This thought process that Im getting older and now I must take it easy and slow down. Is wrong. It does no good to go on a mission to weaken your body because your getting older. Facts are in Strong People Live longer and fight disease significantly better. This is very important: stronger people live longer, no matter what the other variables might be. In studies of all-cause mortality, stronger people have a lower mortality rate at any age. Any profound loss of LBM is highly correlated with mortality. Heavier people tend to be stronger. Heavier people carry more muscle mass, and more muscle mass correlates positively with strength, even if they are fatter. Even morbidly obese people are stronger, though the process of getting morbidly obese by sitting on your ass and eating cake tends to offset the benefits. Underweight people tend to be weaker, and weaker is the opposite of stronger in terms of all-cause mortality. Underweight people tend to lose bone mass as well, because they don’t do the things that keep themselves stronger and heavier, which keep their bones dense. Less-dense bone predisposes an individual to fractures. Pelvic fractures are very, very, very bad. These are the facts. Therefore, if health and physical capacity are your primary concerns, abs are not a leading indicator — in fact, they may be a lagging indicator, depending on how they got there. Younger people who train very hard and watch their diets carefully will usually show visible abdominal musculature. But many athletes performing at a high level do not; low bodyfat levels are not an advantage in every sport, and some sports are so strenuous that the diet necessary to show visible abs does not allow for recovery from the work. As we age and changes take place in our hormonal milieu, the physiological environment necessary for the growth of muscle and the loss of fat erodes. When you were young, you swam with the current; when you were fully mature, you swam in the lake; now that you’re older, you’re swimming upstream. I’m as sorry about that as anybody, but getting older simply makes staying skinny and muscular harder to do. It certainly doesn’t make it impossible, especially if you haven’t already done it. Older people benefit more from strength training than younger people do, but it is harder to make progress than when you’re younger, so you’d better hurry. This is why I say that a little pot belly on a 58-year-old gym owner who can still deadlift 500 pounds is not necessarily a bad thing. So lighten up a little, okay? And while you’re at it, get an accurate grasp of your own situation. Things may not be as they seem.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 17:45:24 +0000
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