You have more wisdom than you did when you were a young man from all your years of experience—or at least, one hopes, you should—but in some settings, like the gym, you'll need to adjust your behavior even more. You might not realize it, but your body changes when you age. That's why men over 40 should take a slightly different approach to fitness than their younger peers.
You can probably still hang with younger guys—but that doesn’t mean you always should. You’ll be even stronger if you shift your workout plan to an emphasis on careful, calculated programming. The Men's Health Muscle After 40 book gives you that smart, measured plan you need for your workout as an older man.
The 12-week fitness guide doesn't give you handicapped workouts with instructions to play it safe—the plan is designed to bring out the best in you while allowing you to rest and recover within your body's capacity. Muscle After 40 is split into 3 distinct phases, each of which consist of 4 weeks where you'll train 3 times. IF YOU KNOW what works best for you, keep doing it.
That said, if what you do is walk into the weight room and start lifting with no warmup at all, I predict it won’t work for much longer. The older you get, and the more miles you put on the chassis, the trickier it is to get your body ready for a good workout. Your warmup should at least have these two components: THIS PROGRAM REQUIRES basic equipment you’ll find in most commercial gyms.
Don’t worry if your gym doesn’t have everything on the list. It’s easy to substitute similar exercises. OUR GUIDE TO THE BEST HOME GYM EQUIPMENT IN EACH PHASE of this workout plan, you’ll train three times a week for four weeks.
Most will use the classic Monday-Wednesday-Friday or Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday schedule. Remember to include at least one full day of rest between workouts. You’ll do each exercise as straight sets, completing all the sets of one exercise before moving onto the next.
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