Fit School, Epping, Pilates, Fitness, Running,Women, Mid Life, over 40 , Fat Loss, Strength, Diet
Why is it so important for you to lift weights, what we’d call resistance training, as you get older?
We know exercise is ‘good for us’ as we get older but what is so important about ‘lifting weights’ or resistance training?
It’s time to lose those preconceptions that gyms and weights rooms are only for certain types of people.
They’re for everyone but weights are especially important for older adults since without resistance training, our bodies inevitably give in to gravity and lose muscle mass.
There’s so much advice out there, some of it conflicting.
With nearly 40 years of fitness education and coaching behind us, we want to simply explain exactly what you need to do to support your brain health and some of the science behind it.
Defying Gravity
In order to understand the value of resistance training, we need to understand that we live in a on a planet that has gravity. Right now gravity is pulling us down towards the round and gravity is winning.
The more literal meaning of resistance training is resisting gravitational forces, which has nothing to do with traditional images of body building.
When it comes to the battle with age, unless we use something to help to resist gravity, like resistance training, our bodies will slowly adapt to not moving.
When you train, with weights or body weight resistance exercise like Pilates, you maintain the muscles which help you to combat gravity on a daily basis.
If you don’t, gravity just wins the battle. It pulls you down to the floor whether it be posture or a loss of muscle strength and size.
Bone Density
When you lose strength you lose bone mass as well. People generally aren’t aware that a loss in bone mass is closely linked to a loss in strength.
A drop in bone mass leads us towards osteopenia and osteoporosis. If you’ve ever been on medication that affects your bone density, then resistance training is even more important for you.
Without resistance training, you’ll inevitably lose muscle mass as you age. Some people think you naturally get fatter as you get older. Scientifically, your metabolism drops when you lose muscle.
Losing Muscle = Gaining Fat
Lean muscle mass needs more energy at rest. On average, one pound of muscle will burn 6 calories per hour at rest, whilst fat will burn 2. Over a 24 hour period that’s a difference of 96 calories. Over a month that’s nearly 3,000 calories. There are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat.
In order to maintain that muscle mass and maintain or boost your metabolism you need to do some kind of strength and conditioning, some kind of resistance training, regularly.
We don’t think about training for our posture but with gravity winning the battle for our posture, we’re all heading down towards the floor.
When we train and we use resistance, our body’s resisting gravity. One of the best ways to resist gravity is through improving our posture. Even thinking about it we all think about standing up or sitting upright. How does yours feel right now?
Resistance training is trying to prevent gravity winning the day, pulling you down towards the ground. Resistance training is trying to keep us more upright and I feel like we are definitely a lot younger than we actually are.
Want to know more?
Check out our YouTube playlist on exercise and brain health.
Or get in touch via email with the subject ‘Exercise for brains’ and let us know how we can help. EMAIL US at info@fit-school.co.uk
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