You use your muscle every day for a variety of different activities.Muscle strength and endurance is particularly important after retirement. These fitness components will play a critical role in your independence. Every movement that we make from getting out of bed in the morning, to cooking dinner, taking out the garbage or lifting a weight involves strength and endurance of some kind. Muscular mass tends to diminish as we age and as it decreases, so does your strength and endurance.This loss occurs in people of all fitness levels, but those who have less to begin with pay a higher price. Women in particular will face a greater risk. After adolescence, "women have about one third less muscle mass than men", so they're loss has an impact sooner. With regular strength training, muscular mass can be preserved and rebuilt.When challenged by strength training activities your muscles and bones are “continually” forced to renew themselves, sweeping out old, degenerated cells and rebuilding new tissue that is younger, stronger, and healthier. Resistance training is a structured way of getting your body to gradually adapt to increasing amounts of effort.
Preparation You should use very light weights during the first week. This is very important, because as a beginner you must concentrate on learning the proper form for each exercise. Using light weights also helps minimize soreness and decreases the likelihood of injury. Conditioning The second or third week is normally the start of the conditioning phase for a beginner. During this phase, you should gradually increase the amount of weight used and/or the intensity of the workout as your strength and endurance increases. As long as you continue to progress and get stronger, you do not need to do more than one set per exercise. Maintenance Once you have reached your desired level of fitness, the maintenance phase is used to maintain that level. The emphasis in this phase is no longer on progression but on retention. Maintaining your optimal level of fitness should then become part of your life-style and fitness program. There are many styles of resistance training based on the type of resistance used, but the training principles are the same regardless of style.To have a good exercise program, these principles are applied to all endurance and strength training. Principles
Overload When an overload is applied to a muscle, it adapts by becoming stronger and/or by improving its endurance. The key to overload is to make sure that the activity is harder than what is normal. Progression Usually increases in strength can be made in three to four weeks of proper training depending on the individual. If the workload is not progressively increased to keep pace with newly won strength, there will be no further gains. When you can correctly do the upper limit of repetitions for the set without reaching muscular failure, it is usually time to increase the resistance. Specificity A resistance-training program should provide resistance to the specific muscle groups that need to be strengthened. To improve endurance and strength in a given task, you should do resistance movements that are as similar as possible to those doing the task. In this way, you can ensure maximum carryover value to your daily and recreational activities. When beginning a resistance-training program, you should only choose about 8 to 10 exercises that work all of your major muscle groups; this will include your arms, legs, chest, shoulders, stomach, and back. You will reap great benefits by engaging in regular exercises that include strengthening your core muscles. They work together provide you with balance and stability and protect you from injuries Regularity Exercise must be done regularly to produce a training effect. Sporadic exercise may do more harm than good. You can maintain a moderate level of strength by doing proper strength workouts only once a week, but three workouts per week are best for optimal gains. This principle of regularity also applies to the exercises for individual muscles or muscle groups. If you do not exercise them regularly gains in strength and endurance will be minimal. Recovery Consecutive days of hard resistance training for the same muscular group can be detrimental. The muscles must be allowed sufficient recovery time to adapt. Strength training can be done every day only if the exercised muscular groups are rotated, so that the same muscle or group is not exercised on consecutive days. How often, how long and how hard you exercise, and what kinds of exercises you do should be determined by what you are trying to accomplish.Your goals, your present fitness level, age, health, skills, interest and convenience are among the factors you should consider. Strength training intensityIntensity for strength training activities is usually expressed in the amount of resistance and the number of repetitions completed. Strength and endurance improve when a particular muscle is exercised specifically using a weight which is lighter than a weight used to “build muscle”, and by increasing the number of repetitions. Strength gains come from resistance, how much weight you lift. Endurance is achieved through repetition. Ideally you should build some endurance when you do muscular strength exercises and you should build some strength when you do muscular endurance exercises. You can do exercises at different reps, but don't go so light that you don't challenge your muscles or so heavy that you can't maintain good technique. In strength training intensity and duration have an opposing effect, the harder you train the less time you can spend training. Usually as the amount of resistance (intensity) goes up the number of repetitions (duration) goes down. To gain health benefits,strengthening activities need to be done to the point where it's hard for you to do another repetition without help. There are different methods of resistance training and exercise.When properly performed they can provide significant benefits and improvements in your overall health and well-being. Free weights are most versatile resistance training equipment for a person over 60. Free weights are anything not attached to a cable. Free weights offer unrestrained movement patterns and allow the joints to move through full range of motion. Resistance training using free weights includes:
Calisthenics exercises help improve overall fitness and strength.Calisthenics are moderate intense exercises that use your own body weight to develop and maintain muscular fitness. Calisthenics build both strength and endurance by challenging the control of your body weight as you move into and out of different positions. Different exercises will train all the major groups, etc. sit-ups strengthen the abdominal muscles and push-ups focus on the pectoral muscles. In addition to developing and maintaining muscular strength calisthenics increases bone density and the strength of connective tissue. There are many simple movements that can be done at home with little or no additional equipment. It is best to start with just the resistance of your own body weight to enable you to develop the proper form. Hand held weights; wrist and ankle weights can be added later for more intensity. Use an intensity scale (modified Borg scale) of 1-10, with 1 being no effort and 10 being extremely difficult, almost painful Try to target 6-8 on the intensity scale, meaning hard but not excruciating. Note – generally, you should not use full body weight as resistance, e.g. chin-ups, pull-ups, when first starting out or if you are over weight because it creates too much resistance. Weights and Resistance Band training are popular methods of training.They use gravity and resistance to oppose muscle contraction. Both weights and resistance bands have several similarities.
