DOLCE DIET LIFESTYLE:
Exercise Now for Stronger Muscles in Your Golden Years
by Samantha Coogan, MS, RDN, LD
A recent NY Times article postulated that more exercise now will improve your muscle activity later on life, promoting longevity. At the cellular level, some studies have shown that athletes who were active at a younger age experience greater activity and activation of muscle groups during their mature years.
We know that nothing lasts forever, but we can improve the quality of muscle fiber tissue into our older years by preparing for it now. It’s pretty similar to how we need to prepare our bones in our younger/growing years in order to have a strong scaffolding unit in our later years and fight off osteoporosis.
Each muscle fiber is attached to a neuron in the spinal column through axons, making up a muscle unit. When intact, the neurons send nerve impulse transmissions (signals) to the muscle fiber to expand or contract, accordingly. The same is true for blinking, pointing your finger, scratching your head. These neurons are constantly firing to tell different muscle groups to perform different functions.
However, as we age, neurons start to slow down and eventually die. When this happens, younger individuals can recruit other neurons to come in and help those muscle units, but as we age, we start to lose more and more neurons, and have less to rely on to come in and help out. This is what causes frailty and loss of muscle mass as we age. We simply don’t have enough second-line defenders to take over. This process starts at age 30, but speeds up pretty rapidly around age 60.
When elite masters-level athletes (those in their 60s) were tested against sedentary (control) individuals of the same age bracket, unsurprisingly, the seasoned athletes had more intact muscle units than the sedentary group. The elite group had approximately 14% more muscle mass than the control group. Furthermore, this group also had about 30% more intact motor units than the control, and “resembled the muscles of people decades younger,” according to Geoffrey Power, the leader of the 2010 study.
Now, not all hope is lost if you haven’t been training like an Olympian since your prepubescent years. Some of the individuals in the elite group didn’t start their regimens until they were in their 50s.
So even a few good years of solid training can improve your longevity and overall muscle units. You don’t have to go crazy. You can achieve results by incorporating resistance training/weight bearing activity now. That doesn’t mean hours in the gym, or having to lift heavy. You just need to induce some stress on your muscles in order for them to grow and strengthen into your later years.
Just think of your muscles as you would any other part of your body. You need to nourish and strengthen the bones when you’re young to have a solid foundation when you’re older. Properly nourishing the body with vitamins that aid in vision when you’re younger helps ward off cataracts and macular degeneration when you approach your sixties. Your muscles are the same. Train them now to optimize their stability and longevity later on. Your body will thank you for it!
