Lifting Weights After 60 Can Protect Your Bones and Heart: Expert Tips To Get Started

FRIDAY, Oct. 16, 2026 (HealthDay News) — If you're in your 60s, 70s or even older, you might think your days of productively pumping iron are behind you.

That's just not true, said Dr. Adil Ahmed, an assistant professor in the Joseph Barnhart Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Building and maintaining muscle is a great way to stay all-round healthy, he said.

"The protective effect of muscle and muscle mass has been well studied — everything from the musculoskeletal system to orthopedics and even brain health," Ahmed said in a Baylor news release. "Building muscle in your body has been well shown to delay dementia and the effects of dementia and preserve cognitive function."

Strength training also helps your bones. It’s one of the best ways to help aging bones stay dense and strong, Ahmed said.

"It's a very good protective long-term process," he said. 

That protection matters because bone and muscle loss speed up with age. After 50, you start losing bone faster than your body can rebuild it. Women can lose up to 20% of their bone density in the first seven years after menopause, according to UCLA Health.

Muscle also declines by up to 8% per decade starting at age 30. That loss picks up after 60.

Research hasn’t clearly shown that older adults can add much muscle size by lifting. But studies show that resistance training two or three times a week can boost strength, grip and walking speed, all of which help you stay independent.

The payoff may go beyond strength. In a 2024 study that followed more than 200,000 older adults for 15 years in the International Journal of Epidemiology, any weight training was linked to a lower risk of death from heart disease, cancer and other causes, compared with none. The benefit was larger for women and for people who also did aerobic exercise.

Before you start a weight-training routine later in life, get checked out by your doctor. It also helps to get guidance from someone who knows proper technique, such as a personal trainer.

Ahmed recommends starting first with controlled resistance training and then moving to free weights, with an emphasis on building good (and safe) technique.

"In my opinion, free weights are the best for muscle building because of the force you exert with your muscles," he said. "There's also a balance component that stabilizes the muscles and works your core."

UCLA Health offers these tips for getting started:

• Start with your own body weight. Squats, lunges, wall pushups and standing up from a chair help you learn good form without equipment.

• Add resistance when you’re ready. Once you can do eight repetitions with good form, move to resistance bands or light weights. For pushups, work your way from the wall to a countertop, then a bench and eventually the floor.

• Go heavier, but go slowly. To build strength rather than bulk, the American Council on Exercise recommends lifting heavier weights for fewer repetitions. Increase the load gradually to avoid injury and extreme soreness.

• Lift quickly, lower slowly. Once your form is solid, lifting the weight briskly and lowering it with control puts more load on your bones, which helps trigger bone building.

• Rest between sessions. Aim for two or three workouts a week with a day or two off in-between so your muscles can recover.

• Check your Medicare plan. Some plans include SilverSneakers, a fitness program for older adults, at no extra cost.

With the proper guidance, weight training can even be healthy for people with chronic conditions of aging such as heart failure, Ahmed said, because it gets the heart pumping.

"When you lift weights, you need the heart to pump hard to allow blood flow to travel to the muscles because that's the only way nutrients get there, and it's the only way muscles stay active and can exert before fatigue," he explained. "It's cardioprotective in the sense that your heart gets conditioned to pump harder."

The bottom line, according to Ahmed: Seniors, don't be afraid of the weight room.

"It's just very good overall for one's health," he said.

More information

The National Institute on Aging has more on physical activity for older adults.

SOURCES: Baylor College of Medicine, news release, March 20, 2024; International Journal of Epidemiology, June 3, 2024; UCLA Health, March 2, 2026