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Why do Seniors need to be strong? How do I go about getting strong? If I have lost my strength, can I get it back? Good questions. In today’s article I will strive to answer those questions.

So, why do Seniors Need to be Strong?

Basically, your quality of life depends on your ability to be independent, to be able to lift groceries and put them away, to get on and off the couch (to stand up and sit down). You need to be able to prevent a fall, and if you do start to fall, to be able to recover without injuring yourself. You should be able to walk for extended distances, climb stairs, pick things up off the floor and many other things essential to a good quality of life.

Getting older takes a toll on your body unless you take action to stay strong. You lose muscle mass, y0u lose bone density, your blood circulation is impaired, your lung capacity decreases, your metabolism slows and you can’t convert food to energy as efficiently. You become frail, stooped and often move with a shuffling gait.

Studies show that your legs are usually the first to go. Why? Those same studies indicate that you sit more as a senior than younger people, even though you are not sitting at a desk or table as often. You don’t get up and down as much and your legs don’t get the benefit. You don’t move around as much as your younger brothers and sisters. Your mostly sedentary.

So how do you prevent these things from happening to your body?

One way is to include strength training as part of your exercise routine. Strength training is a sure way to prevent losing muscle and bone mass as you get older. It is the only way to regain muscle and bone mass if you have already started to decline. Yes, you can regain both muscle mass and improve bone density through strength training. Tufts University did a number of well known studies a number of years ago demonstrating that you could regain both muscle strength and size, as well as increase bone density through strength training. They used men and women from their sixties to a few in their nineties as subjects in the studies.

So in just a few short sentences, how do you begin a strength training program?

NOTE: Before you start any exercise program, make sure you see your doctor to make sure it is safe for you. Don’t neglect this step.

You pick up some light dumbbells or some exercise bands at a big box store (Target, Walmart) or Amazon.com. I would suggest exercise bands to start with. You can purchase them in packages of three or four with varied resistances. Start slow and easy; just two or three days a week is all you need. You will increase the resistance over time.

What kinds of exercises? You can find plenty of upper and lower body exercises with both weights and bands online. Most exercises can be done at any age as long as you start slowly and easily, using minimum resistance at first. Increase the resistance each week. You’ll be amazed at how quickly your strength increases. You should even see some increase in your muscle size — not a lot, but some. If you experience sharp pain, stop and get it checked out. Expect some muscle soreness when you first start.

As for your legs, simply getting up off the couch a few times is a good start. Do it without using your hands and your legs will get a workout. Get a simple chair and stand up and sit down ten times in a row. After a few days of those, do the same movement without the chair and try to go a little deeper. In fitness circles, those are called “squats”, one of the best of all leg exercises. If it’s too hard on you knees to go deeper, then stick with the chair. Try rising up on your toes a few times too. That will work your lower legs. But careful, too many will cause a bit of an ache in your calf muscles.

So that’s strength training? It’s simply working your muscles through physical resistance. You can use weights (dumbbells,etc), resistance bands (tubes or wide bands), the weight of your own body through calisthenic style exercises, or pitting one muscle against another (isometrics). The best is probably a combination of all of those. I do them all, but I carry resistance bands with me when I travel. They’re easy to pack and don’t take up much space.

You can get stronger at any age. Once you start including strength exercises, you should see and feel results quickly. Don’t overdo it, but do it. Your body will look, feel, and function younger and you’ll be glad you started. Remember to start with baby steps and ease your body and mind into it. Give it a try – once you see and feel the results, you won’t want to stop.

Thank you for reading.

I am writing this from the beach on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, avoiding the heavy pre-Labor Day beach mobs that populated this beach last week. So, write a blog post? Are you kidding?

The weather is perfect with a high temperature of only 85 degrees and perfect surf. The sunrise this morning was magnificent and we were up well before sunrise to watch it all. We expect the same weather tomorrow.

There are a lot of “older” people here now. Most are not in the best of physical shape and they show it well. I’m being very polite. Others seem to be a lot more physically functional, walking and moving around on the beach and even in the water. We see a few younger folks running up and down the beach, but most of the younger genre are back home dealing with their kids first days of school.

