Turning Back the Clock with Fitness

You have losing muscle and gaining fat every day since sometime in your twenties, says William Evans, director of the Noll Physiological Research Center at Pennsylvania State University.

The rate at which you lose muscle accelerates after age 45. As people age, especially after age 40, they lose one-third to one-half of a pound of muscle each year and gain that much in body fat. This translates to about a 1 to 2 percent loss of strength each year. With this loss of muscle strength, we tend to spontaneously become less active because daily activities become more difficult and exhausting to perform.

As you get older, you may no longer be strong enough to go out dancing or climb a flight of stairs. Eventually, just getting out of a chair could be a struggle. the only way to stop your muscles from wasting away is strength training. Strength training has the power to maintain your muscle mass, strength, flexibility and balance, and keep daily activities fun!

If you don't build muscle, you'll lose muscle, whether you're a 35-year-old runner or a 75-year-old retiree. As we age, we lose muscle mass,  and a faster rate, which contributes to a lower metabolic rate and leads to an increase in body fat. The number of calories you burn at rest, your basal metabolic rate (BMR) decreases by 100 calories per decade, starting at age 20. This happens because older people need less oxygen to fuel their smaller muscle mass.  As metabolic rate and activity level decrease, fewer calories are required to maintenance body weight. This makes weight loss even more challenging, because the less muscle we have, the fewer calories we burn. If we don't decrease our calories intake to match our body's declining needs, our weight and body fat increase as muscle shrink. This results in an increased risk for heart disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis. By preserving muscle mass, we can prevent these problems from occurring.  The more muscle you have, the calories you burn throughout the day-whether you are walking, vacuuming, or sleep. This is because muscle is metabolically active. Stored fat, on the other hand, is not metabolically active, uses very little energy, and therefore burns minimal calories.  

While aerobic exercise has been shown to improve cardiovascular fitness and burn calories and fat, it does not seem to influence muscle mass or strength. Strength training, on the other hand, increase both muscle mass and muscle strength. Strength training also has been shown to increase bone mass, which is extremely important from women because of the increased risk of developing osteoporosis.  

Women have less muscle mass to begin with.   When women diet to lose weight, they lose muscle and bone. This is due to an decrease of protein calories and less lifting. If women weight-lift and increase protein intake while losing weight, they can preserve both muscle and bone while burn fat. Strength training will also help to promote weight-lose, as the more muscle mass you build, the more calories you burn. Therefore, as you gain muscle mass, you get two real boosts for weight control. First, your metabolism will increase so that you can eat more and burn calories more effectively. Secondly, because you are stronger, physical activity becomes easier and more fun. Resistance weight training can be done with weights, resistance bands, balls, gallon water jugs, or any weight heavy enough to fatigue the muscle after eight to ten repetition. For those with arthritis, water exercise is the best for build strength, muscles and joint pain.       

In a study of women aged 50-70, the women who participated in resistance training gained 1% more bone density in the hip and spine while the group that did not lift weights lost 2.5 % bone density. Those who strength trained had strength increases from 35-76% above the control group. Balance improved 14%, and general physical activity increased by 27%. Research has shown that even among frail, elderly subjects, muscle strength can greatly improved by a little as 8 weeks of resisted training. Even subjects in their 90s respond to training in much the same manner, with all the same adaptations, as seen in teenagers.

Following is a summary of exercise categories and some of the benefits:

Following is a summary of supplements categories and some of the benefits: Also See Longevity Supplement Chart

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