Healthy Aging is No Accident

Photo by Fatih Aras Güleç: https://www.pexels.com/photo/elderly-man-with-a-gray-beard-sitting-on-the-shore-in-istanbul-turkey-18729326/

I recently saw a discussion about longevity and an interesting statistic was brought up. As a cause of death, accidents represent a relatively constant contributor to mortality and morbidity across all age groups over the age of 12. What changes over time is the type of accidents involved.

Accidental deaths in younger people are mostly due to drug overdoses and auto accidents, whereas in those 65 and older, the accidents responsible for death and lasting disability are most commonly falls.

There are two major (and somewhat interconnected) contributors to falls in older individuals – poor balance and diminished muscular strength.

I’ve discussed the importance of balance training in a previous article, so I’m going to focus on strength in this one.

You may have heard that prevention of bone loss and osteoporosis is actually most effective in your younger years. The analogy commonly used is a retirement account. You put money in the bank and in investments when you’re young so that you’ll have savings to draw on when you’re older. Both bone and muscle mass work basically the same way, although it is far easier to build muscle when you’re older than it is bone.

In fact, although it definitely gets harder and harder with advancing years, you can build muscle through exercise at pretty much any age. But the more muscle you have and the stronger you are going into old age, the better off you will be in your later years and it gives you some reserves in case of illness or injury that restricts your activity for a time.

This brings me back to falls as the leading cause of accidental death and morbidity among seniors. Obviously, poor balance increases the risk of falls, but if your muscles are weak, you are at more risk, for example, of your legs not being able to support your weight going up and down steps, and/or not being able to “catch” your balance if you stumble.

Women in particular are susceptible to significant loss of muscle mass and strength as they age. Of course, younger women are more likely to exercise more, but even younger women who don’t “exercise” per se are often relatively strong from activities like child care – lifting and carrying children and all their stuff is pretty physically demanding!

Just an aside here, some women express hesitation about doing any sort of strength training out of concern for getting too muscular. This is very rarely something that actually happens and it typically takes pretty intense training for a long period of time. But in the extremely unlikely event that you do find yourself becoming more muscular than you like, all you have to do is reduce the intensity and/or frequency of your training and you’ll start to lose the muscularity.

Men certainly are at risk of diminished strength as well, but formal exercise aside, traditional gender roles typically have men doing more muscle-intensive activity on a somewhat regular basis throughout life than what is typical for women.

Strength training is definitely important for pretty much everyone though, and the earlier you start in life and the more consistent you are throughout life, the less likely you are to suffer falls, and the more likely you are to maintain your health in general.

It doesn’t need to be anything extreme either. Just 3 exercise sessions a week of 30 to 40 minutes at a great enough intensity to stimulate your muscles to adapt to increasing demands. A good indicator of that adaptation is your muscles feeling a bit heavy or tired at the end of your workout. Mild soreness the day or two after your exercise sessions also tells you that your muscles have been challenged and that they’re in the process of rebuilding and increasing in strength.

Finally, make sure to exercise all the major muscle groups – upper body and lower body. I’ve seen guys in the gym who do a ton of upper body work to get muscular torsos and arms, but neglect their legs. On the other hand, women often favor lower body workouts over upper body. All of the muscles need stimulation, so try to have a balanced routine to work them all.

If you don’t know where to start, talk to a personal trainer (one who works with beginners rather than, say, one for bodybuilders or powerlifters), or even just check out YouTube for some basic exercises. Initially, just body weight exercises like push-ups and squats may be enough to challenge you, but eventually it would be beneficial to use some sort of added resistance, be it free weights, machines, or elastic exercise bands / tubing.

Consistency is key, so try to make your exercise sessions part of your weekly routine and then let the weeks turn to months, the months to years and the rest of your life. I think you’ll be glad you did!

Until next time…

George F. Best, D.C.