When ever something comes along that you think that you want to do or should do and it’s a challenge to do it, do you hesitate? It seems that your mind always has plenty of reasons not to do something. If that activity is strength training, what is stopping you?
Is it your age? Are you worried that since you are a little older that strength or resistance training might be too much for you? Or maybe you are afraid that you might injure yourself lifting weights? Those are legitimate arguments but they shouldn’t stop you from trying. Lifting weights is like running or walking in one respect, you have to start out slowly and then gradually increase your activity. Light weights or even no weights are the way to start out. After a while you will find yourself becoming stronger, and then you can increase the weights.
As for injuries, they may happen and they may set you back but they shouldn’t end your attempt at strength training. If you are careful and only lift weight that you feel comfortable with you’ll avoid most injuries.
What else could be stopping you from strength training? Maybe you don’t want to lift weights and feel that it wouldn’t help you anyway. Now more than ever folks in the medical field are recommending strength training for older people. Why? Because the benefits are wonderful, you will feel healthier, stronger, and more confident, you’ll probably sleep better and those are just a few benefits from strength training.
So give strength training a try!
In an earlier article I wrote about Sarcopenia, the loss of muscle mass. This usually occurs as we age. Luckily there are things that we can do (strength training) to slow that down.
Is muscle loss inevitable?
Of course aging is inevitable, but how we age is not. If we eat the wrong foods and don’t exercise aging will not only occur but it will accelerate. While walking, running or aerobics are great for the heart they really don’t slow down Sarcopenia. Strength or resistance training is the key to keeping that muscle mass and getting stronger to boot. And the great thing is that you can start at any age to lift weights (check with your doctor first of course) Just remember even if you are older that doesn’t mean you can’t build muscles.
Don’t give up on the aerobics but a well balanced exercise program will also have strength training.
You want to become stronger and you want your muscles to become larger. You are doing strength training on a regular basis but you just don’t see any improvement. What are you doing wrong? If you aren’t increasing the amount of weight that you are lifting then your muscles won’t become bigger or stronger. This is called Progressive resistance strength training.
When you begin strength training or weight lifting, you start out with a weight that you can do a reasonable amount of repetitions in a set. Repetitions are the number of times that you do an exercise and a set is a group of repetitions. Increasing the number of sets at a particular weight will not give the muscles enough resistance to grow bigger. You must increase the weight.
Of course before you increase that weight make sure that you can do at least 2 sets of 10 repetitions before proceeding on to the higher weight. Only increase the weight by five pounds so you will be able to do at least 8 to 10 repetitions. Of course at some point you will max out, but that will take some time.
