Fighting The Aging Battle
Nutrition is a major contributing factor. As we age our body loses the ability to assimilate nutrients from our food. Proper water intake and proper calorie consumption based off of your BMR (Basil Metabolic Rate) is crucial to keeping the body-mind connection. Most people in this country live to eat instead of eating to live. If you are lacking in macro and micronutrients neither your mind nor body will function at its optimal level nor will you feel your best. As we grow older our body require fewer calories due to muscle loss. Many people make the wrong food choices. Processed food loaded with sugar and preservatives have lead to an increase in obesity resulting in more health related illness. Large portions and “super-sizing” have added to the demise of the American people.
The only exercise proven to slow down the aging process is strength training. Though prime muscle building years are between the ages of twenty to thirty five studies show that muscle gain is possible at any age. It takes approximately 50 calories a day to maintain a pound of muscle and only 2 calories a day to maintain a pound of fat as fat is dead tissue and muscle is live tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns.
Intensity is required with weight training and should include the proper biomechanics, repetition speed and program design. Thirty minutes is adequate. As we get older it takes longer for our body to recover so less frequency and more rest is needed. You build no muscle in the gym. When strength training you are breaking muscle down. It develops during the intervening days of rest if fed and rested properly. Weight training slows down atrophy. Somewhere between the ages of twenty-five and thirty atrophy begins.
Cardiovascular exercise strengthens the heart and adds endurance. Cardio should be done after your strength training or on a separate day. If you do you cardio before you do your strength training you may deplete your muscle glycogen stores (carbohydrates), which is the fuel your body requires for strength training. Weight training is an anaerobic activity, which means the fuel source is carbs. Cardio is an aerobic activity, which requires carbs and oxygen to burn fat. Why does this matter? If you don't have the proper fuel to get the best pump you will not be able to build the muscle (toning and defining is still building muscle). Remember muscle is your metabolism. On the flip side, if you do your cardio after your strength training and you have depleted your glycogen stores you may burn fat quicker. Your body will tap into fat stores sooner.
Functional training is exercises that utilize the 4 pillars of human movement. They include level changes, locomotion, rotation, and pushing and pulling. Strength training is done in one plane of motion. Your body doesn’t function that way. The benefits include stability, balance, flexibility, endurance, core strength, self-confidence, and appearance. Please visit our web site at www.dellis.com to learn more about functional training.
As we age our propriocepiton decreases. Proprioception is our body’s ability to send signals to our central nervous system to make our muscles react quickly and efficiently. This is your balance. Slip and falls are common in the older population. If proprioception and muscle were adequate there is less of a chance of a slip and fall. Or the slip may occur but the fall may be avoided. Being able to respond quickly and react to a situation requiring speedy reflexes is very important. Once again functional training is a key to improving proprioception.
What you do now for proper nutrition and exercise will dictate your quality of life as you grow older. And we are all growing older aren’t we? So forward this to your kids, parents and/or grandparents but remember it applies to us all.
Yours in good health,
Tom Ellis
Dellis Health & Performance H.I.T.
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(813) 545-9341
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