Most everyone knows that exercise benefits them, but many don’t realize the life-preserving benefits of strength training. Unless you were lucky to be born in the more inclusive “Body Neutral” perspectives of the Gen Z generation, you were likely raised to believe that exercise is used to lose weight and to be skinny.
We’d like to flip that body-shaming script and inform you how strength training can create longevity and help you live your best life. Let’s start this conversation with an unfortunate fact: lean muscle mass naturally decreases with age. If you don’t do anything to replace the muscle loss, your body comp will be unfavorably dense with body fat.
This natural age-related progressive loss of muscle mass and strength is called sarcopenia. You gradually lose muscle mass and strength sometime in your 30s and 40s. This process then picks up between the ages of 65 and 80. You may lose 8% of your muscle mass each decade. By age 80, we lose up to 40% of muscle mass. This decline impacts our strength and is also linked to neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer's.
How to Preserve Your Muscle Strength
The good news is that there is a natural treatment for sarcopenia. Regular, consistent resistance-based strength training is the anecdote. It can help improve your strength and reverse your muscle loss. Strength training is the most important way to promote overall longevity and healthspan.
What the Experts Say About Lifting Weights
Several experts and studies agree that strength training is key for muscle preservation, age-related disease prevention, and living an active life into your upper decades. They also conclude that declines in your health as you age are not standard and are certainly not inevitable!
The Department of Health and Human Services recommends incorporating strength training exercises of all the major muscle groups into a fitness routine at least two times a week. As your muscle mass increases, you’ll be able to lift weights more easily and for more extended periods of time. You’ll also help to maintain your bone density, better manage your weight and improve your body’s metabolism.
Researchers at Brigham Young University, who studied the DNA of nearly 6000 adults, found that the telomeres (the end caps on chromosomes that shorten with age) were longer in active people than sedentary ones. This correlated to about a 9-year difference in cell aging between those who were active versus those who were inactive.
Another study compared the heart, lungs, and muscles of active 70-year-olds, inactive 70-year-olds, and active 40-year-olds. They found that the active older men and women had comparable heart and lung capacity and muscle strength to those 30 years younger.
The British Journal of Sports Medicine found a 10 to 20 percent drop in mortality risk, cardiovascular disease, and cancer for those who did 30 to 60 minutes of strength training a week.
Muscular Strength is Good for You
In addition to maintaining your muscle mass, strength training:
Help you develop strong bones
Enhances your quality of life
Manages chronic conditions
Sharpens your thinking skills
Improve your mental well-being and overall resilience
Helps you live the life you’ve always wanted!
Is empowering and super fun!
Is self-love in its strongest form!
How We Promote Weight Training in Manitowoc, WI
At Juniper PT, many clients start working with our physical therapists when injured or in pain. We evaluate and treat the source of their pain and often see improvement in just a few sessions. For them to become resilient and have lasting results, we frequently discover that the underlying cause of their pain is a lack of muscle strength. We give them prescriptive exercises in physical therapy, which can keep their pain at bay.
However, our most successful clients take the next step with us and participate in our wellness program. This program includes personal training with or without monthly physical therapy checkups. Our personal training focuses on developing muscle strength for life’s demands.
We inquire about your goals and work towards them at your pace. We believe age is just a number. We want our clients to feel good and be strong, so they can confidently tackle all that life throws at them.
Bottomline
Strength training helps you preserve and enhance your muscle mass at any age. And the good news is, IT’S NEVER TOO LATE!
If you believe age is just a number and are ready to start preserving your muscle mass to be strong for life, call us at (920)320-9838 for your free personal training phone consultation today. You can also book this call online at juniperpt.com.