Getting old doesn’t mean your muscles have to go into retirement. Through exercise, you can preserve muscle mass and strength as you age, finds a new study from the University of Pittsburgh.
You may have heard that some muscle loss is natural as you age. In fact, previous research suggests that between 40 and 50 years old, a person loses 8 percent or more of their muscle mass. This loss increases significantly each decade after age 75. Low muscle mass can affect balance and mobility, leading to falls and disabilities.
Most of these past studies have one giant flaw, however. “They looked at sedentary adults only,” says lead study author Vonda Wright, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon. “What about physically active adults? Do their muscles deteriorate over time?”
To find out, Dr. Wright gathered 40 competitive runners, swimmers, cyclists, and triathletes. All of the participants were ages 40 to 81, and trained 4 to 5 days a week. The researchers measured the athletes’ muscle mass, leg strength, and adipose (fat) tissue. “Fat is not an innocent bystander in your body. It releases toxins and can decrease a muscle’s strength,” says Dr. Wright. Take a look at their results:
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Turns out, physical activity may be the elixir of life. The athletes in their 70s and 80s had almost as much thigh muscle mass as their 40-year-old athletic counterparts. They had very little adipose tissue, too. “In the cross section of the thigh (above), the fat—white content—around the muscle in the athletes is very thin and there’s very little within the muscle. That’s good,” explains Dr. Wright. “But you can see in the sedentary 74-year-old that the adipose tissue is the majority of the leg. It’s even infiltrated the muscle so it looks marbleized, like Kobe steak. You want your muscle to look like lean flank steak.”
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All the athletes remained strong overall, too. Strength decreased slightly around the age of 60 in both genders, but didn’t decline much more after that. “These results fly in the face of what we know about aging,” Dr. Wright says. “The changes that we thought were due to aging actually seem to be due to inactivity.”
The bottom line: How we age is in our control. Get moving—now. With daily activity, you can live longer and live better. Sure, this study looked at lifelong athletes, but Dr. Wright believes similar benefits may be achieved by people who start exercising later in life. “The body is designed to adapt. There’s never a time when you can’t change your health and body composition.”
So what type of workouts should you be doing? Researchers still need to figure out what exercises are best and at what intensity you should be doing them. But don't let that stop you from getting started today. “Any activity is better than none,” she says. For a challenge, try the muscle-building 300 Workout. It has three routines—beginner, immediate, and original—so you can choose where to begin depending on your fitness level. If you can't get to the gym (or want to avoid the cost), here's how to incinerate fat and pack on muscle at home. Need a little more guidance? No problem. Check out Men's Health Personal Trainer for cutting-edge workout programs personalized just for you, custom meal plans, and exercise videos from our experts.
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Original article and pictures take www.menshealth.com site
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