Building Muscle After 40: What Changes and What Doesn't

Can you still build muscle after 40?

Yes. A 2011 meta-analysis by Peterson, Sen and Gordon in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise pooled 49 studies with 1,328 people aged 50 and over. Resistance training added an average of 1.1 kg (about 2.4 lb) of lean body mass, and programs with more training volume produced bigger gains. The oldest participants gained a little less, but on average they still gained.

If you have trained for years, expect slower gains, as you would at any age. If you are starting out or returning after a long break, there is plenty to gain.

Protein needs as you get older

Ageing muscle seems to respond a little less to protein.

• A 2018 meta-analysis by Morton and colleagues in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, which pooled 49 studies, found that the benefit of extra protein for building muscle during training got smaller with age. Lean mass gains levelled off at around 1.6 g of protein per kg of body weight a day on average, with up to 2.2 g/kg suggested to cover nearly everyone.
• In a 2015 study in The Journals of Gerontology: Series A by Moore and colleagues, men around 71 years old needed about 0.40 g of protein per kg of body weight in a meal to reach the highest muscle-building response, compared with about 0.24 g/kg in men around 22. For an 80 kg (176 lb) man, that is roughly 32 g a meal versus 19 g. The difference was borderline in statistical terms, and these men were older than most readers here, but it fits the Morton finding above.

In practice: aim for 1.6 to 2.2 g/kg a day, and make sure each main meal has a good portion of protein rather than saving most of it for dinner. How much protein to build muscle lists good food sources, and the free protein calculator works out your number.

If you have kidney disease or another health condition affecting your diet, speak to your doctor before raising your protein intake.

Recovery: what the evidence says

Many lifters over 40 feel they take longer to bounce back. The research is less clear than you might expect. A 2023 scoping review by Hayes and colleagues in Sports Medicine - Open looked at the studies of recovery from resistance exercise in older adults and found the methods varied widely and the findings were inconsistent, with little data on women. There is not yet a simple rule for how much longer recovery takes.

What we do know is that some training choices are expensive at any age. In a 2017 study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, Morán-Navarro and colleagues found that taking every set to failure slowed recovery by up to 24 to 48 hours in trained men, compared with doing the same work while stopping short. Training to failure explains how close you really need to go.

Practical ways to manage recovery:

• Stop most sets about 1 to 3 reps short of failure, and save full-effort sets for safer machine and isolation exercises.
• Build volume gradually. Add sets over weeks, not all at once.
• Use a lighter week when performance dips across several lifts, rather than pushing through.
• Protect your sleep. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society recommend 7 or more hours a night for adults.
• Judge recovery by your training log, not by soreness. If your numbers are holding or rising, you are recovering.

Looking after your joints

Joint aches can make training harder after 40, yet the NHS describes exercise as "one of the most important treatments" for osteoarthritis, including exercises to strengthen your muscles. It also advises getting an exercise plan from your GP or a physiotherapist.

For most people, these habits help:

• Warm up properly, with a few lighter sets of your first exercise for each muscle.
• Choose exercises that suit your body. A leg press or hack squat instead of a back squat, dumbbells instead of a barbell, or a neutral grip instead of a straight bar can make the same muscle work with less joint discomfort.
• Use controlled reps rather than bouncing heavy weights.
• Favour moderate rep ranges over very heavy low-rep work for most of your training.
• Treat pain as information. Mild, short-lived discomfort that eases as you warm up is different from sharp or worsening pain. For the second kind, stop that exercise and get it checked.

Lifting is good for your bones too. The NHS says weight-bearing and resistance exercise are particularly important for improving bone density.

How to train for the long run

The principles are the same as at any age:

• Lift on at least 2 days a week, as the NHS advises for all adults, and more if your schedule and recovery allow.
• Build up to about 10 or more hard sets per muscle per week, the level a 2017 meta-analysis by Schoenfeld, Ogborn and Krieger linked with more growth than fewer than 5.
• Progress slowly but steadily, adding a rep or a little weight when you can.
• Keep a log, so you know whether you are progressing.
• Keep some steps and cardio in your week for your heart and general health, without letting it eat into your lifting recovery.
• Stay consistent. Missing the odd week is fine; what counts is years of steady training.

Before you start or step up your training, speak to your doctor if you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, diabetes, a joint problem, or take regular medicines.

Where coaching helps

After 40, the plan has to fit around work, family, recovery and the odd creaky joint, and it has to keep working for years, not weeks.

With one-to-one coaching from CoachAk, you start with a welcome questionnaire, and your training program is written around your schedule, experience, equipment and injury history, with sets, reps, effort targets, rest times and coaching cues for every exercise. You can send form-check videos for your coach to reply to. Your nutrition targets, including calories, macros, steps and any cardio, live in the app. Each weekly check-in covers your training, sleep, energy, stress and digestion, and your coach replies in writing with what went well, what changes next week and why. You can message your coach directly, with photos or voice notes, whenever a joint complains or a week goes sideways.

If you want to build muscle in your 40s and beyond, safely and steadily, apply for coaching, or read more about muscle gain coaching.