Yes, Resistance Training IS For Everyone!!

By Steve Wakefield

Many people have this misguided notion that exercise, primarily with weights, is strictly for the realm of the young. But the fact of the matter is that the elderly stand to benefit tremendously from resistance training. In fact, they stand to gain even more dramatic benefits from strength training than the younger age groups!

One of the primary causes for detrimental effects associated with aging, comes not from the weakening of the heart and lungs as many people may believe, but from muscle atrophy. When you think about it, it makes sense. If a young strong person were to go out and chop a bunch of wood, or push a lawn mower around, or climb a flight of stairs, they could do it all with no problem. Then take someone who is 75 years old and severely deconditioned and have them do the same tasks, they will be much more tired and winded than the young person.

Again, there is probably nothing wrong with the older person’s heart and lungs. They have been keeping him or her going for the past 75 years after all. The reason they are more tired is because they have less muscle to accomplish the task. As we get older, beginning about the age of 45 or so (depending on who’s literature you read) we start to lose muscle mass. Bone loss is often close to follow as well.


Now for the good news. In 2007, a study out of McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1866181 found evidence that strength training can actually reverse the effects of aging in muscle tissue in elderly people. In this study, muscle biopsies were taken from a group of older individuals and a group of younger individuals. The biopsies indicated over 500 genes that where expressed differently in the older individuals compared to the younger. The group of older people then underwent a resistance training program for 6months. In that time, the subjects improved their strength levels by over 50 percent. But what was even more amazing is that the muscle biopsies taken after the six months of strength training showed a reversal in the expression of 179 of those 500 genes that where associated with aging! In other words, the muscle tissue from the older population resembled more closely the tissue from the younger population after 6 months of strength training. This change occurred at the molecular/genetic level. These genes, the paper said, are mostly associated with mitochondrial function. Mitochondria to put it simply, are the “energy power plants” in the muscles cell, and many of the detrimental effects of aging are associated with decline in mitochondria function.

We have said all along that an increase in lean mass can lead to an elevated fat burning metabolism, which will help prevent heart disease. Also as I alluded to in my earlier article, about EPOC, resistance training will utilize your body’s glycogen stores, preventing the build up of sugars in the bloodstream, which leads to decrease in insulin sensitivity, which is the primary cause of Type 2 diabetes. I find this study to be very fascinating. Now there is scientific evidence to support the notion that resistance training can not just slow down, but reverse some of the fundamental processes associated with aging. It’s the closest thing we have to a time machine for your cells, and it’s as close as your nearest X Gym!