“Healthy older people can reliably respond to strength training, and their muscles are still plastic,” said Tommy Lundberg, an exercise researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden who was not involved in the study. It shows that there is.”
Lundberg, author of the new book “The Physiology of Resistance Training,” said this study shows it’s never too late for older adults to start lifting weights. “They can increase both muscle size and strength,” he said.
Above all, this study suggests that our perception of what is physically possible in old age may also need to be updated.
“It is often assumed that the oldest people, those over 80, are less likely to gain muscle mass and strength,” says Luc van Loon, professor of human biology at Maastricht University. Senior author of the new study.
This idea took hold partly because the oldest ones were rarely studied. Past weight training studies have limited the age of volunteers to around 75 years, due to concerns that older people may not be able to tolerate the training or that their muscles may not respond even if they are able to lift. There were many things.
But Van Loon and his colleagues were not convinced. “As long as we’re alive, muscle tissue is constantly being replaced,” he said. So why shouldn’t an 80-year-old’s muscles strengthen and grow just as much as a 65-year-old’s?
To investigate this idea, he and his co-authors recruited 29 healthy older men and women. The study consisted of two groups. The “younger elderly” included his 17 people, ranging from age 65 to age 75. The participant in the “older” group was at least 85 years old. All were living independently and had no debilitating illnesses.
No one had ever done weight training regularly before.
Become stronger no matter how old you are
The researchers measured everyone’s current strength and muscle mass and introduced weight training with basic full-body resistance routines using gym machines, such as lat pulldowns and leg extensions. The volunteers lifted in supervised sessions three times a week for 12 weeks, using weights set at 80 percent of their maximum strength.
This program is more intense than some people expect older adults to be able to tolerate. But the volunteers “loved participating in this intervention,” said Gabriel Nasri Marzuka-Nasr, an associate professor at Chile’s La Frontera University who led the new study. Attendance was high and injuries were rare.
And both the “younger” and “older” groups responded strongly to this exercise, somewhat surprising the researchers. Before the study began, Professor Marzuka-Nasr and his co-authors expected that the oldest men and women would gain muscle strength and weight, but not to the same extent as those aged 65 to 75. That’s what it means.
But after three months, people over 85 had stored more strength and mass than their younger counterparts, increasing their muscle mass by an average of 11 percent and strength by 46 percent. Muscle mass and strength increase by an average of 10 percent. The physical fitness of the young volunteer increased by 38%.
The oldest boys and girls also improved their scores by about 13 percent on a test that tests their ability to get up from a chair and move around, compared to 8 percent for the oldest boys and girls.
The researchers believe that the larger relative increase in the oldest group was partially due to an additional decade of decline in muscle size and strength compared to the younger group. . They started from a low baseline.
The results convincingly show that it’s “never too late to start training,” said Michael Roberts, a kinesiology professor at Auburn University in Alabama. researched resistance exercise.
“The improvement in exercise capacity in the oldest age group is particularly encouraging, as loss of physical function is ultimately what defines frailty,” he added.
There are some caveats to the results. The study was small and lasted only three months. In addition, training was supervised, and people’s lifting form and load were monitored and adjusted as necessary. This was a level of attentiveness that would be difficult for the average person to replicate.
Also, this study is not meant to give us a complete decision to skip weight training now in anticipation of starting weight training after retirement. “It’s better to start at an earlier age and continue throughout your life,” Marzuka-Nasr said.
Perhaps most importantly, the older men and women in this study were healthy for their age and had few obvious physical limitations. For some older adults with serious illnesses or disabilities, starting lifting may be impractical.
If you’re concerned about whether you’re ready for weight training, talk to your doctor, Marzka-Nasr says.
People who are over the age of approximately 60 and want to start a new lifting or other exercise routine should first consult their doctor and then seek out training programs at gyms and community centers specifically designed for older adults. You should. Costs are often covered by Medicare or other insurance.
But the key takeaway from this study is that there appears to be no age limit or forced limit to our bodies’ ability to adapt and improve, study co-author Van Loon said. “You’re never too old to start exercising.”
Have fitness questions? Email [email protected] I may answer your question in a future column.
