I am to devise a resistance training program for a 70 year old man
Devise a 4 week resistance training program for John, 70. John has never done any resistance training before but has cycled 20km on 3 days of the week for the past decade. He has noticed that his leg and upper body strength is declining and he wants to arrest this if possible.
Follow Dr Westcott’s recommendations when devising the program.
Be sure to indicate sets, reps and load for resistance exercises and frequency, intensity, time and type for cardio
And it is most likely that performing foundation movements and other ROM exercises initially will not be a problem with the doctor’s recommendations. For a 70 year old, the first 4 weeks should be programmed with light resistance. The objective would be to first build rep range with light or no resistance. If there are no issues uncovered with 20 light to no load reps of any exercise, the load progression phase would begin. All multi joint exercises should be initially broken into small ROM movements and then gradually progressed as well. Such as the squat or lunge, neither would be wise to perform with full ROM initially.
This is of course only the basic design. Deternining ROM for the initial movements and exercises would be part of the process and part of the progression pattern. There is a lot more to initiating a program for most clients.