We are still figuring this all out. The important take home is that frailty is caused by inactivity and that not much activity is ample to develop plenty of strength and balance.
The best advice that i can give provide you are able to take full advantage of it to operate a decent sized garden. Two hours of daily effort is ample to work up a decently large patch of land. Start with twenty feey by thirty feet. That way you can grow plenty of anything that you will consume. If you get larger, the extra land can go into potatoes.
The main thing is that preparing the seed bed and planting the crop is sufficient to jump start your exercise program. After that it is easy to maintain.
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How Do They Do It? 80 Year Olds With 40-Year Old Muscle Mass
By Dr. Mercola
Increasing physical frailty as you age is commonly accepted as “a fact of life.”
Until recently, most studies showed that
after the age of 40, people typically lose eight percent or more of
their muscle mass with each passing decade.
But newer research suggests that this is not a foregone conclusion.
One study
of 40 competitive runners, cyclists, and swimmers, ranging in age from
40 to 81, found no evidence of deterioration — the athletes in their 70s
and 80s had almost as much thigh muscle mass as the athletes in their
40s.
Quoted in the New York Times, Dr. Vonda Wright, who oversaw the study, said:“We think these are very encouraging results…
They suggest strongly that people don’t have to lose muscle mass and function as they grow older.
The changes that we’ve assumed were
due to aging and therefore were unstoppable seem actually to be caused
by inactivity. And that can be changed.”
Other recent studies have had similar
results. For example, in an animal study from last year, elderly
sedentary rats put on a running program developed new satellite cells
after 13 weeks. These cells are specialized stem cells known to repair
and build muscle tissue.
Lifelong Activity is Best, but it’s Never Too Late to Start
Over the past several years, researchers have discovered that it is indeed possible to restore
the ability of old human muscle to repair and rebuild itself. However,
the need to keep aging muscles in shape has also been demonstrated, as
long periods of atrophy are more challenging to overcome. These findings
fall into the category of common sense, along the lines of “use it or
lose it.” And as you age, physical exercise becomes an ever more
important aspect of optimal health and longevity.
The good news is that it’s really never
too late to start an exercise program, even if you’ve been inactive for a
long time. Just keep in mind that older muscles do not respond as well
to sudden bouts of exercise, so to take precautions and start off slow, to avoid injury.
Making Exercise Safe and Effective as You Age
Safety is always an important aspect of
exercise, but becomes crucial if you’re older and just embarking on a
regimented exercise program. Unfortunately, many elderly forgo exercise
altogether because of a fear of injury or pain, when, in fact, proper
exercise will ultimately reduce your risk of injury as well as help to improve pain.
If you’re elderly, it’s advisable to get
a workout buddy — a personal trainer or someone who is experienced — to
help guide you through your routine. Start off slowly and gradually
increase intensity as you grow stronger, avoiding activities that
aggravate or cause pain. Just keep in mind that while you need to use
caution, you do need to exercise at a level that is challenging to your body.
Otherwise the true benefits will be forfeited.
Ideally your fitness program should be
comprehensive, providing the necessary balance-training activities for
stability while also improving your strength, flexibility,
cardiovascular fitness and fat-burning capabilities with high-intensity “Peak” exercises.
During ‘peak exercises,’ you raise your
heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed
by a 90-second recovery period. You repeat this cycle for a total of
eight repetitions. Peak exercises are particularly beneficial for aging
bodies as this type of interval training triggers the natural production
of human growth hormone (HGH), also known as “the fitness hormone.” HGH
plays an integral role in maintaining youthfulness and strength. (For
an in-depth explanation of my peak fitness regimen, please review this past article.)
While anaerobic Peak exercises may seem
too advanced for the elderly, don’t let the intensity dissuade you! Rest
assured you can perform Peak exercises at ANY age. The only difference
is that the older you are the lower your maximum heart rate will be.
My Latest Findings on Optimal Exercise
I’ve been recommending doing Peak 8
exercises three times a week, but after doing that myself for about a
year, I gradually felt that it was too much for me. I cut down to once a
week, which seemed to work out well. But after discussing it with Phil
Campbell, he made a compelling argument to increase it back to three
times a week. Getting growth hormone produced three times instead of
just once a week can have profound health benefits, so I bumped it
backed up.
