Getting older is inevitable, but it’s possible to slow down the aging process through regular exercise.
Getting older is inevitable, but that doesn’t have to mean becoming less active. As you age, your body starts to slow down and tasks that used to be easy now require a bit more effort to accomplish. On top of that, your metabolism slows down, causing you to gain weight. You lose muscle mass, your cardiovascular fitness declines, and your reflexes aren’t as sharp as they once were. While this might sound like a doomsday diagnosis, there is some good news: It’s possible to slow down the aging process through regular exercise.
Activities such as strength training and high-intensity interval training, as well as regularly changing up your exercise routine can help maintain muscle mass, prevent cardiovascular decline and improve balance. All three of these components are essential to living a long, healthy and independent life.
Add these activities to your weekly fitness routine to slow down your body’s clock.
So how can you stop the loss of muscle mass and increase it instead? It’s simple — lift weights! And no, you don’t need to become a bodybuilder. If your routine doesn’t currently include strength training, start by doing one set of 10 to 15 repetitions of exercises that challenge your major muscle groups, including your chest, back, arms and legs. For example, a chest exercise is a bench press, a back exercise is a row, and a leg exercise is a squat. Do these moves two to three times a week. If you’re already lifting weights, increase the weight regularly. Aim for a modest increase every few weeks — in the range of 2.5 to 10 pounds — and keep track in a diary or journal to make certain you’re increasing regularly. Even if you keep your routine exactly the same, increasing the weight so that your last few repetitions are challenging (but still doable) will help you become stronger, which means more lean muscle tissue — and better calorie-burning potential!
The last way to help slow down age-related changes is to keep adding challenge and variety to your workouts. When you perform an exercise routine over and over, with no change in frequency, intensity, duration or type of exercise, you can plateau. Over time, this lack of challenge may allow age-related changes to creep in before you know it. If you get complacent with your workouts, your body will, too.
Experiment with incorporating new fitness ideas into your exercise routine using these suggestions.
For more information, please click here:http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/stay-fit-at-any-age/art-20270840?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=sm&utm_content=post&utm_campaign=mayoclinic&geo=national&placementsite=enterprise&mc_id=us&cauid=100503&linkId=37333027