Benefits of Heavy Resistance Training for Geriatrics and Rehabilitation

Dr. Dustin Jones // #GeriOnICE // www.ptonice.com 

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, join Modern Management of the Older Adult division leader Dustin Jones as he compares & contrasts the different roles of heavy & light lifting in the scope of geriatric rehabilitation.

Take a listen to learn how to better serve this population of patients & athletes, or check out the full show notes on our blog at www.ptonice.com/blog.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

DUSTIN JONESWelcome to the PT on ICE Daily Show brought to you by the Institute of Clinical Excellence. My name is Dr. Dustin Jones with the Older Adult Division and today we're going to be talking about heavy versus light loads, particularly in geriatrics. Which one is better? Is there a certain time, place, person that we may want to use heavy versus light? I want to take a dive into the research and some of the themes that we're seeing in the literature and also just from experience in clinical practice and in fitness. of how we want to think about these different types of load because to be very honest we have a big bias here at at ICE I would say and then definitely in the MMOA division where you will hear us talking about the need to push for higher intensities right especially with our professional pandemic of under dosage where we have individuals that are not being challenged and have the ability to change right like this is a big big issue and something that we really need to speak to and it's very easy to mix that message with that higher amounts of load heavy load is the only way to go and that could not be further from the truth all right so let's kind of get into the pros and cons of you know heavy resistance versus lighter resistance and when we may want to use these because it's really important to be very thoughtful in your approach of applying load to individuals I wanna start with talking about some of the advantages of lighter resistance training. That's the one that we typically associate, oh, that's under dosage, or that's too easy, or that's not gonna be that effective, right? That's not necessarily the case. So when we think about light resistance training, lighter loads, you know, maybe 40, 50% of someone's estimated one rep max, if you're doing those types of calculations, Those loads are really, really great for introducing movement. I think we can all agree that if we have individuals that haven't exercised before, that are relatively new to a movement, have a lot of fear on board, maybe a lot of irritability, that a lighter load is going to be easier to get the party started, if you will, with those individuals. And for some, it may be first set where you're doing a lighter load, check the box, things are looking good, and then we're going to progress to a heavier load. But in some settings, and I'll speak for home health at least, that's where most of my experience is, is that takes weeks and sometimes even months with individuals where we are doing somewhat of a lighter load before we really have a green light to really progress to a relatively heavy load with certain individuals. So introducing movement, I think light resistance training is a great place, a great tool and time to use that. I also mentioned irritability. When we have folks that are highly irritable, A heavy load is not necessarily a great situation, right, for those individuals. They'll often increase irritability and the behavior of those symptoms. They want to be respectful of that irritability and often lighter loads can allow us to introduce movement and helpful movement and activities without causing a big increase in their symptoms or a change in the behavior of their symptoms. So introducing movement, high irritability, those are great places. Another great place to introduce or use lighter resistance training is when we're really focused on movement velocity, of really creating speed with a particular movement, which in geriatrics, oftentimes, it's very helpful when we're working on reaction timing, for example, or performing movements that require a lot of speed, like stepping strategies to regain balance, for example. the lighter loads are gonna allow them to move quicker than if they were bogged down with the super heavy loads. We can use that in our training. Light resistance training also improves strength and hypertrophy as well. There is a lot of kind of mixed literature of showing that, man, heavy resistance training is kind of the gold standard, right? If we're wanting to get people really strong, if we're wanting to improve muscle mass as well, like we gotta lift heavy loads. but particularly in older adults and deconditioned older adults that they can see improvements and significant improvements in strength and hypertrophy with relatively lighter loads, 40, 50, 60% of their 1RM. Now, oftentimes you have to adjust the other variables of dosage, right? Typically higher volume, but we can see an improvement in strength and hypertrophy in older adults, particularly deconditioned older adults with light resistance training. And that's really good news. I think it's really helpful, especially if you're in a more acute setting, you're in home health, acute care, SNF, Those types of settings, the lighter resistance is typically more accessible to these individuals and we can still get benefits from it. So I hope you can see some of the value of lighter resistance training. There are certain times and places and people where we are going to want to use light resistance training over heavy resistance training. Now let's talk about heavy resistance training. What's some of the evidence showing and theme showing of where that really stacks up? What are the benefits? The obvious one is strength and hypertrophy. Most of the literature It's going to be looking at improving strength, improving hypertrophy is with heavier loads, you know, usually that 80-85% of someone's one rep max, you're going to see really good results with a lot of the individuals if you can be able to apply that. One thing that is not often discussed and why you'll often see the MOA faculty use, give a little bit more preference to heavy resistance training is the stimulus it will give to bone mineral density. that heavier loads are going to be a greater stimulus to improve bone mineral density than lighter loads. Most of the research that's showing pretty significant changes or a reduction in decline in bone mineral density are usually doing resistance type activities in higher percentages of someone's one rep max in the 80s, 85% for example. So bone mineral density is a huge one and that's why we'll often use it somewhat preferentially with folks when we can apply it. Another big one, and this is purely anecdotal and from what I've observed working with lots of folks, is the confidence piece. Introducing light