Exercises for Longevity

Physical effects of aging

More than 48 million adults in the united states, who are otherwise healthy and able-bodied, can be classified as sedentary. If you are one of these people, then you need to know that an inactive lifestyle only places extra strain on your body, increasing risk for cardiovascular problems, cancer, diabetes, and many other diseases. A quarter of million deaths per year are attributable in part to sedentary lifestyles. There is hope, however. A modest change in lifestyle enables every couch potato to reduce their propensity for illness, and can add years to their youthful and productive life span.

More and more, scientists are finding that an adequate exercise program, coupled with a healthy diet, can help you to recapture your youthful vitality by slowing or reversing many of the physiological changes that are associated with aging.

The aging metabolism

An aging metabolism is less able to use fatty acids properly, thus burdening your body systems, depressing your immune system, and possibly leading to arteriosclerosis. Exercise uses fatty acids for 80 percent of the calories needed to complete an activity, essentially converting them to energy. As we have learned, the production of growth hormone improves the function of your immune system. It also builds your muscles, burns off fat, and generally contributes to your overall well-being. Although your body manufactures less growth hormone as you grow older, accounting for a 40 percent loss with a 30 percent decrease in strength by age seventy, exercise stimulates and increases production of this vital hormone.

Aging and Muscle strength

Not only does aging result in a reduced ability to function physically, but also the less muscle you have, the less energy you burn while you are resting (your metabolic rate). Therefore, as your metabolic rate and your activity level go down, you need fewer and fewer calories to maintain your body weight. But most people don’t decrease their calorie intake to match their declining needs. They just buy new clothing when they gain weight.

Light weightlifting can be an effective method to burn off at least some of these excessive calories.

Aging and bone mass

After age thirty-five, there is also a decline in total bone mass of up to 1 percent per year. Women going through menopause may begin to lose their bone density at an even higher rate of up to 3 percent per year. With low bone density, there is an increased risk of breakage and of developing osteoporosis. Victims of osteoporosis have brittle, porous bones that fracture easily and can result in such deformities as the curved spine, known as a “dowager’s hump.” These conditions are not only debilitating but can also be fatal. Weight-bearing exercise is the key to building maximum bone mass before age forty and in retarding the gradual loss of bone mass after age forty. For women, treatments like estrogen replacement therapy can also help overcome bone loss.

Aging and flexibility

Flexibility is yet another factor that diminishes with age. Older people are more prone to stiffness and orthopedic injury than younger people because of physical inactivity. Over time, muscles become stiffer and joints degenerate, producing less joint-lubricating synovial fluid. Connective tissues gradually lose their elasticity and muscle fibers shorten. This loss in flexibility can make common daily tasks, such as bending over, a chore and fool the mind and body into thinking that it is unable to embark on any exercise. However, about eighty percent of all lower back pain results from poorly conditioned muscles. A simple exercise program can help strengthen the back and eliminate most of these pains, even after a few weeks. By strengthening these joints and muscles, you may eventually be able to participate in other activities and reduce your risk of injury.

Use it or lose it

As studies have shown again and again, older people begin to lose certain physical and mental abilities because they are not using them. In fact, scientists believe that the decline in strength and muscular endurance is due more to disuse of the neuromuscular system than to aging. Small, gradual decreases in strength take place because of a loss in muscle fiber until about age sixty, when a more marked decline accurse. Yet, elderly people who are put on a program of strength training produce increases in strength, and suffer a loss of strength with age that is considered “hardly noticeable.”