Edie and I are practicing what I preach. We are beach walking over a half hour, twice a day, drinking plenty of water, and staying in the sun only in the morning and later afternoon. We spend the middle of the days being tourists. There is a floor in our hotel room— imagine that. So I get down on it and do a few simple planks and crunches and the like. I also brought some stretch bands which I have yet to use — maybe tomorrow.

Home before the weekend. Why so early? I have my 60th High School Reunion this weekend. What’s that? 60th? Yes, that’s sixtieth! And it seems like only yesterday — well maybe the day before yesterday.

Anyhow, no big long blog post today. You can click here if you want to read this again. But that’s it. No real article today. Until next Tuesday . . .

Thank you for reading.

“As Seniors, our health and fitness goals are different from those of the younger set. We want to feel good, be healthy, have energy and look good too. We want to be able to be active and independent. We want to feel young, lose fat, live long, expire quickly and leave a good looking corpse.”

That was the opening paragraph of Energy Bite 142 in June of 2016, over two years ago.

Some of what follows is also from that article but with some major editorial modifications.

Most seniors want to be strong, healthy and fit. We like being able to move. Just don’t call it exercise. So anything that we do call exercise had better work, and work fast, otherwise we will stop doing it.

OK, how about a reality check. To avoid a deteriorating body and mind, we must move our bodies, eat right, breathe deeply, and get plenty of rest and sleep. We also must have a positive attitude toward doing it. That’s not so easy to install as a habit pattern. We are used to sitting in front of the TV watching whatever we enjoy. We are used to sitting at a computer doing whatever. We are not used to moving a lot during the day, and most of us certainly aren’t used to “exercise”, and most of us don’t particularly want to change the way we eat.

Greg Glassman, the founder of the Crossfit Exercise Program, which has revolutionized the way fitness programs are conducted throughout the world, says that most people have a two fold problem: 1. “Sedentariansim” (We don’t move), and 2. Excess Carbohydrates in our diet. He says the solution is easy: 1. Get off the couch, and 2. Get off the carbs. (Crossfit says “light carbs and no sugar.” I agree with that).

One way to motivate ourselves to move more is to include a lot of variety in our exercise. We can lift weights, walk, stretch, and do all sorts of other movements to keep ourselves fit, but it had better not be boring. We need variety. Once size doesn’t fit all.

Different kinds of exercises do different things and we need them all as we age. We need resistance exercise to keep our muscles and bones doing their jobs. We need to walk or even run to keep our heart and lungs strong and healthy. We need stretching and calisthenics to keep our joints working right. We need balance work so we don’t fall. We need variety. Variety is the “Spice” of Exercise.

There are numerous varieties of exercise and movement disciplines to draw from, each providing one or all of the above. Among these are:

Pilates . . . Yoga . . . Tai Chi . . . Gynastica Naturale (yes,that’s the correct spelling) . . . Calisthenics . . . Resistance training . . . movement focused programs like MovNat . . . and many others.

The variety and choices are many, and they are not mutually exclusive.

There are very few instructional materials designed specifically for seniors on the subject of exercise. There are tons of books for younger people and some for middle aged people, but as we become older, our needs and capabilities change.  Exercise becomes more critical to our health and fitness and our ability to stay independent. Yet we have to adapt our exercise to reflect the realities of aging.

Most training programs are based on the overload principle called “S.A.I.D.” in the Personal Training Vocabulary. Technically that means “Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand” which means our bodies will adapt to increased workloads, provided we don’t overdo it. If we increase the demand (overload) periodically, our bodies will adapt with more strength, longer runs or walks, and increased range of motion of our joints.

Wouldn’t it be nice if someone were to combine movement from some of the disciplines I listed above into a single program designed specifically for Seniors, and made it available for an attractive price? Hmm . . .

As we get older, we need to reinforce our ability to push things and pull things. We need to be able to lift things and carry what we lift. That means we must do things that will build, or at least maintain our strength as we age. When we build strength, day to day activities are easier to do than if we don’t.

There are many forms of exercise to choose from. Choose one, or better still, combine a couple from the list above, and get started. Check with your doctor first, and then get on with it. And like I wrote at the beginning, you’ll feel young, lose fat, live long, expire quickly and leave a good looking corpse.

Thank you for reading.