GeoffreyLevens
Level 6 Valued Member
I have a personal training question and am having difficulty finding a good answer.
Age 68, main goals are maintain or improve body composition (I don’t really have much extra but adding some lean muscle is always good). I think that as we age, strength and mobility are keys to staying healthy and independent and I am looking at the “long game”. I don’t compete at anything and don’t ever go for RM1 or test for PR. Rather, as something gets “too easy” increase the load a bit and continue…
In the past I have had quite a bit of knee pain esp in one knee. The main issue is instability in one hip which can cause my knee to go valgus esp when suddenly loaded. Last couple months I have been just doing body weight correctives, wall squats, slow body weight squats, and bridge progressions as well as ab wheel and pullups. Knees feel ok but if I’m not very careful with the squats I can piss the one off and get it to hurt for a day or two. I am seeing an Escogue teacher next week for more work on that. Have previously worked with two different PT’s.
Finally saw an orthopedic surgeon a couple days ago seeking Synvisc injection. After all angles xrays and some functional testing he said my knees were actually in quite good shape with only a very small amount of arthritic degeneration in the painful one. I was very surprised at how much joint space I have and how balanced everything looked in the images! He told me bascially do whatever, just go slow at building up…careful as always. Synvisc much later and if I get into “trouble” he would recommend single, low dose cortisone injection to the knee.
I have worked almost exclusively with kb’s and some bodyweight stuff for the last 10 years. Was contemplating swapping out my kb collection for a bar and plates and squat rack…
So here’s the big question: Which is likely to be better i.e. safer and more effective at building strength etc, kettlebells or barbells? Or is really a combination ideal? Or even move to just bodyweight work Money is a bit of an issue, hence the idea to sell the one to acquire the other.
Age 68, main goals are maintain or improve body composition (I don’t really have much extra but adding some lean muscle is always good). I think that as we age, strength and mobility are keys to staying healthy and independent and I am looking at the “long game”. I don’t compete at anything and don’t ever go for RM1 or test for PR. Rather, as something gets “too easy” increase the load a bit and continue…
In the past I have had quite a bit of knee pain esp in one knee. The main issue is instability in one hip which can cause my knee to go valgus esp when suddenly loaded. Last couple months I have been just doing body weight correctives, wall squats, slow body weight squats, and bridge progressions as well as ab wheel and pullups. Knees feel ok but if I’m not very careful with the squats I can piss the one off and get it to hurt for a day or two. I am seeing an Escogue teacher next week for more work on that. Have previously worked with two different PT’s.
Finally saw an orthopedic surgeon a couple days ago seeking Synvisc injection. After all angles xrays and some functional testing he said my knees were actually in quite good shape with only a very small amount of arthritic degeneration in the painful one. I was very surprised at how much joint space I have and how balanced everything looked in the images! He told me bascially do whatever, just go slow at building up…careful as always. Synvisc much later and if I get into “trouble” he would recommend single, low dose cortisone injection to the knee.
I have worked almost exclusively with kb’s and some bodyweight stuff for the last 10 years. Was contemplating swapping out my kb collection for a bar and plates and squat rack…
So here’s the big question: Which is likely to be better i.e. safer and more effective at building strength etc, kettlebells or barbells? Or is really a combination ideal? Or even move to just bodyweight work Money is a bit of an issue, hence the idea to sell the one to acquire the other.