43-year-old guy, 6'6", pectus excavatum, cancer survivor, artificial hips, one year progress. Here are side-by-side before and after pics. I'm not totally confident enough to throw my full pic out on the internet, so since I've been told tons of times that I look like Jason Segel you get his smiling mug in place of mine. As you can see in the "before" pic, while I wasn't in stereotype-40-year-old fat and sloppy, I had zero muscle tone whatsoever. Scrawny and my torso is basically a straight up-and-down line. The after pic shown is from today. I'd spent May trying to eat as much as humanly possible (I'm very bad at this) so my BF% is slightly higher than I'd like it to be.
Stories time! I bought Powerblocks about 8 years ago and every few months I'd do some halfassed "routines" with them for a week or two and then forget about them. I have pectus excavatum so it's always been easy for me to use the "bad genetics" excuse as a reason for not trying to get fit. Instead I was just happy to eat sensibly and not be fat. After I found /r/fitness (pre-default) my halfassed working out became more frequent and, well, sensible. I bought Starting Strength and read it, and while I was using the dumbbells more often I wasn't really getting anywhere.
Then last April my wife and I booked a cruise to Hawaii. Everyone needs a kick in the ass and the idea of my weak, hollow-chested self in Hawaii kicked my ass. From April 30 until early September, 3-4 times a week without fail, I did my weird dumbbell version of SS. My Jefit shows that I started benching with 35 pound dumbbells, as an example. I couldn't do a single pull-up. I basically did the same thing every workout: "deadlift" with dumbbells, one-arm rows, bench, OHP, curls, and whatever I could manage on my doorway pull-up bar (at the start IIRC it was like 3 negatives, rest, 2 negatives, rest, fail -- granted I'm over 200# but this was demoralizing).
I also did bodyweight squats, but only bodyweight. As mentioned above I had cancer back in the late 90s. The chemo saved my life but caused avascular necrosis in my hips -- my hip joints lost their blood supply, died, and started to crumble, which does in fact hurt. Got them replaced but the doctor screwed up both replacements, one to such a degree that I got it re-replaced (by a different surgeon). As a result my hip flexors are a bit messed up (psoas on one side is a mess of scar tissue, iliacus on the other impinges into the hip sometimes). I'd given up on this for years and just accepted that I'd be weak and in pain forever, but started doing some stretching and mobility exercises a few years ago when my wife went to school to become a Registered Massage Therapist, and these helped so much that I'm never in pain from my hips anymore, but my legs and hip flexors are still totally weak from over a decade of mis- and disuse. I've managed to get up a 1RM 135 on squats just this month.
We went to Hawaii and, looking back, I was in Hawaii as a less-skinnyfat hollow chested me, but I'd moved up to benching sets of 60 pound dumbbells along with other strength improvements including actually being able to do a pull-up, so I was damn brimming with confidence. I looked way better, my shirts fit a little better, and I felt way better.
We got home and after talking with my wife to make sure that putting a 3x3' metal contraption in our games room was cool, I pulled the trigger and bought a power cage, barbell, and plates, all after research and questions to /r/homegym. I switched to SL 5x5 at this point mostly for the ease of tracking using the Stronglifts app. I stuck to the program closely and didn't add much in the way of accessories -- I even dropped curls altogether (!) I stayed with Stronglifts from late September until late April, though I dropped the use of the Stronglifts app and when back to Jefit for the improved tracking and ability to track accessories when I wanted to add them. I moved from SL because I'd hit a wall on both bench and OHP and wanted to improve them.
I took up 5/3/1 in late April, adding in 5/3/1 Pendlay rows to the Squat day since my squats still aren't very high-weight or taxing. I've added accessories appropriate to each day (e.g. on bench day I do flys, incline DB bench, and DB shoulder press). I've added curls because, I admit it, I want to bro up my arms a bit, and I feel shame for this. I've also added ab work to DL and and squat days because I've hardly done any straight ab work at all, though my wife says my obliques are way bigger and more solid, and I'll take her word for it as she's the muscle expert. My first cycle of 5/3/1 increased my OHP, DL, bench, and squat 1RMs, and the OHP and bench hadn't increased in ages. I don't know what's up with 5/3/1 but it seems to work. I'm sticking through this program through at least the end of the year.
I'd love any feedback or questions. Hoping I convince at least one 40+ dude to give the lifting a shot. I've got literally nothing genetic or medical going my way and I still managed to gain 15+ pounds of muscle in a year.
