You can’t package it into a pill, but physical activity is the best anti-aging medicine, and when you stay physically active, you’re less likely to need prescription medications. Why is exercise so important? Not only does it lower the risk of health problems, like cardiovascular disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes, but it also slows the physical decline that occurs with aging.
Aging isn’t a one-trick pony. As you mature, your fitness declines in more than one way. That’s why you need different forms of exercise to reduce age-related declines in function and stay fit and healthy as the years go by. Let’s look at the different ways fitness declines with age, and how exercise will help you preserve it.
Loss of Aerobic Capacity and Stamina
One complaint about getting older is feeling tired and lacking stamina. In people who aren’t physically active, aerobic capacity decreases with age. As aerobic capacity goes down, you’re less capable of delivering oxygen to your muscles, and your muscle cells become less efficient at producing ATP, a muscle cell’s energy currency. You may find you lack the stamina to walk long distances or be as physically active as you’d like. You can’t keep up like you used to.
Regular aerobic exercise will improve your stamina and endurance by making your heart a more efficient pump. Plus, physical activity, especially vigorous workouts, enhances the health of energy-producing organelles called mitochondria. Mitochondrial health is linked with healthier aging.
Decline in Strength
Strength and muscle size begin to diminish by age 35 or 40, and loss of strength and muscle size speeds up after 60. By age 80, you may have lost as much as half the muscle mass you had in your 20s. Even if you’re not interested in muscle definition, loss of muscle strength leads to a physical decline.
Losing muscle has health implications too. Sarcopenia, loss of muscle, and an increase in body fat are epidemics among the elderly. When you have sarcopenia, it negatively affects your metabolic health, by impacting how your body handles glucose and insulin, placing you at higher risk of type 2 diabetes.
The solution is straightforward: work your muscles against resistance. Research shows that people in the seventh, eighth, and even ninth decade of life can increase strength and build muscle, so it’s never too late. But it’s best to begin before you experience a significant loss of muscle.
Power Loss
Power is a function of strength and time. It’s the ability to generate strength quickly. You might wonder why you need power capabilities if you aren’t a serious athlete. You need power to generate thrust to push yourself out of a chair, for example. Some older adults, partially due to lack of conditioning, lack that power and need help getting up.
The way to preserve power is to strength train but use a fast tempo. Rather than lifting the weight slowly, increase the speed. Other ways to build and maintain power are kettlebell exercises, like kettlebell swings, plyometric exercises, and fast-paced whole-body exercises, like sprinting. Think speed and explosive power.
Balance Capabilities
You also lose balance skills as you age. It’s not hard to grasp why that’s harmful. You get up to navigate to the bathroom at night, stumble, and fall. It happens all the time to people who are young and old. However, the implications, like fracturing a hip, are more concerning in the elderly. That’s why it’s essential to include exercises that sharpen the nervous system pathways that help you balance.
One way to improve your sense of balance is to include unilateral exercises in your routine. These are exercises where you work one side at a time, like one-legged squats. Lunges are another exercise that challenges and builds stronger balance skills.
You can even work on balance skills when you aren’t doing a structured workout. When you’re standing around, lift one leg and hold it as long as possible. Then, switch legs. Do it regularly and you will be able to balance longer and have better proprioceptive skills.
Flexibility
Humans are most flexible during childhood and early adulthood. But as you age, tendons and ligaments become stiffer, and the synovial fluid that fills the joint space and cushions it thins out. Plus, muscles stiffen from inactivity and too much sitting.
If you stretch regularly, you’ll increase your muscle’s tolerance for lengthening, which will improve your flexibility. But simply staying active is important too. Along with strength training to improve strength and mobility, stretch in the morning when you wake up. Also, take breaks throughout the day to stretch for 5 minutes to break up periods of sitting. When you sit too long, your hip flexors contract. You should also stretch after a workout after you cool down. Yoga is beneficial for enhancing flexibility too.
The Bottom Line
The key to staying fit and functional as you age is physical activity, but you need more than one type of exercise to preserve flexibility, balance, power, strength, and endurance. Keep your workouts varied, use proper form and be consistent. That’s the key to successful aging. Investing in physical fitness will pay off later with greater functionality and the ability to do the things you enjoy.
References:
- Exercise Physiology. Fifth Edition. McArdle, Katch, and Katch. 2001.
- ACSM Current Comment. “Strength Training and the Older Adult”
- Science Daily. “Study on 90-year-olds reveals the benefits of strength training”
- Journal of Aging Research Volume 2013 (2013), Article ID 743843, 8 pages.
- J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2006 Aug;61(8):851-8.
- “Fitness Predicts Longevity in Older Adults | National ….” nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/fitness-predicts-longevity-older-adults.
- Rejuvenation Res. 2015 Feb;18(1):57-89. doi: 10.1089/rej.2014.1623.
- Farinatti PT, Rubini EC, Silva EB, Vanfraechem JH. Flexibility of the elderly after one-year practice of yoga and calisthenics. Int J Yoga Therap. 2014;24:71-7. PMID: 25858653.
- Sports Med 33(12):877-88.
- “Regular, Vigorous Exercise May Lengthen Your Life”
- “Hip Fractures Among Older Adults | Home and Recreational ….” https://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/falls/adulthipfx.html.
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