Aging and strength training

Today's blog post is a quick one about why it's important to stay strong as you get older.

As we age, we start to lose a couple of things that are pretty darn important to us when it comes to avoiding injury.  One thing that starts to go is bone density, and another is our muscular strength and power.

Luckily both of these thing can be worked on through strength training.  Strength training, be it using bodyweight, resistance bands or free weights/machine weights has been shown to improve both muscle strength/power and bone density.

Why is this important you ask?

Well the better our bone density, the less chance we have of breaking a bone if we fall.  And the better our muscular strength/power is, the better chance we have of preventing a fall should we stumble in the first place.

Think about it, when you trip over a uneven pavement, you tend to throw your foot forward in an effort to catch yourself.  This is fine if you have leg muscles that are strong enough to handle that, and the bones in your leg can handle that added pressure also, but if not, you could end up in hospital with a badly fractured leg.

But fear not, you can do something about this.  

Start working on your strength.  When we get older we tend to get told to slow down, start going for walks instead of people suggesting that we hit the gym.  But hit the gym anyway.  Hire a personal trainer and learn how to increase your strength in a safe way.  By doing strength exercises you may not be able to increase your muscle mass to rival that of a bodybuilder, but you have a chance of slowing the decline in muscle mass and improve your bone density.  

As with all things, you shouldn't go overboard and risk injury by doing too much too fast, but a steady increase in training volume can help you protect yourself from the risks associated with loss of bone density and muscular strength and power.

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If you would like some advice about strength training as you age or would like advice about anything fitness related then get in touch with me through my website, I'd love to hear from you.