Category: Senior Fitness

If you don’t move your body the way nature intended it to move, your muscles will atrophy and weaken, your joints will squeak and complain like the rusty hinges they will become, your bones will become porous and brittle and your body will stiffen and lock up. You’ve read that on these pages before.

“The body will become better at whatever you do — or don’t do. You don’t move? The body will make you better at NOT moving, by locking the tissues together. If you move, the body will allow you more movement.”       — Ido Portal

If you are sedentary, you begin to lose muscle mass between ages 20 and 30 and can lose up to ten percent mass per decade if you remain sedentary. If you are physically active, you can maintain muscle mass until around age 60 when it slowly begins to decline unless you increase resistance exercise to compensate. If you have lost muscle mass and strength, can you regain it, or can you build new muscle mass? Studies by Tufts University researchers have shown that older adults, including both men and women as old as 93, can significantly increase strength and muscle mass as a result of doing resistance exercises, up to 300% in both strength and size over a six month period. When your leg muscles are weak, it’s easier to lose your balance and fall. When your core muscles are weak, your posture suffers and you start to develop that telltale old age slump.

How about your bones? Bone density declines as you get older, too. You start losing bone mass around age 30 if you are sedentary. This result from changes in hormonal levels and poor nutrition as well as inactivity. Your bones can lose mass and become very brittle (Osteoporosis) as you age, if you don’t compensate with exercise and proper nutrition. This can result in your bones breaking even with a simple fall. It’s been shown that 70% of those admitted to Emergency Rooms over 60 are as a result of falls — broken hips being the notable result of most falls. Your bone density is easy to measure. Check with your doctor to see if a DEXA bone density exam is called for.

Your joints get old too. They get weak and stiff. They creak and make terrible sounds. Hip and knee joints get weak and creaky and can become injured when overtaxed. Weak hip and knee joints result in reduced mobility and loss of range of motion. Shoulder and elbow joints are also easily injured when stressed in unusual positions, arm wrestling at age 75 for example, or swinging from trees for another. Arthritis in the joints can be painful and annoying. Joints, too, can be treated with exercise, but beware of overexercise. Some arthritis, particularly in the knees and hips has been shown to be caused by overuse. A knowledgeable fitness professional can help you.

These are the basic musculo-skeletal aspects of aging and how they can affect you as you get older. As you get older, you must keep your body strong and flexible. You can’t afford to let your body decay and it’s not too late to start exercising and moving your body. The only point of no return is when you breathe your last breath. You are never too old to recover your strength and mobility. But the longer you wait, the more your body will deteriorate.

So start a program of simple movements to regain your lost strength and range of motion — NOW! Start slow and easy and talk to a fitness professional to develop a routine that addresses your own physical situation and goals. Listen to your body and stop if you feel sharp or intense pain. See your doctor before you begin any exercise program.

Remember that You Are Your Own Fountain of Youth and it’s never too late to find that Fountain within you.

Thank you for reading.

Some not so nice “Things” happen to us as we get older. Among those things are:

• Our muscles atrophy (Sarcopenia), along with the perception of increased effort to do simple tasks.
• Our bones get brittle and break easily through loss of bone mass.They can degenerate into Osteoporosis.
• Our skin gets wrinkly and thin.
• Our joints get rusty and creaky. Arthritis sets in and can be painful.
• Our digestive system acts up and we have stomach or intestinal challenges.
• We have problems with our balance leading to falls.
• Our lungs tend to lose capacity resulting in shallow breathing and less oxygen intake.
• Our posture deteriorates. We hunch over.
• Our voice becomes weak.
• We experience hearing loss.
• . . . and much more.

You might ask, “How fast does that happen?” “When does it start?” “Can it be stopped?” “Can it be reversed?” “Can I get my youth back?”

The answer is “yes”, “no”, “sometimes” and “maybe” — not necessarily in that order. It depends upon what you are doing now to prevent physical deterioration, and what you do in the future to get back and maintain your health and fitness, You can offset many of the effects of aging. You are your own Fountain of Youth.