I decided to make additional changes
after I interviewed Dr. Doug McGuff, who is a strong proponent of Super
Slow weight training. That interview will be published on January 6th,
so for more information about Super Slow weight training, please open up
that newsletter. Dr. McGuff believes that you only need 12 minutes of Super Slow type strength training once a week.
I really enjoyed my interview with him
as he helped me appreciate a nagging truth that I hadn’t quite captured
yet, and that is the crucial nature of recovery integrated into
listening to your body.
The Importance of Recovery
I have known the importance of “Listen
to Your Body,” and always advocate this when it comes to selecting
foods. But this also applies to exercise and recovery. The epiphany I
had with Dr. McGuff is that I wasn’t applying the ‘listen to your body’
principle with respect to my exercise program. When I grilled him on the
parameters of how to know if you are recovered from your exercise, he
said:
“You would have a restless energy
and feel like you have to engage in some type of physical activity. You
will spontaneously just want to work out.”
Well that had not happened to me for
some time, and I believe I was pushing myself too hard and had not
allowed myself enough recovery time. This is probably not a problem for
most people who exercise, as they are more than likely not pushing
themselves hard enough, but when you go to extremes like in Peak Fitness, this is a serious risk you need to pay careful attention to.
So right now I’m in a massive
experimentation phase, and I’m having fun playing around with my
exercise program. I will likely be exercising the same length of time,
just breaking it up differently, and listening to my body. I suspect
that will be more ideal for me and I intend to report on my results so
you can learn from it.
The lesson here is that life is an
exciting journey, and you’re never “too old.” As you age, you do need to
adjust however, and discover through trial and error what works best
for you. Learn to listen to your body so it can guide you onto a path
that will provide you with the most efficient and effective benefits.
For the Elderly, Exercise Can Quite Literally Save Your Life
As you get older your muscle and bone
mass decrease and the senses that guide your balance — vision, touch,
proprioception — may all start to deteriorate, and this can make you
unsteady on your feet. Needless to say, bone fractures and brain
injuries resulting from falls can be life threatening. Exercise is a key
to maintaining your balance as you get older, and should really be
viewed as a necessity — like eating and sleeping — as it can quite
literally save your life.
By taking the time to do balance,
strength and other exercises on a regular basis you can keep your sense
of balance strong, and even restore what’s already been lost.
In a study published last year, eight weeks of balance training
reduced slips and improved the likelihood of recovery from slips among
the elderly. Separate research, which noted that “altered balance is the
greatest collaborator towards falls in the elderly,” found balance
training is effective in improving functional and static balance, mobility and falling frequency in elderly women with osteoporosis.
The ability to balance on one leg
is also an important predictor of injury-causing falls, so if you know
that you’d be shaky if you tried to stand on one foot, you’re at an
increased risk of being hurt in a fall and should start appropriate
exercises immediately.
Yes, You Can Exercise at ANY Age
Earlier this fall I posted a couple of videos showing my mother’s exercise routine.
She didn’t start working out until she was 74 and now, at the age of
77, she has gained significant improvements in strength, range of
motion, balance, bone density and mental clarity.
Exercise Strengthens More than Muscle
Your muscles aren’t the only benefactors
of a comprehensive exercise program. While many are misled into
thinking toxic drugs are the answer to combat decreasing bone density,
the truth is that weight-bearing exercise is one of the most effective remedies against osteoporosis—another common problem related to aging.
Without question, osteoporosis drugs are likely to cause more long-term harm than benefit. Studies have actually linked bisphosphonate bone-strengthening drugs like Fosamax, Actonel, Boniva and Reclast to an increased risk
of femur fractures. One of the latest and largest studies to date
discovered that women who’ve been on bisphosphonates for more than five
years have a nearly three times higher risk of these dangerous fractures…
Your bones are actually very porous and
soft, and as you get older, your bones can easily become less dense and
hence, more brittle—especially if you are inactive.
Resistance training can combat this
effect because as you put more tension on your muscles it puts more
pressure on your bones, which then respond by continuously creating
fresh, new bone. In addition, muscle is heavier than fat, so as you
build more muscle, and make the muscle that you already have stronger,
you also put more constant pressure on your bones which automatically helps maintain bone strength.
