Strength Training for Older Adults in Richmond: Why Generic Over-50s Classes Underdose the Most Important Thing

If you are over 55 and have walked into a "Seniors Fit" or "Active Ageing" class at a commercial gym in Richmond, you already know what I am about to say. The class was nice. The instructor was friendly. The actual strength training was almost certainly missing.

This is not a criticism of those instructors. They are working within a system that assumes older adults are fragile, that strength is dangerous, and that the goal of "senior fitness" is to be gentle. The science says the opposite. Older adults are not fragile. They are experienced. And the single most useful thing they can do in a gym is not balance work, not stretching, and not light resistance bands. It is real, progressive strength training.

I have spent ten years coaching older adults at AKFITNESS Studio on Bridge Road, Richmond. Here is what most over-50s classes get wrong, and what we do instead.

The under-dosing problem

There is a long-standing assumption in the fitness industry that older bodies cannot handle heavy load. So programmes for the over-50s replace barbells with resistance bands, replace progressive overload with circuit variety, and replace single-set strength work with twenty-minute "endurance" routines.

The result is a programme that feels appropriate for the audience and actually achieves very little.

The strength research is consistent. Adults in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s can gain meaningful strength, muscle mass, bone density, and balance from progressive resistance training. The increases are smaller and slower than what a 30-year-old would see, but they are real and they are protective. Underdosed strength work does almost none of this.

What older bodies actually need

The right programme for an older adult does five things, in roughly this order.

First, a movement assessment. Where does the body actually move well, where does it not, and what should we work around or work into? This is not a five-minute screen at the start of class one. It is a proper conversation, a few movement tests, and a sense of what your body has been doing for the last forty years.

Second, real lower-body strength. Squats, hinges, step-ups, lunges, sit-to-stands. Patterns that translate directly to getting in and out of a car, climbing stairs, lifting a grandchild, picking something off the floor. Loaded appropriately. Not avoided.

Third, posture and the upper back. Most adults over 55 have lost thoracic extension and shoulder mobility. Most older-adult programmes never address this. The single biggest visible change in your posture, and the most useful change for things like carrying bags and reaching overhead, comes from the upper back.

Fourth, balance and ankle work. Specifically: single-leg standing, ankle mobility, fast eccentric work. Falls happen when the body cannot react quickly enough. We programme this every week, deliberately, without making a fuss of it.

Fifth, a coach who is paying attention. Older bodies have history. The right knee that used to bother you. The shoulder from that time you fell off your bike in 1992. The reflux that gets worse at night. A coach who knows you can adjust the programme on the day. A circuit class cannot.

What you actually want to keep doing

The clients I work with do not come in wanting six-pack abs. They come in wanting to play golf for another fifteen years. To walk Mount Donna Buang without their knees aching. To carry the grandkids without their back going. To get up off the floor when they are eighty without help.

These are concrete, important outcomes. Generic over-50s programmes do not target them. Real strength training does. The honest difference between an under-dosed programme and a properly dosed one is roughly the difference between staying frail and staying strong for the next twenty years.

You are not fragile. You are experienced. The right programme treats you like that.

What this looks like at AKFITNESS

We start every new older-adult client with a free 30-minute movement assessment at the studio on Bridge Road, Richmond. We talk through your goals and history, do a few movement tests, and identify what your body actually needs. From there, we plan together. One-on-one sessions with me, or semi-private pods of two to four with the same care.

If we are working with your physio or GP, we coordinate. If you have a sore knee or a dodgy shoulder, the programme respects that. If you have not lifted in twenty years, we start where you are, not where Instagram thinks you should be.

No commercial-gym energy. No floor music. No twenty-five-year-olds in mirrors. A quiet studio where you are the focus of the session, and where the strength you build today is the strength you will carry into your eighties.

More on the programme: our older-adults page.

Amadu Koroma

Founder and Head Coach at AKFITNESS Studio, Richmond. NPL Victoria Strength & Conditioning Coach for Altona Magic SC. Former Strength Coach at South Melbourne FC, where I helped lead the club to two NPL grand finals. Ten years coaching strength, longevity, and whole-person training in inner-east Melbourne.

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