During the next several weeks I will address those questions in a series of articles on the effects of aging and what you can do to manage them. Some of the answers I know. Others I have my own opinions on. I don’t want you to rely totally on my own knowledge, experience and opinion, so I will go to outside sources for assistance. Where there is conflicting information, I will salt and pepper the articles with as many sides as make sense. Will there be confusion? Probably! Just look at the differing opinions about what we should be eating, as well as the different varieties of exercise that are promoted. I will attempt to make as much sense out of them as I can. For some things, we will all just have to remain confused.

I’m looking forward to bringing these upcoming articles to you. I think you will find them useful for your own health and well being. Stay tuned.

Thank you for reading.

I’ve spent a few weeks writing about breathing – all kinds of breathing. Ever wonder what happens to all that oxygen when you breathe it into your lungs? What does that oxygen do for you? How is it converted to energy? What are the mechanics?

Your respiratory system works alongside your cardiovascular system (heart and blood vessels) to supply your organs with fuel at the cellular level, where it is bio-chemically converted to energy so your organs, muscles, brain and the rest of your body function. Here’s how it works.

Your respiratory system, consisting of your lungs and the “tubes” from your nose and mouth, collects the oxygen you breathe in and transports it into your bloodstream. It’s your heart and blood vessels that are responsible for getting the oxygen from  your lungs to the cells of your body to make it work. Once that oxygen (and other nutrients) get to your cells, your blood which is now loaded with carbon dioxide and other waste products, returns to your heart and lungs where the bad air is exhaled and the cycle starts over again. When you exercise, you inhale more oxygen and the heart pumps your blood throughout your body much faster to keep your energy up and your body working. We learned in High School that Arteries carry oxygenated blood away from your heart, and veins bring the carbon dioxide filled air from the body back to the heart and lungs. Remember the diagrams? Arteries were red and veins were blue.

“In a simplistic overview, oxygen and carbon dioxide trade places in the tissues of the body, blood, and lungs. As one is coming in, the other is going out.”   — NASM Essentials of Personal Fitness Training, Third Edition, p. 50.

What happens with all that oxygen when it gets to your cells? Simply speaking it provides your body with energy. Energy is “capacity to do work”. “Bioenergetics” is the study of human energy and how food and oxygen are converted into energetic capacity. The “Bioenergetic Continuum” is the pathway that energy creation takes. Just thought you’d want to know.

It seems that most cells have something in them called mitochondria. These little jewels are called the “furnace of the body” and create energy through a chemical reaction to form ATP (Adenosine triphosphate) which is the fuel source for the cell. Muscle cells have more mitrochondria per cell than others and use the most energy. The waste product from all of this is Carbon Dioxide and is sent back to the heart and lungs to be eliminated when you exhale. That’s about all there is to it. And that’s about as far as I am going to take this except to point out that the muscles burn either fat or glucose depending on the type of exercise you are doing (running vs. sprinting or lifting light weights vs. maximum capacity heavy weightlifting), and affects the way the ATP is combined with other chemicals.

I tried to keep that as simple, understandable and useful as possible. Whether I succeeded or not is up for question. I promised to write about it and I kept my promise. But if it was still too complicated, here is the way your grandkids learn it: (Source: biology4kids.com)

“Using Oxygen to Release Energy

How does cellular respiration occur in mitochondria? The matrix is filled with water and proteins (enzymes). Those proteins take organic molecules, such as pyruvate and acetyl CoA, and chemically digest them. Proteins embedded in the inner membrane and enzymes involved in the citric acid cycle ultimately release water (H₂O) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) molecules from the breakdown of oxygen (O₂) and glucose (C₆H₁₂O₆). The mitochondria are the only places in the cell where oxygen is reduced and eventually broken down into water.”

Oh, now I get it. Thank you for reading.