Unfortunately, in making this decision they basically allow their bodies to deteriorate.  What do you mean?! I can hear you crying out.

Let me explain a bit more fully.

Firstly, all forms of aerobic/cardio exercise are beneficial for overall fitness and great for the heart and lungs and should definitely be maintained.  However, aerobic activity doesn’t seem to be able to stop the muscle shriveling that accompanies aging.

If you want a life full of strength and vitality, it's time to start a weights program!

In fact, a Danish study carried out in the 90s provided some startling results.  Male athletes with an average age of 69 who had been training for at least a dozen years were found, unsurprisingly, to be extremely fit.  But, and here’s the scary bit… they had no more muscle mass or strength than their peers who did no exercise at all!  Worse, they were steadily losing muscle.  Yikes!

An additional group of men were looked at who did weight lifting.  And here’s where the results get really interesting… Men in their late sixties who had been training with fairly heavy weights for a decade or more were not only stronger than swimmers or runners of the same age, they were actually stronger than the average 28 year old man.

Biopsies of the weight lifters’ muscles showed the mix of muscle fibres was essentially like that of younger men, a blend of both slow twitch and fast twitch fibres.  The other group of men, despite their fitness, had significantly reduced fast twitch fibres, i.e. the instant strength which allows you to dodge cars.

Please hear me in this, aerobic exercise is definitely important for a variety of health and fitness reasons.  But, top physiologists believe that by middle age weight training is at least as important as aerobic exercise.  And for the elderly it’s even more important as it deters the kind of injuries which most often cause an old body to fail.

So, if you’re in your middle or twilight years and aren’t doing any kind of weight or strength training, I can’t emphasise strongly enough how vital it is for you to start doing some NOW!  And if you’re not sure where to start, why not come on in to Geelong’s Gym and book an appointment with one of our qualified Personal Trainers who will put together a weights program suitable to your particular needs.

Many people shy away from lifting weights when their goal is to lose weight, because they’re scared of the weight gain from increased muscle size.  But here’s the clincher…

Watch that weight just drop away

One little pound of muscle burns around 10-20 calories a day, while a pound of fat only burns 5 calories.  So growing your muscle tissue will help you burn fat all day long.

Plus there are a whole lot of other benefits of strength training:

• Increased resting metabolic rate which means you burn more calories, even while resting.
• You will become lean and slim, because muscle takes up less space than fat
• Strong bones and connective tissue, which will help protect your body from injury
• Enhanced balance and stability
• Increased confidence and self-esteem

But this only works if you lift enough weight to stimulate muscle growth.  Here’s a tip – if you can lift your chosen weight more than 16-20 times, it’s not heavy enough.

If you’re struggling to know how much weight you should be lifting, perhaps you should consider booking a session with a Personal Trainer.  Believe me, your muscles will feel the difference after a Personal Training session!

The good news is you don't have to start with the really heavy weights!

There are many reasons why people avoid lifting weights.  Here are just a few:

• It’s really tiring!  True, because most of us aren’t used to pushing ourselves to fatigue in anything we do.  That’s why you start slowly and gradually work your way up.
• I don’t want to injure myself!  Firstly, your muscles are meant to burn with the exertion of resistance.  However, it is important to take it slowly and increase your weights in increments, while still providing your muscles with some challenge.  Again, if you’re unsure, a Personal Trainer can help you get the perfect balance.
• I don’t want to look like the Incredible Hulk!  Needless to say, this is usually a concern reserved for women.  But here’s the good news – lifting heavy weights will NOT make you huge, because women simply don’t have the testosterone levels to build big muscles.  But the heavy weights WILL help you LOSE fat.

These are just a few reasons, but they often prevent people from making any progress towards their ideal body shape.  Heavy lifting will help you achieve that body and if you ease into a weight training program and slowly work your way to bigger weights you don’t need to worry about hurting yourself, or any of the other reasons which are holding you back.

While this used to be the way many people thought, studies have now shown that strength training is incredibly beneficial for both men and women, young and old, and particularly for older women.

In fact, older women who do an hour or two of strength training exercises every week can see significant improvements in their cognitive function, particularly in the areas of the brain responsible for planning and executing tasks.

A study, which appeared in the Archives of Internal Medicine, has been carried out assigning 155 women aged bewteen 65 and 75 either to strength training once or twice a week or to a comparison group doing balance and toning exercises.

One year on, those who did strength training had improved their performance on tests of executive function by 10.9% to 12.6%.

Those who did the balance and toning exercises actually experienced a slight deterioration of .05%.

The improvement of the first group included an enhanced ability to make decisions and resolve conflicts.

Don't worry Ladies! You won't be expected to hold up a building!

