What I found especially interesting (and to be honest seemingly obvious in retrospect) is that the older people more likely to continue lifting were not the ones who had gained the most muscle...
What I found especially interesting (and to be honest seemingly obvious in retrospect) is that the older people more likely to continue lifting were not the ones who had gained the most muscle during the supervised program but those who "had come to feel most competent in the gym. If someone’s self-efficacy, which is a measure of confidence, had risen substantially during the study, he or she usually kept lifting."
I've witnessed this first hand with my ex starting a couple of years ago, although he was younger (late 40s) than the age group studied here. I've been lifting semi regularly for a few years now and he always said he hated the gym because it was boring and he had a bad back so he "couldn't do deadlifts". He also expressed that he thought it was too late to start. I'm 30 and started lifting about 4-5 years ago, so in his mind I got in early enough, but maybe it was just too late for him to bother trying to really get into shape. Now it's really obvious that he just wasn't confident in what to do at a gym, or where to even start.
He ended up getting into it (with no nudging from me aside from my getting progressively more and more shredded :D) by seeing a personal trainer at a big gym, but he did not want to do deadlifts because of his back, and wasn't really into working with the barbell in general. Then suddenly something clicked and he decided he liked it after he PT had him try it for a bit. Over time he got a more powerlifting/strength building specialized PT and now works out at a smaller gym on his own or with his friends, totally comfortable with the equipment and the movements. He learned how to deadlift properly and found it actually helped his back instead of hurting it. His confidence in day to day life seemed to really increase as his confidence in what to do at the gym did; he's in the best shape of his life now that he's getting close to 50.
What I found especially interesting (and to be honest seemingly obvious in retrospect) is that the older people more likely to continue lifting were not the ones who had gained the most muscle during the supervised program but those who "had come to feel most competent in the gym. If someone’s self-efficacy, which is a measure of confidence, had risen substantially during the study, he or she usually kept lifting."
I've witnessed this first hand with my ex starting a couple of years ago, although he was younger (late 40s) than the age group studied here. I've been lifting semi regularly for a few years now and he always said he hated the gym because it was boring and he had a bad back so he "couldn't do deadlifts". He also expressed that he thought it was too late to start. I'm 30 and started lifting about 4-5 years ago, so in his mind I got in early enough, but maybe it was just too late for him to bother trying to really get into shape. Now it's really obvious that he just wasn't confident in what to do at a gym, or where to even start.
He ended up getting into it (with no nudging from me aside from my getting progressively more and more shredded :D) by seeing a personal trainer at a big gym, but he did not want to do deadlifts because of his back, and wasn't really into working with the barbell in general. Then suddenly something clicked and he decided he liked it after he PT had him try it for a bit. Over time he got a more powerlifting/strength building specialized PT and now works out at a smaller gym on his own or with his friends, totally comfortable with the equipment and the movements. He learned how to deadlift properly and found it actually helped his back instead of hurting it. His confidence in day to day life seemed to really increase as his confidence in what to do at the gym did; he's in the best shape of his life now that he's getting close to 50.