Stats all in pounds:
Weight: 200ish -> 215 -- my waist size also went from 34-36 to 32-33. I reckon I've put on 15-20 pounds of muscle in the 13 months.
Bench: 35 DB x 5 -> 215 1RM
DL: 45 DB x 5 -> 275 1RM
OHP: 20 DB x 5 -> 125 1RM
Stories time! I bought Powerblocks about 8 years ago and every few months I'd do some halfassed "routines" with them for a week or two and then forget about them. I have pectus excavatum so it's always been easy for me to use the "bad genetics" excuse as a reason for not trying to get fit. Instead I was just happy to eat sensibly and not be fat. After I found /r/fitness (pre-default) my halfassed working out became more frequent and, well, sensible. I bought Starting Strength and read it, and while I was using the dumbbells more often I wasn't really getting anywhere.
Then last April my wife and I booked a cruise to Hawaii. Everyone needs a kick in the ass and the idea of my weak, hollow-chested self in Hawaii kicked my ass. From April 30 until early September, 3-4 times a week without fail, I did my weird dumbbell version of SS. My Jefit shows that I started benching with 35 pound dumbbells, as an example. I couldn't do a single pull-up. I basically did the same thing every workout: "deadlift" with dumbbells, one-arm rows, bench, OHP, curls, and whatever I could manage on my doorway pull-up bar (at the start IIRC it was like 3 negatives, rest, 2 negatives, rest, fail -- granted I'm over 200# but this was demoralizing).
I also did bodyweight squats, but only bodyweight. As mentioned above I had cancer back in the late 90s. The chemo saved my life but caused avascular necrosis in my hips -- my hip joints lost their blood supply, died, and started to crumble, which does in fact hurt. Got them replaced but the doctor screwed up both replacements, one to such a degree that I got it re-replaced (by a different surgeon). As a result my hip flexors are a bit messed up (psoas on one side is a mess of scar tissue, iliacus on the other impinges into the hip sometimes). I'd given up on this for years and just accepted that I'd be weak and in pain forever, but started doing some stretching and mobility exercises a few years ago when my wife went to school to become a Registered Massage Therapist, and these helped so much that I'm never in pain from my hips anymore, but my legs and hip flexors are still totally weak from over a decade of mis- and disuse. I've managed to get up a 1RM 135 on squats just this month.
We went to Hawaii and, looking back, I was in Hawaii as a less-skinnyfat hollow chested me, but I'd moved up to benching sets of 60 pound dumbbells along with other strength improvements including actually being able to do a pull-up, so I was damn brimming with confidence. I looked way better, my shirts fit a little better, and I felt way better.
We got home and after talking with my wife to make sure that putting a 3x3' metal contraption in our games room was cool, I pulled the trigger and bought a power cage, barbell, and plates, all after research and questions to /r/homegym. I switched to SL 5x5 at this point mostly for the ease of tracking using the Stronglifts app. I stuck to the program closely and didn't add much in the way of accessories -- I even dropped curls altogether (!) I stayed with Stronglifts from late September until late April, though I dropped the use of the Stronglifts app and when back to Jefit for the improved tracking and ability to track accessories when I wanted to add them. I moved from SL because I'd hit a wall on both bench and OHP and wanted to improve them.
I took up 5/3/1 in late April, adding in 5/3/1 Pendlay rows to the Squat day since my squats still aren't very high-weight or taxing. I've added accessories appropriate to each day (e.g. on bench day I do flys, incline DB bench, and DB shoulder press). I've added curls because, I admit it, I want to bro up my arms a bit, and I feel shame for this. I've also added ab work to DL and and squat days because I've hardly done any straight ab work at all, though my wife says my obliques are way bigger and more solid, and I'll take her word for it as she's the muscle expert. My first cycle of 5/3/1 increased my OHP, DL, bench, and squat 1RMs, and the OHP and bench hadn't increased in ages. I don't know what's up with 5/3/1 but it seems to work. I'm sticking through this program through at least the end of the year.
I'd love any feedback or questions. Hoping I convince at least one 40+ dude to give the lifting a shot. I've got literally nothing genetic or medical going my way and I still managed to gain 15+ pounds of muscle in a year.
Stats all in pounds:
Weight: 200ish -> 215 -- my waist size also went from 34-36 to 32-33. I reckon I've put on 15-20 pounds of muscle in the 13 months.
Bench: 35 DB x 5 -> 215 1RM
DL: 45 DB x 5 -> 275 1RM
OHP: 20 DB x 5 -> 125 1RM
Problem is, most gyms tend not to have heavy dumbbells (one local one only has the heaviest ones as 30kg!).