So if you’re an older woman and want your later years to be full of life, joy and activity, maybe it’s time you considered adding some regular strength training into your schedule and reaping the benefits of greater health, fitness and mental alertness.

And if you don’t know where to start, why not consider Personal Training to make sure you get the most benefit in a safe manner from your workout.  Just give us a call at Geelong’s Gym and we’ll set you up with a Personal Trainer who’ll suit your needs.

Lucky for my client, her strength training prevented things like this happening!

Resting heart rate, recovery heart rate, waist/hip measurements, weight/height ratios, VO2 Max – these are all measures of body function or lack of it.

 One of my older adult clients told me that she’d tested her fitness herself and was amazed at her improvements.

 She lives alone and had locked herself out of the house.  She sat on the front veranda and pondered her options (and swore under her breath)…wait for the neighbours to come home and help her into the house, ring her daughter who lives an hour away to bring her spare key with her… or get into the little open toilet window herself!!!

 So, off she went to the garage to get the ladder down off the hooks on the wall, carried it back to the rear window, balanced her way up said ladder to the window and then squeezed her way in.

 She said by coming to the gym, her strength had improved to such a level that she could confidently back herself to lift the ladder safely down off the wall.  Her leg strength and balance held her firm whilst she climbed, and she didn’t need a tape measure to confirm that she’s lost weight around her girth.  Squeezing through that window made every hard effort at the gym worthwhile!

What a great illustration of how improving your health and fitness can impact so many different areas of your life!

 I had a fellow say to me just the other day that he wouldn’t fit into the Strong group, that he was not like the others in the group.

 It got me thinking… how do you look at a group of people and judge whether it’s for you or not?

The STRONG people range in education from leaving school at age 14 to lecturing in Archeology.  There are some with Year  8 and Year 10 as their highest formal qualification to Associate Diploma, Diploma and Degree Tertiary qualifications.

 The group comprises of single parents with young children, divorced with adult children, happily married and never married. There is one participant who has been widowed, divorced and now married and has a gathering of 8 children (some step) from these relationships.

 Some of the participants work full time, some part time, while others manage some work and full time parenting.  There are some who are retired, one who is a part-time leadership consultant, one who is a live-in carer and one who has a live-in carer.

 Their most amazing life successes range from giving birth, surviving a marriage breakdown with 3 children under 3, another for being a leader for 30 years.  One says that educating herself, when learning doesn’t come easily, is her greatest achievement. Another has discovered painting.

 So a group may look like everyone has a lot in common, when in fact it couldn’t be further from the truth.  But what they do have in common is the commitment to a timeslot where they meet and all do strength training together.  They belong to STRONG.

If you find any interesting videos like this, please pass them along – we’re always looking for fresh content!

A shaky start

Lactic acid has a bad reputation. Many people blame it for fatigue, sore muscles, and cramps. They think of it as a waste product that should be avoided at all cost. Guess what? Scientists have discovered that lactic acid plays a critical role in generating energy during exercise. Far from being the bad boy of metabolism, lactic acid provides fuels for many tissues, helps use dietary carbohydrates, and serves as fuel for liver production of glucose and glycogen. In fact, lactic acid is nature’s way of helping you survive stressful situations.

But what is Lactic Acid?

Technically, lactic acid is a chemical compound produced from pyruvate, an organic acid in animals. Pyruvate becomes lactic acid during normal metabolism, but also through exercise. (Lactic acid also can be found in some sour milk products, such as yogurt, kefir, and some types of cottage cheese.)

When you exercise, your body burns sugar, fat or protein along with oxygen. This produces the energy needed to continue exercising. When you exercise so intensely your muscles can’t get enough oxygen, pyruvate becomes lactic acid, which begins to build up in the muscle tissue.

You may be asking right now, what’s that got to do with me?

Well, previously, it was believed that lactic acid made the muscles more acidic, causing them to hurt and burn and interfering with their ability to contract. Actually, muscle tissue filled with lactic acid tends to contract more efficiently.

It is an extremely fast fuel that’s preferred by the heart and muscles during exercise. Lactate is vital for ensuring that your body gets a steady supply of carbohydrates, even during exercise that lasts for many hours. Lactate is so valuable, that taking it as part of a fluid replacement drink before, during, or after exercise improves performance and speeds recovery.

As the University of Toronto’s Melissa de Souza writes in her paper “Lactic Acid: Friend or Foe,” there is no evidence that lactic acid causes muscle fatigue, only that it serves as a marker of muscle fatigue.

De Souza notes a study in which rats were infused with lactate: the result was an increased endurance of muscle contraction, as well as increased excitability of the muscle fibers.

