Staying Strong Post 60 - Why Strength Training is Vital for Seniors

Importance of weight training for seniors

Once you turn 60, you will begin to lose 3% or around 2 kg of your muscle strength each year. Weight training will help you regain the lost muscle and slow down ageing at the cellular level. Exercise not only keeps you fit, but also slows down the ageing process at the DNA level. Therefore, weight training for seniors should be an important part of your weekly routine.

Growing old also causes your joints to get stiffer because the lubricating fluid in the joints decreases and your cartilage gets thinner. Your ligaments (tissue that connects bones to other bones) also lose flexibility and become shorter. Hence, your joints start to feel stiff. Luckily, weight training can help strengthen your muscles around the joints, reduce pain due to arthritis, and improve the functioning of your joints.

Function

Strength training is important for maintaining your functional independence. Muscle strength is how much force your muscles generate. Muscle power, however, is how quickly your muscles can generate that much force.

For example, when you get up from a chair normally, your muscles contract fast, and you use muscle power to get up, which is a combination of speed and strength. When you stand up from a chair slowly, you do not use speed, you only use muscle strength. People older than 60 who have lost muscle power often struggle with such tasks and need to rely on the arms for extra support.

Power

Muscle power is vital even for basic actions like walking, climbing stairs, getting up from a chair, and regaining your balance after stumbling. For instance, when you stumble or slip while walking, regaining your balance without falling needs your hip, leg, and ankle muscles to contract superfast to catch yourself from falling.

Therefore, if you are over 60, you must take up a weight training routine that improves both muscle power and strength.

What kind of weight training can seniors do?

● If you are over 60, you should incorporate training with iron weights. The weights train both your muscle strength and power if you use them with a resistance that you can lift around 15 times. Each repetition should be done as quickly as possible to train your muscle power.

● If you are not used to lifting weights, then you should begin with bodyweight exercises. These include lunges, squats, step-ups, push-ups, and shoulder presses. These build strength in your limbs and help you to push yourself up if you happen to fall.

● Additionally, you should include balancing exercises such as raising one foot off the ground and extending it outwards while balancing on the other foot. This will improve balance and help you avoid falls.

● Once you hit 60, you can also try plyometric training. This will help improve your muscle power. Examples of such exercises include jumping jacks, speed training using resistance bands, whipping big ropes up and down, pushing an exercise ball from chest level, etc.

Loss of muscle power and strength is avoidable and even reversible with weight training for seniors. All you need to do is train with weights, resistance bands, or do bodyweight and balancing exercises. Muscle loss in seniors is usually due to lack of use. Therefore, you can reverse the ageing of your muscles by doing strength training. This will also decrease joint pain and prevent your bones from becoming brittle.