How Pumping Iron can Preserve your Muscle Mass (and Unleash your Inner Tiger)!

If you think that you are too old to pump iron (lift weights) and get ‘over-the-top-fit when you are over 60, think again! Lifting weights is beneficial for people of all ages and is especially beneficial for older adults. Weightlifting can improve and help you prevent muscle mass loss (sarcopenia), increase your mobility and add many more healthy years to your life.

There are benefits for both the body and the mind. As you become stronger and fitter, you will gain more confidence and sleep better, be happier and have better focus.  

Why Weight training?

After you turn 50, your muscle tone declines by 15% each decade, and eventually you become more prone to poor balance and falling, the main causes for hospitalization for seniors.

An older person I know, 88-year-old Mary, like many seniors, has several maladies, arthritis, osteoporosis, macular degeneration and a hip replacement. But unlike most older adults, she does intensive strength training twice a week. She credits the exercises with allowing her to live independently. “I still live by myself, “she says, “I like my independence, and I take care of myself.”

Mary is in one of the fastest-growing age groups — individuals age 80 and older. By 2050, this “oldest old” group is expected to triple in number to 447 million worldwide, so we need to pay attention to them.

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends weight training for all people over age 50, even those of us who are over 90.

Here’s how lifting weights can benefit older adults:

• • Lifting weights helps to develop stronger bones and lowers age related muscle loss
  • Strengthens leg muscles
  • Improves range of motion
  • Increases lung capacity
  • helps those with arthritis and joint pain to improve their pain management

What’s the inside story?

New research into weightlifting has revealed two insights: that the practice is able to strengthen the connections between nerves and muscles, and that this strengthening can still happen in the later years of our lives.

We actually start losing muscle mass before the age of 40. This decline can’t be stopped, but a new study by Casper Sondenbroe of the University of Copenhagan shows that it can be slowed down significantly. According to the study’s results, weight training makes the connections between nerves and muscles stronger, protecting the motor neurons in the spinal cord – essential for a well-functioning body.

“Previously, researchers have been unable to prove that weight training can strengthen the connection between the motor neurons and the muscles,” Sondenbroe says, “Our study is the first to present findings suggesting that this is indeed the case.”

The study focused on a group of healthy men with an average age of 72, who undertook a 16-week course of intensive weightlifting training. Their program involved leg presses, leg extensions, leg curls, and two upper arm exercises. Another group of 20 healthy, elderly men, again with an average age of 72, did no weight training and were used as a control comparison.

What was the outcome?

After two months the differences in muscle size and fitness could be seen. Researchers collected muscle biopsies and found detectable changes in the study group.

“The study shows that even though you begin late in life, you can still make a difference. Of course,” he says, “the sooner you start, the better, but it is never too late – even if you are 65 or 70 years old. Your body can still benefit from heavy weight training.”

Although this study was done with men, this applies to women, too: for example, older women, who are more prone to osteoporosis benefit from this type of resistance training just as much as men do.

The Importance of Exercise

It is clear that exercise is the best prescription for maintaining independence. But what is the right frequency, intensity and duration? What type of exercise is best? At what age do you need to start — and how late is too late?

Since independent living requires the ability to perform the activities of daily life — bathing or showering, dressing, getting in and out of bed or a chair, walking, and eating it’s important to focus on these four attributes:

• • cardiorespiratory fitness (how well the cardiovascular system and breathing apparatus supply oxygen during physical exertion)
  • muscle strength and power
  • flexibility
  • dynamic balance, meaning the ability to remain stable while moving.

Aging takes a toll on all parts of your body, but particularly in these two instances:

Cardiovascular fitness — the ability of heart and blood vessels to distribute and use oxygen during exertion — declines throughout adulthood as our circulatory capacity decreases. When older, prolonged inactivity and conditions such as heart failure, diabetes and obesity make the situation worse.

Dynamic balance, essential for walking, stair-climbing and avoiding falls, declines also, thanks to deterioration of the musculoskeletal system and of neurologic function. And muscle mass decreases by about 3 to 8 percent per decade after 30, with decline accelerating after 60. The more immobile you are, the faster this wasting can proceed.

This muscle loss, known as sarcopenia, is why walking, one of the most popular forms of exercise, may not be enough to keep us operating independently.

No, walking is not enough!

“People think, ‘Oh, I walk,’ but walking will not help you build muscle,” says scientist Rebecca Seguin-Fowler, at the Texas Institute for Advancing Health.

The federal government’s exercise guidelines are at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity along with muscle-strengthening exercises such as lifting weights or working with resistance bands — at least eight to 12 repetitions for each exercise — at least two days per week. To that, people 65 and older should add balance and flexibility training — like tai chi, or yoga.

How can you improve muscle mass?

Two decades of research have shown that resistance training can prevent and even reverse the loss of muscle mass, power and strength that people typically experience as they age.

Here is what works, according to an analysis of 25 studies involving people 60 and older, with an average age of 70:

Exercisers should have two sessions of machine-weight training per week, with a training intensity of 70 to 79 percent of their “one-rep max” — the maximum load that they could fully lift if they were only doing it once. Each session includes two to three sets of each exercise and seven to nine repetitions per set.

For the oldest old of us:

As for fitness for the oldest old, the first study of this group was a clinical trial with 100 frail, elderly nursing home residents in Boston. The average age was just over 87, and more than a third of participants were 90 or older. The vast majority used a cane, walker or wheelchair; half had arthritis; many had pulmonary disease, bone fractures, cognitive impairment or depression.

Individuals assigned to the exercise group completed a regimen of high-intensity resistance training of hip and knee muscles three days per week for 10 weeks. The training was progressive, meaning that the load was increased at each training session if the individual could tolerate it.

By the end of the trial, exercisers had significantly increased muscle strength and mobility in their hips and knees compared to a group of non-exercisers. Four participants no longer used walkers after the training, getting by with a cane instead.

The lead investigator for that study was Maria Fiatarone Singh, a geriatrician at the University of Sydney. She says strength training, which helps with balance, is the top-priority exercise because it makes other forms of activity possible.

“Most people, including health-care professionals, still have this idea that the most important thing is to help people to walk around, but that is only important if they actually can walk around,” she says. “You have to have strength and balance first.”

The bottom line:

Researchers have been studying the effects of strength training for more than 40 years and have identified ways it can benefit older adults, including maintaining muscle mass, improving mobility, and increasing the healthy years of life. But that’s not all.

Senior weight training not only builds strength, but it also leads to better motivation and more self-confidence.

Strength training can also boost our brain, alleviate depression, reduce anxiety, help with things like memory and preventing cognitive decline.

And now, for a wider view:

As many populations around the world continue to live longer, the issue of preserving a good quality of life in our twilight years becomes more and more important – and that includes keeping muscles working as well as possible.

The next stage in this particular area of research is to work out not only how seniors can live longer doing weight training, but, but also how they can experience improved well-being and quality of life.