If you include strength training (also called resistance training) in your workout routine, take a well-deserved bow. You’re addressing a vital part of aging well. If you aren’t strength training and don’t know why you should or how to start, keep reading.
Strength training improves your muscle fitness and can be a game changer for your health. It’s not about trying to look like a competitive bodybuilder. It’s giving your body the muscles it needs to live a long and active life.
What is strength training?
Strength training is a type of exercise that helps maintain or build your muscle mass and strength. Muscle mass is the total amount of muscle tissue in your body. Muscle strength is the muscle’s ability to generate force. You don’t need fancy equipment for strength training. You can use body weight exercises, resistance bands, free weights, or weight machines.
Strong muscles help ensure you can keep up with your grandkids.
Why does everyone need strength training?
Unused muscles decline. From birth to about age 30, your muscles grow and get stronger. In your 30s, experts have found this development decreases. If you don’t use your muscles, you continue to lose muscle mass and strength over time. The loss can eventually affect your ability to move freely and increase the risk for injuries and falls. This is called age-related sarcopenia and can lead to becoming frail in later years.
If you work your muscles properly and regularly, so many good things happen. Strength training helps maintain your ability to contract your muscles so you can lift, pull, push, and hold objects as well as walk, stand, climb, balance, and more. You can keep your body moving, even as you age.
In addition, increased muscle mass can improve metabolism and help manage chronic conditions like diabetes. Bone density, brain health, and mental health are better supported, too. All these benefits mean a better quality of life.
You're never to old to start strength training.
Check with your doctor: Talk to your doctor before starting a new exercise program. This is even more important if you are managing a chronic or other health condition. Your doctor can help you decide what types of exercises are right for you based on your health status.
Determine your goals: Decide if you just want to prevent losing your muscle fitness or if you want to build more muscle mass and strength. This will determine the type of strength training you do. Everyone should at least focus on keeping what they have. HMSA Health Educator Pete Clines says, “As we age, our strength training goals should focus on slowing muscle loss, improving mobility to prevent falls, and strengthening our bones to prevent fractures. We also need to maintain the ability to perform daily tasks such as opening jars, lifting items from a high shelf, and getting ourselves up from the floor unassisted.”
Set a schedule: The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition recommends adults do muscle-strengthening activities that involve all major muscle groups two or more days a week. Clines adds, “You could strength train a little bit each day, provided you vary the body parts being targeted. Successive workouts for a specific muscle group should occur two to three days later.”
Start slowly and use proper form: Warm up and cool down to get your body ready to begin and recover afterward. You can start with body weight exercises or light dumbbell. Beginner body weight exercises include wall pushups, sitting down and standing up from a chair, or doing a lunge while holding a chair. Aim for eight to 12 reps to start. Consider working with a personal trainer or following videos online, such as videos found at Nutrition.gov.
It’s time to increase weight or repetitions, called progressive overload, “when it becomes consistently easier to perform 12 reps with your chosen weight,” explains Clines. “Try a slightly heavier weight. Your reps will drop, but over time you’ll work back to 12 reps. Then increase the weight again. If you’re performing body weight exercises, such as squats or push-ups, simply increase the reps as you get more fit. Be sure to maintain proper form.”
Maximize your movements: Strength training primarily involves three types of contractions. Concentric contractions shorten the muscle when you lift the weight. Eccentric contractions lengthen the muscle when you lower the weight. Isometric contractions stabilize your position. Clines says all three movements should be done deliberately, controlling the movement. “If you lift a weight and just let it drop down, you’re cheating yourself out of half of the exercise.”
Breathe, hydrate, and ensure proper nutrition: Breathe out when activating or contracting your muscles (e.g., lifting, pulling, or pushing), and breathe in when lowering your weights, releasing tension, or relaxing your muscles during an exercise. “If you hold your breath, you’re starving your muscles of oxygen,” Clines adds. Also make sure you hydrate properly and ensure adequate nutrition, like getting enough protein.
Make it fun: Clines says, “Think of exercise as something you get to do, not something you have to do. Too often, we don’t appreciate the joy of movement until it is taken away from us by age or injury.”
Pete Clines started at HMSA in 2000 as a fitness specialist. He became a health educator in 2003, providing in-person and online health education workshops for HMSA members throughout Hawaii. Check out HMSA's health education workshops for more ways to improve your wellness.
