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Fitness Advice
How You Can Turn Back The Clock & Avoid Many Problems Of Aging!

It may seem amazing, but we can literally turn back the clock as far as our fitness is concerned. In sports, a loss of performance is inevitable, but there are areas of our fitness we can improve, and I will concentrate on what we can do rather than can”t. There is often a great disparity between our biological and genetic ages – and the difference is usually our exercise level! Excluding injury, illness or our own genetic programme there is a great deal we can do thwart the effects of aging.

Our lifestyle choices such as refraining from smoking, limiting alcohol consumption, good nutrition and a positive mental attitude are critical in maintaining our health into old age. What is often neglected is the selection of the correct exercise and the motivation to maintain it. Too often, exercise is limited to cruising laps in the pool or a stroll down the road. Whilst these are a good start they will not lead to preventing falls or accumulating body fat.

Strength & power training is critical because from the age of 20 we start to lose muscle mass and between ages 40-65 we lose about 25% of our strength. After 65 the major concern is the loss of muscle power. This has obvious implications for the ability to resist a fall and ending with a fractured hip, hospitalisation or a loss of independence. The good news is that these loses appear reversible. In a study of 56-70 year old men over just eight weeks there marked improvements and even a doubling quadriceps force development in 90 year olds. We need to work through a periodised training programme starting from endurance and intruding strength and eventually power – it may take longer than in the case of a younger athlete, but we can all get there. The exercise should be functional multi-planer exercise that relates to real life situations, such as getting up from the floor, a chair, shopping or stacking groceries on a shelf. When should you start? Right now!

Balance & flexibility and core strength are critical to a good quality of life and although flexibility declines 20-30% between 30-70 years, great gains can be made with a progressive structured programme. Pilates is a wonderful low-impact body conditioning programme that can be commenced at any fitness level with gains in posture, breathing and core strength [about the midriff] and balance. A good programme should result in greater balance and the ability to work on progressively unstable surface –just like real life!

Nutrition is often neglected as we get older with dire consequences. Particularly important is to limit the amount of saturated fats and carbohydrates. Limiting the latter is critical in controlling the insulin levels in the blood – insulin being the driver of body fat retention. Equally important is to maintain our protein intake of up to 1.5 grams per kilo of body weight. As our joints age we need to protect them from degeneration; Vitamin C;E; Omega 3 Oils; Bioflavanoids; SAAs; Selenium; Zinc and Copper. You can get all these with a good daily selection of green vegetables, citrus fruit [including the pith], eggs meat, poultry, almonds, brazil nuts, sunflower seeds, baked beans, onions and lentils

Training older adults is as different as training children and Fitness Australia, the national registration authority, now has a specialist Older Adults Trainer qualification. It is strongly recommended that you have sight of this qualification before commencing training with any fitness trainer or facility.

Meanwhile…keep moving & remember, providing you are doing it right – every minute you spend training will add years to your life. What is that worth to you? I

Bryan Wiseman
 
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