All four are critical for an effective resistance-training program. Exercises can be chosen, and weight or resistance can be precisely adjusted, to safely exhaust each individual muscle group after a specific number of repetitions. Other strength training exercises lack the flexibility and precision that weights and resistance band training can offer. Dumbbells are hand held weights commonly used in pairs. Weight can vary from moderately light to extremely heavy. There are two types of dumbbells you can choose from, adjustable and fixed weight. The adjustable dumbbells have a steel bar about fourteen inches long with disc plates that can be added or removed in order to increase or decrease weights, discs are secured with a clip or collar. Fixed weight dumbbells have permanent weights attached to them and do not allow you to make adjustments. They can be purchased individually or in sets. It is recommended to have at least three different weights to accommodate exercises that require more or less weight. Dumbbells provide exercise flexibility and convenience and are ideal for home use. You can do a variety of exercises for all muscular groups. Dumbbell training can improve all the abilities for all round fitness. Barbell weights consist of a bar between five and seven feet long and circular metal plates that come in a variety of weights. You can use the same set of barbell weights to perform a wide variety of exercises. Barbells are popular because they utilize full body movements and develop the core muscular groups. Dumbbells and barbells give you a more comprehensive training because of the many stabilizer muscles involved. When using dumbbell and barbell you have to stabilize the weight which will force you to use little muscles other than the muscles being exercised. Resistance bands and tubing – come in a variety of lengths and resistance. Resistance bands and tubing can be used with range-of motion exercises to strengthen both upper and lower body. The difference between bands and tubing is that bands are flat sheets usually six to eight inches wide and come with or without handles, while tubing is round and is almost always sold with handles. Most people prefer tubes because of the handles. Resistance bands and tubing come in different colors that represent different resistance. You can do more exercises with bands and tubes than with weights, you can do exercises standing up, lying down, you can be attached to a door or use them with a training partner for a wide variety of exercises. Weight training machines There are a variety of weight training machines available. These machines allow you to perform a number of resistance training exercises on one piece of equipment. Most machines are designed to vary the weight lifted throughout a wide range of motion of an exercise so the challenge to the muscle is optimal. Advantages of the machines are they are easy to use and help to ensure good form. You do not have to pay as much attention to form, balance and coordination, the machine will guide you through the movement and for this reason they are very good for beginners and older adults, but choose wisely, there are machines that fail to support women and seniors Weight training machines can be used to strengthen muscles throughout the body. Popular brands include Nautilus, Bowflex, and Precor. Avoid equipment or devices that sound too good to be true. Products that claim easy and effortless muscle gain and weight loss, spot reducing of thigh or waist and speedy results rarely deliver on their promises. Start out your fitness program with light weights until you learn the exercises.Work up to a weight that tires your muscles after the desired number of repetitions. Pay attention to pain "the whole notion of no pain, no gain” is not true. Pain, especially as you get older, is an important sign that something is wrong”, older and unfit bodies are more at risk than younger ones, since they are not quite so resilient. Moderate strength training will support bone density and maintain joint function through the strengthening of supportive muscles. Using simple hand weights, resistance bands, or performing some resistance exercises using your own body weight is all that is required. If you feel your body is not ready for strength training for any reason talk to your physician.Here are some risk factors you should consider Any cardiovascular disease, including chest pain at rest or exertion Family history of chronic heart disease before the age of fifty. Abnormal ECG, or cardiac arrhythmia. Chronic hypertension Extreme obesity Any chronic muscular or joint problem Recent surgery Arthritis Diabetes Asthma Years of sedentary lifestyle Depending on your condition, you might need to start out using very little or no weight at all Starting out with weights that are too heavy can cause injuries. The tissues that bind the structures of your body together need to adapt to strength exercise. One of the most important aspects of resistance training is learning the correct procedure for each exercise and using the right amount of resistance. Use a minimum of weight the first week, and then gradually add weight As with aerobic activity, be sure to include 5 – 10 minutes of warm-up and cool-down in your training session. Exercise or activities that only involve contracting your muscles many times (aerobics) with “little or no resistance” does not prevent loss of muscle mass. Use it or lose it is a rule that applies to your strength and endurance. Your body adapts to the amount and kind of activity you ask it to do, “whether that is more activity or less”.
Stretching is one of the most important types of exercise you can to do on a regular basis and will provide a number of different benefits.
Next: Flexibility/Stretching
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