In part one of this article, we discussed the concepts of prehabilitation and equipment use strategies. Both tools allow for masters athletes to maintain their training, competitiveness, and minimize risk. In this second part, we’ll present specific training and programming strategies to provide an age-considerate yet competitive weightlifting and powerlifting experience.
 
Training
 
A major concern when designing resistance exercises for masters athletes preparing for meets is to ensure that lifts, loads, and training schedules are safe. Both USA Weightlifting and the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) agree on the importance of progressive overload, with a systematic increase of training intensity over time based on the individual’s capacity and ability. While it is traditionally thought that strength and muscle loss are unpreventable with aging, the research shows that resistance training can combat strength loss, sarcopenia and frailty. Appropriate training can counteract age-related changes in contractile function, atrophy and morphology of aging skeletal muscle, enhancing muscular strength, power, and neuromuscular function. Understanding this has powerful implications in progressive overload for both gains and strength retention.
 
An important point in age-related decline is seen in the posted totals for both powerlifting and Olympic lifting. For some athletes in older classes, the totals needed for successful competition are in some cases manageable weights earlier in the athlete’s career. This decrease in lifting totals over time puts a premium on retraining strength over time as an important masters competitor consideration if the long-term goal is to place in elite masters competitions. This is not to imply that a lifter preparing for competition should keep loads constant, but to assert that training with safe loads and paying attention to signs of overtraining may prove as effective a strategy for some masters competitors as attempting to push load increase every training session. This is a balancing of both training loads and goals to ensure that safe lifting occurs on a regular basis. Further, when building strength, some exercises are safer than others. For the current article, the goals of periodized program include increased strength, reduced lost training days due to injury, improved technique, successful meet performances, improved health and design of a program that fits the time constraints of the athlete.
 
An important concept is to reconcile recommendations for training older adults with the needs of a competitive masters athlete. The recommendation for older, non-competitive athletes is two to three sets of one to two multi-joint exercises per muscle group, two to three times a week; lifts should be done at 70-85% one-rep-max, with power exercises at 40-60%, and no movements performed until failure. Ninety seconds to three minutes is also the recommended rest and recovery time between sets for older clients. With respect to the older competitive athlete, the recommendations vary from the rep schemes designed for those looking to address physical health-related goals. Further, there are some experienced masters athletes who can, with some modifications, tolerate and benefit from more intense programs designed for younger weightlifting competitors.
 
Reconciling the age-related concerns for progressive overload for health-related benefits and training aimed at reaching personal bests varies depending on the type of weightlifting competition the masters athlete is targeting. With respect to Olympic lifting, the movements related to the snatch and clean and jerk are faster and prone to injury if not done correctly, but with a goal to maintain correct form, loads are lighter to facilitate speed and therefore easier to tolerate from a muscle recovery standpoint. Powerlifting, on the other hand, requires training with heavier loads that tax all aspects of the structural components of the body. Specificity of training principles are important for masters athletes, but not at the expense of athlete safety.
 
In the context of powerlifting and weightlifting, there should be specificity of training principles applied, however, with an emphasis on supporting lifts. Supporting lifts refer to the use of modified lifts to allow for training effects without overtraining the core lifts such as the full squat, bench, or deadlift. For successful squatting at a competition, athletes need to strengthen hip muscles, quadriceps, lower back, hamstrings and other postural/core muscle groups. While supplemental leg strengthening is important for both powerlifting and Olympic lifting, there is an age-related concern towards carrying heavy loads in lifts such as the back squat and deadlift. These lifts can exacerbate pre-existing spine issues based on the allowed overloading of the disks that can be alleviated by using other supportive lifts such as squat variations. For those reasons, the use of bands and chains can be used in a supportive fashion to help lifters execute lifts with the heaviest load occurring at the top of the squat. The use of bands as increased load is typically done to improve muscle recruitment, but for the masters lifter, this can also be a strategy to increase resistance and decrease injury risk. Other examples of supporting lifts include the use of kettlebells for improving strength in the muscles needed for deadlifts, dumbbell presses, and in the case of Olympic lifting, the use of blocks to isolate the finish of the clean or snatch using lighter loads. In weightlifting, this allows for requisite strength to be built without the risk and impact of ballistic (and highly technical) movements. In powerlifting, supplemental work fills in the stabilizing and supportive gaps in strength that are needed for completing the three main lifts, but by using a safer exercise.
 
