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It's (almost) all about strength and math..
I like to keep things simple. What I have figured out about strength and muscle size (besides the fact that they look better than being thin) is that when you get older you lose both. If you exercise you gain both. The younger you are the easier it is to gain size and strength. When you exercise and you get old enough you lose both at a slower rate.
To summarize: if you exercise when you are, say in your 50's, you gain strength and size. The more you gain the better off you are when you are older, say in your 70's. If you don't consider the strength and size so important and are happy with moderate to little strength and size increase in your 50's you will end up much smaller and weaker when you are in your 70's. Being strong is relative and when you are old you are happy if you can lift your groceries.. extreme cardio fitness is probably not that important even though it is important, of course at any age.
Any thoughts`?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by JBF Coach Sarah on -
I tend to agree with you, except on the point where you say we lose strength and muscle with age ... it's more the fact that as we get older we use the muscles less, and as a result of that they get weaker and "dwindle" - use it or lose it in fact.
My ambition for 2011 is to get into a retirement home, heck even a nursing home, and get the "old" folks to move, even if I have to go out and buy resistance bands for each one! I probably can't do much about their nutrition, unless the home/residence cook is open to suggestions, but if they can at least move ... and gain both mobility and strength, I'll be happy.
On the cardio-vascular level, train your heart (also a muscle after all) and it will stay stronger and less prone to attacks, don't you think? Combined with heart-healthy nutrition...
In fact, check out Jack LaLanne these days, he's still in great shape (last I saw a few months ago on a PBS station), Dave Draper (younger than Jack) has had heart surgery but look at the shape he's otherwise in.
Age? Yes, it's a factor. Being a mom (i.e. having been pregnant) is a factor. Menopause is another factor. But all of these can be worked around and everyone can be their best regardless. What makes me mad - seriously - is a "health professional" telling their client "this is the best you can expect to get" ... it happened to a woman I knew, her kinesiologist got her somewhat mobile after an accident, and came up with this death sentence.
No, to me it would have been a challenge. I don't accept statements like this at face value. This woman however, took it as meaning "just sit back and do just the little you are able to, because you'll never get better anyway so why try and be let down!?" and as a result got worse, had more and more meds, and ... she is no more.
So move people, move!
Example - my parents, 75 and 80 next spring - walk an hour each day. Not a stroll-walk like you'd expect from an older couple, no they power-walk, fast enough for me to get a workout when I go with them! (And mom pestering against "these old people dragging their feet and blocking her progression" on the path along the river, lol).
Example - my grandmother who walked 30 minutes to the nearest town to get her newspaper rather than having it delivered or buying it at the corner store, till the age of 92.
Example - a couple who came to me, 80 and 83 years old, she could no longer tie her own shoes, he was unable to lift his arm to brush his hair. I played rock'n'roll in the gym when they were there, and they were too cute, dancing between exercises (talk about active rest!), and after 3-4 months they were ecstatic ... she was tying her shoes, he could brush his hair!
In short, don't give me the "I'm too old" excuse, lol.
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Permalink Reply by Markku Niilo-Rämä on -
I think it is all a package.. you have to do everyting; cardio, strength, mobility, diet, etc.. My point is that people don't realize the importance of strength in the equation.. They think it is vanity to have big muscles and be able to bench press 400lbs (I wish I could do that). But the fact is that no matter how much you exercise you WILL get old (that is the best scenario ;) ) and your strength will go down. If you exercise correctly that decrease will be a lot less than if you didn't exercise but at 80 you WILL be weaker than at 50 and you will need all the strength you have then..
So if you are strong and muscular now you have the reserve strength that will carry you to old age. Just like you build your house stronger than it needs to be in the summer because you know that fall and winter will come when you need the house to be well built.
Same thing applies to fitness..
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Permalink Reply by JBF Coach Sarah on
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Agree with you there.
The stronger you are, the longer it will take to lose that strength (naturally, not by suddenly stopping all training because you've hit an age that to you is "old").
Some people do tend to consider themselves old because they have reached a certain age, strangely. Mu ex, his birthday is in July, declared in January of the year he was turning 60, that he was now old and started thinking about where he would retire, what type of apartment (no house anymore!) with a pharmacy on the ground floor, a doctor's practice in the building, a cafe close by ... what? Because to him, 60 was old and he mentally gave up on living fully to his body's capacity.
He's not alone in this case. Yet you have 80-year olds who refuse to "act their age" - and I know I'll be one of them :) at 50 I'm certainly not acting my age and see no reason to change that because of a change in age-number.
Maybe I could call it "JUST LIVE" philosophy, lol. Forget the age factor. Just live as you feel. Stay strong, flexible and optimistic.
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