I do think you program is great I just have had to cut the workout to a shorter period of time with as much intensity as possible to make best of my little free time that I have. I love the workouts and have made the workout and cardio part of my life that last 6 months. I have dropped 25 pounds and am starting to look tight and feel great.

Thanks for the help and thanks for the response back on my earlier comments which I meant no wrong just what I honestly felt.

Otis,

I suggest you start talking to Jon Benson: http://jonbenson.com/ and purchase his book “Fit Over 40″. I would say he is right up your alley!

I am going to be 40 in January myself and have been working out on and off since I was 12 years old so I have seen and heard it all. Vince and Jon know what they are talking about and you should respect their advice, but ALL of their advice.

Simply: go intense or go home and lay on the couch! You can’t workout hard and long at the same time, impossible! Try doing a 3 set compound exercise at 80% of your 1-Rep Max with only a 30 second rest, yeah, that is INTENSE! Now, try doing your full max with a partner pushing you past failure on just a couple of exercises. The first one is volume and the last one is essentially strength training as stated above.

What I do is that if I feel good I do a heavy lift day and do partials at the top 6 inches of the lift since I have no partner. These partials allow you to go past failure. If you do your biceps for example you can take the concentration curl at the top portion of the curl and use the other arm to help. For barbell curls, just stop at the chest level and come back up. Use as much weight as you can handle without cheating too much or moving your body too much. I like doing preacher curls with dumbbells and the EZ-Bar (the bar with the bends in it) so I can really isolate the biceps.

On every set go past failure! Act as every set is your last after the warm-up sets and keep the warm-up sets to a minimum. The reason, to get the workout done fast and efficiently as to elevate your natural growth hormone levels. Once you do these intense workouts consistently going up in weight and varying the lifts to keep your body adapting, you WILL SEE RESULTS, trust me.

I just herniated a lower disc this in the middle of August this year and went from 210lbs to 191lbs (I’m 5’10″) and now I am back up to 200lbs, lowered my body fat and almost back to my full strength. I am also seeing my muscles grow again and I was flat on my back for 3 straight weeks! The doctor said I would ever lift heavy again! I slowly have been gaining my strength back but I am also aware of my posture, flexibility and lifting form. To be honest, I am doing better now than before.

I am not going to sugar coat it, it is hard work and if you do not put 100% into it, you will not get the 100% benefits it brings. Of course, this applies to everything you do in life, but muscles are stubborn and adaptive so you have to hit it hard, then feed and rest them for them to grow efficiently.

Okay, that one was long…train hard but train smart.

Sean

All muscle gaining/fat loss programs are a business. They tell you what you want to hear and try to get you to buy their product. Vince’s programs may work, but not as much as you would like. Every person is different. Your body reacts in differently than everyone elses. AND age definitely does have an impact on how fast you can put on lean muscle tissue. As you get older, your body requires more time for recovery, which means less time to stimulate your muscles. Your muscle building hormonal levels also decrease. This prevents older people from developing muscle mass. However, everyone can get stronger and put on muscle (even at the age of 100). So for you Otis, I’d recommend that you stop thinking about putting on muscle and think about overal wellness. You are not a body builder and who is to say that body building is health (which it is not). Body builders do a lot of stupid exercises in the gym to get BIG. Yet, they don’t understand what they are doing to their joints as they perform these intense exercise motions. No wonder why many people fail in body building, they end up getting hurt. If I were you, I’d focus on building strength at a pace you can handle, perform reps at a slow pace to eliminate inertia and have less wear and tear on your joints. Also, exercise also has many benefits outside of muscle building. Think about how much more healthy you are compared to a person who doesn’t do any strength or cardio training.

Muscle is a product of strength training, but it’s not the only product!