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After experiencing muscle damage in an exercise bout, elderly muscle recovers more slowly than young muscle, even when the immediate post-exercise fatigue is very similar. This indicates that the repair and regeneration processes are slowed in elderly subjects.

Since both exercise and stretch transiently reduce MPS rates while they are ongoing, it is interesting to consider why that happens. This study implicated a downstream target of calcium ion accumulation in the inhibition of MPS rates.

The cause of muscle swelling is the damage followed by the inflammatory process. So if there is damage, there will be some swelling. Read more in the weekly free Patreon article.

Elderly animals cannot recover from the same training frequency as young animals. When exposed to the same volume/frequency combination, they fail to achieve hypertrophy and fatigue accumulates.

The findings of this odd study are contradictory because the absence of hypertrophy indicates that the lifters were extremely well-trained but the enormous gains in strength of the trained exercise (relative to the untrained exercise) indicates that they had little experience.

Henneman's size principle tells us that increases in motor unit recruitment underpin increases in force production. This study confirmed that the electrical activity recorded within the muscle does linearly relate to muscle force both in absolute and relative terms.

It makes no sense to talk about weekly training volume when training frequency matters. As always, the full (free) article is available on Patreon.

When the training frequency is reduced so that recovery between workouts is possible, elderly animals do display hypertrophy and strength gains. In contrast, when recovery between workouts is not possible, they fail to achieve hypertrophy and fatigue accumulates.

The findings of this odd study are again contradictory. Compared to leaving 5-6RIR, training to failure caused greater improvements in relative muscular endurance (meaning that they literally achieved more progressive overload) but worse improvements in maximum strength.

Various theories have been proposed to explain how aerobic exercise might help post-workout recovery during strength training. This study found no beneficial effect of lower-body aerobic exercise after an upper-body strength training workout, which rules out systemic effects.

Not too long ago, it was very contentious whether the different regions of the latissimus dorsi are targeted by different exercises. Hopefully, it is less contentious now. Read more in the free weekly Patreon article.

Matching the results of animal models, elderly people recover more slowly from a strength training workout compared to younger people, even when immediate post-workout fatigue is similar. This shows that the recovery processes are impaired.

Although there are some odd studies out there (especially in the failure literature) many studies will appear that report more-or-less what we might predict. This study found that training closer to failure generally caused greater strength gains and more hypertrophy.

It has often been suggested that light exercise during the recovery period from a muscle-damaging workout can accelerate recovery. This does not appear to be the case.

Fitness influencers struggle to understand that the larger anabolic signaling produced after eccentric contractions is the result of more muscle damage repair being conducted. Read more in the full (free) article on Patreon.

One reason why elderly muscle is more vulnerable to damage than young muscle is its reduced level of lateral force transmission. Lateral force transmission is key to avoiding the overstretching of sarcomeres.

An individualized increase in weekly training volume of either 30% or 60% was unable to increase either strength gains or hypertrophy in strength-trained males. In fact, numerically the increased training volumes produced worse effects.

In the same way that light, concentric exercise and aerobic exercise do not affect the rate of recovery from muscle-damaging exercise, static stretching does not affect the recovery rate either.

Post-workout fatigue accumulates during normal strength training until it stops adaptations from happening. Read more in the full (free) article on Patreon.

Although it is often claimed that muscle damage occurs during exercise, it actually mainly develops in the post-workout period. Here is another study showing the development of both fatigue and also markers of muscle damage gradually for 2-3 days post-exercise.