Weights for 50+: Building Strength, Staying Healthy and Enjoying an Active Lifestyle

First off, the title is a misnomer since it also discusses resistance bands. I don't want a regimen where I'm swapping equipment in and out. I just want to use dumbbells and go. I was looking for a whole body conditioning program using dumbbells, but no such luck. It does list programs to increase your fitness in areas such as bowling and golfing, but those are useless to me. It also suffers from a deficiency common to exercise books, which I call the Chinese menu syndrome: pick one from one column A, one from column B, etc. Each program lists exercises and then you have to look through the book to find them. I will incorporate one piece of advice: I'm going to do ten minutes of walking as a warmup. The photos illustrating the exercises are printed with poor quality low-resolution screens. I will keep trying books until I find a program I can live with. My next step is to acquire the Harvard Medical School special report on strength training for seniors.

I really like this book. I like that it is written for older adults that want to keep their muscle strength. This book truly understands what it is like to get old and makes you feel that your not alone in your body changes. Makes you want to start working out with weights and bands. It addresses ages from 50 to 101 yrs. old.It gives pictures of each exercise done, which is a great plus. The exercises are also geared for elderly people, which makes you feel comfortable in starting them without fear of over-doing it at first.If your looking for a book to help your in setting up an exercise plan with weights and bands to strengthen your aging muscles, I HIGHLY recommend this book.

This was a gift for my boyfriends mother. She recently started lifting weights to help her osteoporosis. She had a trainer that she loved but he was let go when two health clubs merged. Her new trainer told her the other trainer was teaching her wrong and suggested she do different things. She told me there is an osteoporosis section in the book and it said if you have osteoporosis you should not push weight directly over your head or do any exercise that makes your body twist. This new trainer was having her do both. So it sounds as if this was a great Christmas gift for her and she is learning a lot. She said there are sections in the book specifically for other health problems as well.

I thought this book would be about working with hand weights and it is but a lot of the exercises are using leg weights. There are 37 exercises using weights and 30 exercises using resistance bands or tubes just copied movements from his other books. From my other trainings there is always concern in using leg weights with seniors because of arthritis and joint issues. Love his other books but this was too much repeated information and some of the pictures models were using poor form.

Very informative. I plan to use many of the exercises to create a exercise routine. The information about health and exercises specific to health conditions are great.

The book makes you feel like you have to be so careful with an aging body that I think all the reminders about chronic diseases would scare me to start a program. Some info was good, I know the author needs to warn against injury but may be the age would be not 50, but 70 to 80 years.

This book gives me a wide range of easy exercises for every area of the body that I am using to keep myself physically refreshed and adequately strong for my 50+ age. It is well illustrated and well written. I am very pleased to have bought it. Another book which I have found to be excellent, and that I use in conjunction with this one is"Age Defying Fitness: Making the Most of Your Body for the Rest of Your Life." I research books very carefully before buying them and these are among the very best, in my opinion.

Bought this for my wife. She likes it. She says it is basically for someone new to exercise who is over 50 years of age. To quote her, she said, "I was hoping to see something with heavier weight and perhaps kettle bells." She does think the graphics make it easy to follow the instructions.

Brilliant book (which I got for my kindle). Easy to follow exercises. Enjoying getting fit again. Use this 2 to 3 times a week. Also good for me as my knees are not too great (find the exercises don't hurt them).

The book is well written, clear and to the point; also the figures are clear and helpful. I would have liked the subject to be treated somewhat more in depth, but the book, as it is, can be very helpful to novices and peoples training without the help of a professional trainer.

Excellent book. Easy to follow. Have a couple of Karl Knopf books - for fitness books I like his style of writing. Good stuff. Buy it if you're over 50. (Or under fifty - it does the job for everyone)

Make sure you don't choose too heavy a weight. The exercises should suit the individual. They are not a competition, not even with oneself.

Just the book I needed to encourage the use of my new weights