In last week’s tip I made the point that the exercises we should add to our strength training programs depend less on our chronological age and more on our physical history.
I had been planning to move on to another topic this week, but one of the other TNT coaches sent me a link to this recent article on Dr. Peter Attia’s website.
After reading it, I decided I had a bit more to say on the topic.
But first, here are some of the primary points in Attia’s article, titled Resistance training partially reverses some of the hallmarks of aging type II muscle fibers: Age-related muscle declines are not as inevitable as you might think.
Age-related decline
- Muscle mass, strength, and power decline as we age. This is often considered to be inevitable, extreme, and irreversible.
- Greater loss seems to occur in (generally stronger and more powerful) type II fibers than in (generally more enduring) type I fibers.
- Degradation seems to occur due to variations in disuse. That is, type I fibers are used in most activities encountered in and required by daily living, while type II fibers are used when encountering greater resistance (i.e. lifting heavy things) or moving quickly.
Resistance and reversal caused by training
- Two primary studies cited in the article indicate that:
- No change in (muscle) fiber composition or cross-sectional area (one general indicator of muscle strength) occurred in master sprinters (ages 40-85) who continued their sprint training over the 10-year follow-up of the study.
- Individuals who participated in supervised resistance training sessions three times per week for 3-4 months experienced a significant reversal of age-related muscle fiber degradation (as observed via biopsies of the quads — muscles on the front of the thigh). Equivalent improvements occurred in both age groups that were tested: a “young” group aged 20-36 and an “old” group aged 60-79.
Conclusions from the article
- Age-related declines in muscle composition aren’t as unavoidable as generally assumed.
- Starting strength training at any age at least partially reverses age-related declines that have already occurred.
- Muscle degradation is more closely correlated to insufficient use than to chronological age.
So, basically, the takeaways are that we need to exercise if we are interested in maintaining as many of our youthful capabilities as possible as we age. And, more importantly, resistance training and/or fast movement such as sprinting—sprinting, not “leisurely jogging”—is required because those are the types of activities that recruit type II fibers, which are the ones that generally decline the most with age.
Pure, stand-up fun
While I could leave this tip at that, I’m going to add two more points about the exercise program that was used in the resistance training study mentioned above.
Because the muscle biopsies were performed on the study participants’ quadriceps, only leg exercises were required during the sessions. Specifically, participants warmed up with a few minutes of easy to moderate cycling and then completed 3-5 sets of 8-15 reps of leg press, leg extension, and leg curl.
Now, I can generally understand why those exercises were chosen. They’re easy to learn, hard to perform incorrectly, and require relatively minimal mobility and coordination. And they also obviously produced results. So there’s nothing wrong with them, per se, especially considering that all of the participants had initially been “largely physically inactive” when the study began.
That said, they’re also all performed in a seated or lying position. And, as a general rule of thumb, they require minimal focus exactly because of the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph as to why they were likely chosen.
In other words, they’re boring.
While all of that is perfectly acceptable for a research study, I’ll argue that it’s much less acceptable in our daily lives.
First, we all sit far too much already. And as I alluded to in this tip, we can still potentially be sedentary even when we’re considered “active”. So if we’re going to strength train, better (read: more efficient, effective, and fun) options would be exercises that not only require us to stand but also recruit more muscle groups. Such “leg-focused” options include squats, lunges, deadlifts, swings, hops, and sprints.
Second, in my observation the primary reasons that people quit exercise programs are because the programs (1) don’t produce noticeable results and (2) are boring. And even when the program does produce results, some people still either quit because of boredom or opt for a less-effective but more-fun program.
So if we agree that strength training is important and that we’re more likely to stick with it if we get results and are mentally engaged during the process, then it behooves us to choose exercises with such characteristics. Like the ones in bold above.
And, again, as I mentioned last week, age has nothing to do with it. 😉
Putting it into practice
Strength training is an important component of maintaining our physical capabilities as we age.
I’m biased toward the use of kettlebells—they’re portable, fun, and, most importantly, effective—but frequently and consistently lifting, pushing, or pulling anything that’s heavy-for-you will do the job. That includes barbells, dumbbells, sandbags, weight sleds, your body weight, rocks, bricks, or small children, to name but a few.
So find something you enjoy (at least a little bit), and figure out how to build it into your life.
And if you’re specifically interested in learning some effective kettlebell, barbell, or body weight lifts, consider attending one of our StrongFirst licensed workshops.