Any ballistic exercise should be closed-chain for injury prevention. Following a 40-60 percent guideline for power and higher skill movements, which is lower than guidelines for younger athletes, such movements should be performed in three or fewer repetitions While this has a technical degradation rationale, training of sport-specific weightlifting movements should mimic the energy systems of competition; in weightlifting, training to build maximum strength with supporting lifts, such as front squat, and training technique and bioenergetics with lower weight clean and jerks. Following this model, on competition day, the strength from the supporting movements, guided by the gained technique, will allow masters athletes to push towards new personal bests, while reducing injury risks in training. As technical requirements imply lower reps, necessary volume can be compensated for with numerous sets with large rest periods in between. Rest periods of four to five minutes are not uncommon in meets, so preparation in competition can include these longer periods of rest. Further, with longer rest, a routine of more sets and lower reps such as five sets of three is believed effective. This provides more opportunity to have the masters athlete monitor their joint stress and soreness between sets, as well as prevents risk of failure-induced high blood pressure issues. However, it should be noted as the number of lifters in a meet lowers, those rest times can drop to two to three minutes.
 
From a periodization standpoint, the recommendations for non-competitive older clients nearly align with the needs of the masters athlete. Reconciling the non-competitive considerations with those of athletes, following a twelve-week macro-cycle supercompensation model, with three mesocycles (See sample weightlifting program below), a masters athlete would build in volume and weight from week one to week two, drop in weight and volume in week three, finally keeping the volume low but weight high in week four. Doing so keep the volume lower, the programming individualized, but still allows for competitive outputs. (Download PDF to view Table 1)
 
Summary and Recommendations for Practitioners
 
Coaching competitive weightlifters or powerlifters over fifty has unique considerations to keep athletes training effectively and safely. To summarize the perspective found in both parts of this article, there are six key recommendations for both trainers and the masters athlete that we encourage.

1. Be sure to take into account how the lifter feels on any given day. It is important to adjust workouts on a daily basis to accommodate excessive soreness from previous sessions, fatigue from work done outside of the training sessions, and/or any other factors that might vary from day to day and be a rationale to “go lighter on that day.”
2. Adapted equipment and lifts are very useful and recommended for large portions of the training aimed at increasing strength. This refers to the use of both modified equipment that serves to create variety in the workouts but also to ensure safety for the masters lifter.
3. Find the system that is holding the lifter back from successful meet participation. In dynamic systems models, this is referred to as a rate limiter. For the competition of Olympic lifts, flexibility in the hips and shoulders are needed to get in a proper catch position and be more efficient in the lift. Further, for powerlifters, shoulder stability may impact success on the bench, or in Olympic lifting, success in the jerk. 
4. Masters athletes should avoid cutting weight for meets. This cycle of meet preparation has long term consequences due to reduced nutritional intake and can result in failure if the athlete is not able to balance weight loss with opening attempts. 
5. Goal setting engaged is a critical first step to creating a positive relationship between the strength and conditioning specialist and the athlete. Agreement on realistic goals that meet an athlete’s needs is an ongoing dialogue to ensure that the athlete is provided a program that is both safe and successful in preparation for meets.
6. Consider any potential past medical issues common in individuals over 50 that may impact on the ability to tolerate heavy lifting loads. For example, surgeries for prostate, uterus, and colon cancers require major abdominal surgery that leaves a lifter prone to hernia.