Category: Preventative Medicine
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Exercise After 50- What You Should Be Doing
What Exercise Should You Be Doing After 50
The mistake many make is stopping exercise altogether as they age.
This is one of the worst things you can do to your body at a time when exercise is needed more than ever.
The aging process hastens breakdown of muscle and connective tissue, and can leave you immobile if you sit there and do nothing about it.
Already over 50?
It is never too late to start improving your health with exercise.
The following are exercises you should be incorporating into your fitness plan:
Aerobics
Aerobics, also known as cardio or cardiovascular exercise, is important at any point of life, but even more so as we get older.
Aerobic exercise plays an important part in maintaining the health of various organ systems, including the heart, lungs and brain.
Though there are many different types of aerobic exercise, it is best to start with a low-impact variety, to safeguard the safety of the joints until it is established that you can handle more.
Be sure to include the following types of aerobics:
• Swimming
• Cycling (including stationary bikes)
• Walking
• JoggingStrength Training
Far too many people associate strength training with becoming a bodybuilder or some other strong man type of athlete, but in reality your body needs resistance to stay functional.
People that weight train regularly, especially older persons, have a greatly decreased risk of fractures, pain, and immobility due to muscle atrophy.
You need to perform at least basic strength training, which entails using your bodyweight. Added resistance is good, but do it only when you feel you are capable.
Be sure to include the following movements into your regime:
• Squats
• Bench presses
• Push ups
• Pull up/ assisted pull ups
• Lat pull downs shoulder presses
• Deadlifts / hyperextensions
• Triceps presses
• Dumbbell curlsIf you have preexisting joint issues, you can substitute one exercise with another. For example, removing the squat and using leg extensions instead.
Flexibility Training
The single most underrated aspect of any training program has got to be the flexibility component. The reasons are simple enough to understand, after all, you don’t see any immediate benefit to doing it, so why should you? But there’s another way to look at flexibility training- as insurance.
Think of flexibility training as the insurance that safeguards you in the eventuality of the worst outcome, in this case immobility or injury.
Flexibility training has numerous benefits on a body aged over 50, such as:
• Decreases Pain Following Training- part of the reason muscles and joints ache after a workout is because of an inability of muscles to elongate back, or when they do they place undue stress on connective tissue.
• Promotes Balance- loss of balance occurs frequently as we age, due in large part to loss of muscle mass, but also to stiff connective tissue. Flexibility training can significantly help you maintain balance as you age.Include these in your flexibility training to reap the benefits:
• Dynamic Stretches- these are stretches performed prior to your workout to get the muscle and connective tissue loose and ready for activity. This significantly helps to reduce the risk of injury during an active workout set.
• Static Stretches- these are stretches performed after working out a muscle group, to relieve muscle tension. Static stretches help stretch the muscle fibers and reduce pain after your workout.Conclusion
Maintaining the integrity of the joints, heart and muscles requires incorporating some aspects of all the exercises listed above.
Staying mobile will definitely contribute to optimal health and longevity in the future.
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Strength Training After 50
Strength Training After 50
Why is Strength Training Important as You Age
As you get older, it’s more important than ever to take care of your health and stay active for as long as possible. The great news is that you can maintain and even improve your physical condition with strength training. There are many reasons as to why strength training is so important to keep up with as you get older.
Daily Activities
If you keep up with strength training as you age you will be able to keep up with doing things like daily chores, getting the groceries and even something as simple as taking a shower. These are all things that can mean a lot to people who worry about losing their independence.
Build Muscle
People lose five to seven pounds of muscle every decade after they turn twenty. It is important to develop a proper strength training routine so you can avoid muscle loss and build it instead. And this is possible, even if you are quite a few years past twenty and are only just getting started!
Get Rid of High Blood Pressure
If you develop and keep up with a proper strength training routine you have a good chance of reducing your blood pressure, as strength training makes the heart stronger and forces it to pump blood more efficiently. Blood pressure has a knock-on effect on many other areas of health, too.
More Calories Bunt
Strength training will help you to be able to effectively burn more calories. This means that you will have much more success with shedding unwanted weight in the long term.
Some Tips for Starting a Strength Training Program:
• Always, always get advice from your doctor before you start.
• You should start with training two days a week with a day of rest in between. Then you should add a third day to challenge yourself.
• You need to pay close attention to proper form when doing exercises. This way you will help to prevent injury by doing an exercise incorrectly.
• Always keep in mind that when you are strength training it should never cause you pain. If you experience any pain stop right away.
No matter what age you happen to be, it’s never too late to incorporate strength training into your fitness routine – you just need to be willing to adapt it according to your specific circumstances, and get the OK from your doctor.
By helping to make sure that your body stays strong you will be helping to maintain your independence for many years to come.