Antiaging exercise is a complex topic, which unfolds differently than many people might imagine. Ideally, proper exercise has as its goal maintaining good health and ensuring longevity.
Importance of Strength Training
For longevity purposes, exercise must build lean muscle tissue if it is to have value in an antiaging system. This is because the loss of lean body mass (also called muscle) results in an overall decline in health and quality of life across the board. It is the single most important aspect of living a long and healthy life.
In light of this information, resistance training emerges as the single most effective type of exercise for longevity. This is a system of exercise using barbells, dumbbells, kettle-bell training , elastic cables, or other exercise devices and machines, that allow the user to gradually increase the difficulty of the exercise by increasing the resistance (weight) over time.
This is not to say that aerobic training is not important as well, rather that strength or resistance type training has a more critical role in promoting longevity and preventing age related muscle loss ,because it involves maintaining lean body mass as we age.
When it comes to antiaging exercise, resistance training does several things that are critical to an antiaging system. First it builds muscle. This is important because the more muscle you have the more fat your body will burn, even at rest.
Muscle is an important factor in preventing osteoporosis, because as muscle exerts torsional (twisting) forces on your bones, it causes them in turn to become stronger and denser, thus helping to prevent the causes of osteoporosis ,and all of its related problems.
Blood sugar control is another important effect of maintaining muscle through an antiaging & exercise program. This is because muscle burns sugar when we are active, and the muscle will use the sugar in your bloodstream most readily as a form of energy. This will ensure that sugar in the blood will not be stored by being converted to fat.
Flexibility
Flexibility training utilizing stretching exercise does not specifically promote longevity, however it is vital in maintaining the integrity of your musculoskeletal system and ensuring that you will have the freedom from pain and mobility you need to live a full and active life.
Aerobics
Aerobic training or cardio interval training as it is also called has a different role in promoting longevity, which is to improve and maintain the heart’s ability to supply oxygen carrying blood to the body.
Recommendations for minimal cardiovascular training are that the individual needs to get their heart rate to 80% of age predicted maximum (220-your age in years) and keep it there for approximately 12-15 minutes three times per week.
P.A.C.E. by Dr. Al Sears is a great program for overall fitness utilizing the concept of interval training to maximize results for health and weight loss.
This system also allows the convenience of working out at home over actually traveling to a gym, especially in bad weather. A personal fitness trainer who uses the Internet to reach out to potential clients is an option. Online fitness training can often provide the knowledge you need to get started on an effective program and prevent inadvertent over-training and injuries.
As time goes on we will delve deeper into this topic and provide more specifics, which you can use to custom design your approach to antiaging exercise, and integrate it into a total antiaging system.
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