particularly protein, are given the chance to repair these muscles.

Time Constraints

As a 30-something year old, your life is likely far different from what it was just a couple years ago. Things like kids and promotions at work means that you don’t have nearly as much time as before, which makes the fitness process so challenging. One of the most effective ways to get around this is to find at least one hour, three times a week, and reserve it as your training time — don’t forget to add it to your calendar and treat it like an important meeting or appointment.

Getting home after work and sitting on the couch to watch your favorite Netflix series is fine, but if you’re spending hours to watch TV and skipping your workouts because it’s late, you know what to do — if you can’t catch my drift, I mean that you need to reduce your TV time. The great thing about modern technology is that you can still watch your favorite shows on your phone when working out; in fact, just this week I finished up the “American Primeval” series on Netflix while doing my cardio on the Echo Bike and rowing machine.

Conclusion

Now that you’re finally over 30, life has likely become more complicated for you and your body has changed, as well. When you prioritize good nutrition and work out with exercises that are specific to reaching your goals and appropriate for your fitness level, as well has getting a good handle on maintaining a balanced diet and utilize good time management, you will find that reaching your fitness goal is a real possibility.

Coach Julio is an expert in fitness and nutrition, having helped hundreds of busy office professionals and parents in their 30s, 40s, and 50s be their healthiest with personalized training plans and nutritionist counseling services. He works out of El Paso, Texas, but also offers remote nutritionist counseling and online personal training. Coach Julio’s expertise is backed by over nine years as a personal trainer and a Master’s degree in Nutrition. For information about working with Coach Julio for online personal training and nutritionist services, visit https://www.365physique.com