Easy, older people usually go on regular healthcare checkups so you get a ton of high-quality, external healthcare data to supplement the data you track yourself and the way the clients feel.

This, together with all the available scientific literature, allows me to confidently state that every single elderly client I have ever worked with hasn’t just improved their fitness status, mobility, quality of life, and strength, they have improved their health markers and health outcomes too.

Volume.

The volume I generally prescribe for elderly clients is the following ( some fine-tuning applies on an individual basis, as always ).

3 to max 4 exercises in total per session targeting 2+ muscle groups per session.

2 to 3 of those exercises are bigger compound lifts for larger muscle groups. Such as rows for the back, deadlifts, unilateral step-ups, farmers’ walks, dumbbell presses, and leg presses.

We mostly make use of compound exercises due to how they elicit more muscle fibers across bigger movement patterns. This results in substantially better strength in that muscle chains entire muscle length, and the entire range of motion for that movement pattern.

This also allows for bigger weights, fewer sets, fewer reps, and less total gym time. Not to mention that bigger compound exercises with bigger loads provide far better cardiovascular benefits.

Making it another win.

Yes, it is true, bigger compound lifts demand a higher price of recovery, but that is countered by doing fewer reps and sets in total.

Examples of exercises, range from big compounds to smaller but effective exercises.

Deadlifts ( floor, pins, RDL).
Farmers walk ( dumbbells or trap bar )
Leg press.
Leg curls, extensions.
Rows, Seated, dumbbells, verticals, landmines.
Dumbbell, machine & cable chest presses.
Hanging leg raises
Wood chuckers.
Pullovers.
Shoulder presses ( machines, dumbbells, barbells )
Tricep, dips, pushdowns, pullovers, overhead.
Lateral raises, dumbbells, and cables.
Posterior shoulder/scapula work.
Weighted Unilateral step-ups.
Shrugs.
Heavy bag, ball deadlifts + throws from as high up as each client can lift the object.
Wheel flips
Sledgehammer work
Dead stop, pin squats, or hacklifts.

Basic, big pillar exercise choices.

I program 1 or 2 non-exhaustive warm-up sets for my elderly clients per exercise, and we do max 7 reps for our warm-up sets because we are not looking to reach failure or tax our cardiovascular system, or exhaust our skeletal muscles with our warm-up sets.

Once ready, we do 1 or 2 heavy workload sets per exercise, these sets target 5 to 12 reps courtesy of the higher weight. If the plan is to do 2 work sets we keep RIR at roughly 5 on the first work set in that exercise.

This helps the human body to recruit more type 2 fibers and motor units without exhausting your body and its muscles. Already providing incentives for adaptation but making room for an even bigger effort in the second and last work set.

We make use of a full range of motion and explosive contractions on every single set, including our warmup sets.

And that’s all.

The biggest load and effort will happen on the last set in all exercises. This makes sure that all clients can progress for years to come in a strong, and injury-free way.

RIR lands in the 1 to 3 range on that last set and we do that for every single exercise. Now, I do not like to push my older clients to a proper RIR 0 ( failure or beyond ) because doing so shoots the price of recovery through the roof, and that´s the one area where elderly people will lose some capacity relative to their younger selves.

But, as I mentioned up above, on a strictly individual level there are always some adjustments. I have older clients who really like to push themselves, so they sometimes get to do a third work set. And sometimes when they are really feeling good those clients will push just a little closer to failure.

Not due to my own coaching, but people are autonomous and sometimes you have to let people lose and enjoy taking things a bit closer to the edge.

When clients do this and the result is a new personal best at the ripe age of 65 or 72, or similar, the reward is increased joy, increased quality of life, health, strength, and happiness.

And that’s a fire that fuels the lifelong drive to keep their healthy fit habits alive and well.