resistance training can help build confidence, right? It can get people moving. They can start to do things that they didn't think were possible or what they thought they'd be able to do. initially, but once we get past a certain point, heavy loads are going to be the only tool to really change people's perceptions of themselves. There is nothing like, and this is in my experience so purely anecdotal here, but there is nothing like lifting a relatively heavy barbell off the ground and doing a heavy barbell deadlift with someone that perceived that they are weak, that they're old, that they're fragile, that they're slow, that they can't improve, they can't change. That is such a powerful tool for these people to improve their confidence, but change the perceptions of what they're truly capable of doing. And this has so many ripple effects, right? If I am able to deadlift my body weight, for example, and I'm absolutely shocked and surprised, usually for a lot of members of Stronger Life, a gym for folks over 55 in Lexington, that's where I'm working, it's usually the 100-pound mark. If people can deadlift over 100 pounds, it just blows their mind, and many of us know, like, 100 pounds, that's okay, cool, awesome, but can you do your body weight? Can you do two times your body weight? But for 100 pounds, for some reason, for these individuals, it just, like, kind of, flips the switch, and then they start to think of other activities in a different light. They start to see, well, if I could do that, a hundred pound deadlift, man, going to Lowe's and getting my own bag of mulch is no problem. I don't need help. I can handle that myself. I don't need to go ask Bob across the street to do this for me at my house. I can handle that. Oh, that trip that I wanted to do, I may be strong enough to do that now. I may be able to do X, Y, and Z. Oh, I'm more confident in maybe being able to take care of my grandkids because I know I can pick up 100 pounds off the ground. It has a ripple effect of how they perceive all kinds of different situations. And what I've observed is that behavior often changes, hobbies often change, leisurely activities often change, and overall their life becomes better and more rich and more lively all from an exercise, right? I shouldn't say all, but it's a very profound moment. So heavy resistance training does a great job of achieving that. Another reason heavy resistance training is very, very beneficial, especially in the context of rehabilitation, is it minimizes a detraining effect. So if I'm performing light resistance training over a period of six weeks, eight weeks, for example, I will likely have more of a detraining effect. I will likely lose more of the gains that I've received over that eight week period. I will lose more of that after I'm done, as opposed to if I were lifting heavy weights the whole time. So if you are working with individuals where you're not sure what's going to happen upon discharge, What are they going to do? Are they going to start that exercise class down the road? Are they going to watch that YouTube channel, fitness channel that you recommended? You don't know, right? Are they going to do that home exercise program? It's all up in the air. You're not really sure. We can use heavier loads. to typically get more results, especially related to strength, especially related to functional capacity, related to transfers and independence, we can use heavy resist strain to get more progress over that period of time and they're going to have less of a detraining effect upon discharge and they will maintain their gains for a longer period of time. For me, in the context of home health, this was absolutely crucial, that if I was pretty sure that whenever I discharged Doris, and I was probably gonna see Doris within five, six months, I needed to account for that five to six month period. Doris, I need to get you as fit as possible in this eight week period before we're gonna discharge. So I'm gonna give preference to heavier resistance training as soon as I can apply it with her situation. It'll minimize that detraining effect, all right? So there's lots of different reasons, but I hope you can appreciate the benefits of light resistance training, of when you may want to use it, what situations is it really helpful, but then also for heavy resistance training. There's certain situations where, yeah, we definitely need to avoid light weights and stick with heavier weights. It's very nuanced. There's a right time, there's a right place, there's the right person. We're going to apply these different types of load or amounts of load. We can also appreciate that oftentimes it's overlapped, right? There's going to be times where I'm doing heavy load and lighter load in the same program. They can coexist. And this is why at any ICE course, you're often going to hear us talk about and not or. That we're not here to be dogmatic. We're not here to polarize. We're not here to say, you know, this is absolute garbage. You only need to stick with this particular intervention. That is very rare in our profession of rehabilitation and fitness that oftentimes it's an and not or approach. And that's definitely the case whenever we're talking about the amount of resistance that we're applying to our individuals.SU

SUMMARY So let me know your thoughts. Any other scenarios, situations I didn't touch on? I didn't even talk about tendon health, soft tissue, related adaptations to resistance training. Drop some of your thoughts and some of your experiences while using light versus heavy resistance training and geriatrics in the comments. YouTube, hop on Instagram, we'll talk there. But we appreciate you all for watching, for listening. I want to mention a few MMOA or Modern Management of the Older Adult courses that are coming up. We have our certification that is for folks that have taken all three courses. Our Level 1, which is going to be starting August 14th, that's eight weeks online. Then our Level 2 that's starting October 17th, that's eight weeks online as well. And then our live course. So all three of those culminate in the ICE certification for older adults. Our live course is coming up too that I want to mention. This weekend, Victor, New York is going to be going down. Jeff Musgrave is going to be leading that one. It's going to be an awesome crew up there in upstate New York. And then the following weekend is our big MMOA Summit. This is where all the MMOA faculty descend. In Denver, Colorado, we do this one time a year where we all come together, have an absolute blast. We do a lot of activities, hikes, we'll have a big cookout pool party with all the students afterwards. So if you're in the Denver area looking for something to do next weekend, we'd love for you to join that course. All right, y'all have a good rest of your Wednesday and I'll talk to you soon.

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