Its a shocking statistic: people typically lose up to a third of their muscle strength between the ages of 50 and 70. This contributes to loss of mobility, flexibility and balance and can lead to falls, disability, and loss of independence.
Muscular atrophy, however, is not a necessary part of ageing. A recent review of research published during the last five years on strength training for seniors found that suitable resistance exercize could turn back the clock. Seniors can regain lost muscle mass and strength, along with many other benefits.
“The elderly need strength training more and more as they grow older to stay mobile for their everyday activities,” the authors of the review article conclude
The best of 1500 studies
Frank Mayer, at the University of Potsdam, in Germany, and his colleagues, reviewed 1500 recent studies on the effects of strength training to find those that shed the most light on exercise for people over 60. They were not just looking for general studies but for research that would help identify how frequently and intensely seniors can and should exercise and what results they could expect. They found a total of 33 studies involving thousands of participant on which they based their findings, published in Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, a leading German medical journal.
The reviewers key finding was that three or four sessions a week of appropriately chosen strength or resistance exercise–tasks such as weight lifting or workouts on the kind of resistance machines found in gyms–produced rapid and significant increases in muscle size and strength in both men and women sixty and older.
“A rapid increase in strength has been observed especially during the first few weeks,” the researchers write. “Compared with the baseline level, this effect even seems more pronounced in elderly people than in younger ones.”
A recipe for recovery
The reviewers were also able to home in on the kinds and amounts of exercise that best met the needs of seniors.
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