29/05/2023
Wellbeing not beauty standards. Exercising as we age
As we scroll through social media we are inundated with young men and women who workout to attain a certain aesthetic.
Endless posts about growing your glutes to give you a perfect peach. Shoulder building exercises and how to get abs. Everything aimed towards beauty standards and the latest physique fads.
How does it make us feel? Bad about our own bodies, our own efforts and progress?
You're working tirelessly to try and look like these people and it's not happening. It's so much hard work and you feel like you have so far to go in comparison that you give up, you feel bad about having a binge, you feel bad about not eating salads every day for lunch and dinner or for having a bar of chocolate, and the mere thought of downing a shot of apple cider vinegar in the morning to 'burn belly fat' makes you gag.
But forget about all of this... please
And think about this instead.
Will you be able to get yourself off the toilet when you're 80 years old?
How independent will you be when you're older?
Will you need to rely on people to carry your shopping, take your dog for a walk, clean your house, do your cooking and get you dressed?
Will you be able to pick up your grandchildren? Play with them?
THESE.... are the things we should be thinking about now. Everything we do should be aimed towards staying mobile and healthy as we get older so we can prevent these things from declining so much as we age. Because naturally our bodies get weaker the older we get.
We naturally lose bone mass by 1% each year from the age of 30, that means by the time you are 60 years old you've lost 30% bone mass. This is inevitable and it happens to everyone but more so in females. This is down the the drop in oestrogen during menopause, which is the primary hormone for bone growth.
But the good news is...we CAN prevent this or stop it completely by resistance training...strength training. Now I use the word resistance training here because people tend to get a little scared when you start using the term strength training. But they're the same thing. They're load bearing exercises.
What this does is stimulates bone growth. The main shaft of the bone is made out of tightly packed, rod like structures, when we strength train these become more dense. Packing in more structures creating a stronger bone.
And here's a really technical explanation...
You: Lifts something a little heavier than you're usually used to.
Your bones: Hmm that's not what we were expecting. Better add a little extra bone in here to be able to deal with the extra load.
And hello stronger bones.
Making sure you keep your bones strong and healthy with diet and exercise greatly reduces the risk of fractures and breakages when you're older. Not to mention that exercise helps increase balance which prevents falls when you're older too.
But strengthening our bones is just one bonus to strength training.
Another is keeping our muscles strong, and there are a number or benefits of this too.
As well as losing bone mass as we age we also lose around 3% muscle mass each year from the age of 35. You might hear from people or are experiencing yourself that you find it harder to lose weight the older you get. This is largely down to the naturally decreasing muscle mass. Muscle burns calories so the less muscle we have the less calories we burn at rest, which means we can still be eating the same but we are burning less calories than we were a year ago, 2 years ago, 3 years ago etc.
In order to prevent this, strength training should be a priority. But there's more...it's not just for muscle development and being strong, it also strengthens the muscles around your joints too so it helps create stronger and more stable joints.
Strength training also helps keeps our posture good and with the right exercises can correct many muscle imbalances and postural issues that have slowly crept up during our day to day lives.
Lordosis, excessive curve of the lower back, kyphosis, excessive rounding of the upper back, anterior and posterior pelvic tilts, hip alignment, shoulder alignment...all of these affected by lifestyles we lead that will hinder our mobility, range of motion and movement as we get older if they're not addressed with the right training.
So with these huge benefits that come from strength training just 3 times a week...does it have anything else to offer?
Sure it does!
Strength training has been proven to increase your mood hormones, lower depression symptoms, stress and anxiety, improves your relationship with your body and increases self esteem.
It's recommended that you do 3 strength sessions every week roughly for about an hour long...that's less than 2 percent of your week to dedicate to building a better body for your older self.
And that is something you will most definitely thank yourself for in years to come.
