The Internet is full of information and videos on how to lift weights to grow muscle.
Unfortunately, most of this content is created by gym rats for gym rats. That is, guys (women too, but mostly men) who want to grow muscle for the sake of having more muscle. Maybe they want to compete or maybe they just want to pack on pounds to impress their gym rat friends.
They’re not thinking ahead twenty, thirty or more years.
If you’re over fifty – or even approaching it – you need exercise to maintain good health, fitness and function as you grow older. You may not give two hoots in a holler whether you ever win a bodybuilding competition.
The real competition is life. Sticking around – and having the ability to enjoy your time here – makes you a long-term winner.
Age-Related Muscle Loss
It’s known as sarcopenia.
It begins as early as age thirty. Your muscle fibers decrease in both size and strength. We lose around 3% to 5% of our muscle mass per decade. Most men will lose around 30% of their muscle by the time they die.
As you age, you don’t produce as many proteins as when younger. Therefore, muscle mass goes down.Also, age-related changes to such hormones as testosterone and insulinlike growth factor (IG-1) help shrink your muscles.
Some experts say 5% to 13% of people over age 60 have it – 11% to 50% of people over age 80.
I suspect those are low estimates. Very low. From what I see, everybody over 50 (at least) is losing muscle mass.
It doesn’t get diagnosed very often because there’s no point. There’re no medications a doctor can prescribe to stop sarcopenia.
You don’t need a pill, you need exercise.
Have You Ever Watched an Elderly Person Struggle to Stand Up From a Chair?
It’s painful to see. And you have to wonder how they can go through that multiple times during the day: whenever they want to go to the bathroom, get something to eat or just lie down on their bed.
And what fun is living like that? Old age is more enjoyable when you can get out to take a walk, harvest your garden, go on cruises and play with your grandchildren. Those who can barely navigate around one room are most vulnerable to loss of lifestyle activities. They are also the most likely to require assisted living care or even a nursing home.
As Always, Prevention is Best
Some age-related muscle loss in inevitable. One obvious solution is to spend your younger years building so much mass in your important muscles that by age eighty or ninety you remain quite strong even as sarcopenia robs your muscles of some of the strength they had at age 30.
This is a good plan. If you’re under 50, go for it. Start now, or keep going and never stop.
Unfortunately, it’s also analogous to financial planners telling young adults to start saving money for retirement. Some do – but most don’t think about it until age 50 or later.
Fortunately, Seniors Can Still Grow Muscle
According to many experts, the way to build muscle mass – at any age – is progressive resistance training (PRT).
This is a form of weight lifting where you gradually increase the stress, as your muscles adapt to workouts by growing stronger. You increase the weight you lift, the number of reps and the number of sets.
As you improve, you keep increasing the weight and number of reps and sets so you keep improving.
In a recent meta-analysis published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, experts analysed 49 studies of men who practiced progressive resistance training. Those men ranged in age from 50 to 83, yet they averaged an increase in lean body mass of 2.4 pounds.
In an earlier review of studies (121 trials with 6700 participants), the review authors concluded PRT resulted in “small but significant” improvements in physical ability. Some participants increased their gait speed – that is, how fast they could walk. PRT caused large increases in muscle strength. Participants with osteoarthritis reported reduced pain.
And PRT helped participants demonstrate a moderate to large improvement in their ability to get up out of a chair.
How to Carry Out Progressive Resistance Training
The good news is, you don’t have to join a local gym and hang out with the bodybuilder bro’s.
“Resistance training” does imply you’re going to use your muscles to move something relatively heavy. That weight supplies the resistance.
If you have a set of weights and barbells, and you have experience working out with them, do what you know how – but start slowly, especially if it’s been a long time since you worked out.
You can perform various bodyweight exercises such as pushups, pullups, burpees and squats.
You can also buy light weights for one hand, from one to ten pounds. My local Walgreens carries some.
1. Warm up.
This can be performing jumping jacks or walking for ten minutes.
2. Carry out some kind of resistance exercise.
This can vary from an all-out gymbro-approved weight lifting routines to pushups or using the hand weights.
According to an article published in 2011, an intensity of 60% to 85% of your strength is required to increase muscle mass.
3. Keep going until you have to stop.
Rest and recover.
4. Experts say you can safely work out three or four times, for 20 to 30 minutes, a week. (But pay close attention to your body’s signals.)
5. Add to the resistance.
You may:
1. Increase the weight you’re lifting.
2. Increase your reps.
3. Increase the number of sets.
But do so GRADUALLY. You’re not in a race.
DO: Pay close attention to your recovery on your “off” days. Rest and recover fully before you work out again.
Conclusion
Resistance training not only slows down sarcopenia, so you function for more years, it reduces risk factors for cardiac issues, cancer, diabetes and osteoarthritis.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3117172/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4324332/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhMpBZ3w-Yw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjSZuVZykqA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxk64nan6W8
https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/downloads/growing_stronger.pdf
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23167-sarcopenia
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/preserve-your-muscle-mass