In humans, she notes, “performing a bout of heavy exercise before exhaustive aerobic exercise increased the blood lactate concentration prior to the second bout of exercise, and this lactate accumulation was associated with longer exercise times.”

Instead of fatiguing muscles, de Souza concludes, lactic acid “primes the muscle to perform better and for longer periods of time before fatigue.”

Who’s for a better, more intense workout?  Who’s for increased energy levels and less fatigue?

Many experts now indicate that lactic acid generation is a key not only in improving muscle mass but in all aspects of exercise. An essay by the Cory Holly Institute notes that “scientists now recognize lactic acid as a major player in the way our bodies generate energy during exercise. Lactic acid is actually our friend.”

4 Things You Should Know About Lactic Acid

1. Lactic acid doesn’t cause muscle soreness and cramps.  Delayed onset muscle soreness, the achy sensation in your muscles the day after a tough workout, is caused by muscle damage and post-exercise tissue inflammation.

2. The body produces lactic acid whenever it breaks down carbohydrates for energy.  The faster you break down glucose and glycogen the greater the formation of lactic acid. At rest and sub- maximal exercise, the body relies mainly on fats for fuel. However, when you reach 50% of maximum capacity, the threshold intensity for most recreational exercise programs, the body “crosses over” and used increasingly more carbohydrates to fuel exercise. The more you use carbohydrates as fuel, the more lactic acid you produce.

3. The heart, slow-twitch muscle fibers, and breathing muscles prefer lactate as a fuel during exercise.  In the heart, for example, the uptake of lactate increases many fold as the intensity of exercise increases while uptake of glucose remains unchanged. These tissues suck up lactate at a fast rate to satisfy their energy needs.

4. Lactic acid is a very fast fuel that can be used to athletes’ advantage during exercise. Including lactate as part of a fluid replacement beverage provides a rapid fuel that can help provide energy during intense exercise. The rationale for including lactate in athletic drinks is simple- since the body breaks down so much of dietary carbohydrates to lactate anyway, why not start with lactate in the first place? Lactate in the drink can be used rapidly by most tissues in the body and serves as readily available building blocks for restoring liver glycogen during recovery.

Much of this information was helpfully provided by Dr Marc Dussault of Exponential Programs.

www.GeelongsGym.com.au

Do you have some unused equipment sitting idly at your house?

Lots of participants in the STRONG study have this same dilemma. At some point, a little voice inside their head spoke to them and said… “You need to do something!”

So off to purchase some gym equipment they went.

And tried to do some exercises.

And pulled up very sore.

And questioned if it was the right sort of exercise?

And wondered what on earth they were doing?

And challenged whether it was a good thing?  The right thing?

Every participant echoes these words… “I’m so glad I have you to guide me.”

The STRONG study is about educating the participants on exercise.

It’s about building confidence.  It’s focused on progressively increasing weights and a range of exercises so that the workouts are manageable.

The STRONG study is about commitment to improving quality of life.

www.GeelongsGym.com.au

Well, apart from the obvious downturn in strength and fitness gains, a peculiar mindset takes over.

At first you play the game of telling yourself it’s only one session you’ve missed, your reason is valid.  And it probably is.

But the next missed session might be full of lame excuses, and the next and before you know it the lazy person takes over, closely followed by frustration until finally you start thinking, “What’s the point?  I can never stick at exercise.”

Sound familiar?  Are you wondering how I knew that?  Guess what?  You’re not the only one! In fact, the majority of people get stuck in this same pattern.

And it’s no surprise that some of the participants in the STRONG study have found themselves right at this point.  But the beauty of this particular research project is that there is a personal trainer involved to call, advise, motivate and encourage.  If anyone misses two sessions in a row, or has a pattern of one, two, miss a few – the trainer is right there to help get and keep them on track.

And the general response?  “I’m so glad you rang – I was feeling so guilty! I’ll definitely be there next session!”

And guess what?  They are.

www.GeelongsGym.com.au

Have the “What If’s” ever stopped you from doing or starting something?

For the participants in the STRONG study, this was their biggest hurdle to getting started.

What if I’m the only one who can’t do the exercise?
What if my heart rate goes too high?
What if I hurt myself?
What if I’m the fattest person in the group?

All participants know that the study is backed by research and fact.
All participants know the trainers have been specifically trained to work with those with, or at risk of, Type II Diabetes.

Tackling the “What If’s” can be tricky but as one participant shared with me…
Imagine if we replaced the words “WHAT IF” with “IF” and “THEN”!

So instead of saying “WHAT IF this happens”, change it to “IF this happens, THEN I’ll deal with it”.

A great lesson in attitude for all of us.

www.GeelongsGym.com.au