Current lifestyle changes have enabled the transformation of people who were once dismissively considered middle-aged, into the new, vibrant category of the healthily mature man. While ageing is inevitable, some do so gracefully, while others, disgracefully!
Sarcopenia is the decline of skeletal muscle tissue with age, causing much functional decline. Accompanying this loss of muscle mass is a shrinking of strength and decline of power, as we lose 2-4 kilos of muscle in a decade
Indulging in the bad habits of over-eating and drinking, and becoming more indolent and less active, will guarantee ill-health, diminishing fitness and a riskier future.
Those who care about how they look, feel and act are certain to be the individuals who enjoy more balanced nutritional meals. They also share active social lives and they are definitely more physically active.
Today’s movers-and-shakers are those who move! Remaining consistantly active is the essential explanation for the cool, sleek and confident healthily-mature folk we see in gyms, on the roads and beaches, in clubs and pubs.
JoAnn Manson, Professor of Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School, states:
“The magic bullet for good health is staying physically active. It affects every other factor: bloodpressure, insuline sensitivity , bloodsugar, cholesterol levels, weight, inflammatory levels. Everything is improved by regular physical activity!”
Much research has recognised that regular physical activity reduces the risks of cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, obesity, falls, osteoporosis, muscle weakness and degeneration, cognitive impairment, loss of balance and coordination. Ageing leads to increasing frailty, with decreasing bone-density and risks of fractures, weakening and degeneration of muscle tissue. In addition, there are declining cognitative powers, memory and learning abilities.
However, maintaining your activity levels will resist the debilitating effects of this decline. The World Health Organisation recommends at least 150-300 minutes weekly of continuous, moderate intensity activity, or 70-150 minutes of vigorous activity every week. Included, there should be strengthening, whole body activities.
There is a plethora of activities available:
Walking briskly, at least 10,000 steps a workout, is the cheapest and most available form of activity, done outdoors, fresh air, vit D, all readily available! This low-impact activity circumvents the stresses on joints felt in Jogging and Running movements. Water workouts, and/or swimming, will take stress off joints and create major cardio benefits. High-Intensity-interval-Training, is where you simply add short, intermittent bursts of intensity to your activity. Yoga & Pilates, practised to create better, mindful control of body action, increasing strength and flexibility, balance and coordination.
And, most significant for me and many others, muscle-strengthening through resistance training, using own body weight or dumbells so that we resist the harmful effects of Sarcopenia, the decline of skeletal muscle tissue that accompanies ageing.
Muscle mass shrinks through both inactivity and ageing, creating a strength and power decline. Muscles, at any age, need to be challenged and respond to load or force, so they remain in good, functional tone.
As much as cardiovascular exercise is important for fitness and health, muscle-conditioning is more important, as the weakening of muscles will affect all physical functions.
How one exercises, using weights for resistance, is truly important.
When Frank Zane, one of the great body building Mr Universes, back in the 1980s, visited South Africa and, with Arnold Schwartzenner, offered advice to the locals on their training methods, he amazed the gym regulars by insisting on using what were perceived as very light dumbells for his resistance routine.
The explanation was that it was not how heavy the weight, but the technique with which it was handled, that made for quality muscle growth and shape. The mind-body connection was established. An example: The simple biceps curl with a dumbell, using a fully-manageable weight. Zane increased the full activation of the muscle group to achieve the desired goal of optimal growth and shape. The insistence was on FULL range of motion, feeling both the concentric and eccentric movements. We amateurs tend to focus on the former move, curling as heavy a weight as we can, into the bent elbow, dumbell to shoulder move. This often leads to swinging from the hips, ‘cheating’ the heavier weight up, then lowering quickly, to relieve tension. For a successful, fully controlled concentration curl, the eccentric move, lowering the weigh and fully straightening at the elbow, should take longer than its opposite, slowly resisting gravity all the way down. Proof of the pudding (not a food included in the nutritionally superior diet that accompanies all good exercising!) was Zane’s amazingly shaped 70 kgs physique, not in any way superceded by his companion’s much heavier Mr Olympia shape!
The healthily-mature man, then, is someone who subscribes to regular physical activity to maintain the physical body, to help resist the ravages of time. Inactivity, inevitably, will hasten Sarcopenia, the decline into frailty and old age.
Choose to be one of the new 30yr-olds!