Stay strong for everyday life ............................................................
People who don’t exercise lose 30 to 40 percent of their strength by age 65.
By age 74, more than one-fourth of American men and two-thirds of American
women can’t lift an object heavier than 10 pounds, like a small dog or a loaded
garbage bag. These changes aren’t the normal consequences of aging. They’re
a result of neglect — of experiencing life from a La-Z-Boy recliner and the front
seat of a Winnebago. If you don’t use your muscles, they simply waste away.
This gradual slide toward wimpiness can begin as early as your mid-20s.
Fortunately, strength is one of the easiest physical abilities to retain as you get
older; certainly, you can do a lot more to halt strength loss than you can to pre-
vent wrinkling skin, fading eyesight, or increasing affection for elevator Muzak.
One study, which included men up to age 96, found that by lifting weight, most
seniors can at least double — if not triple — their muscle power.
So if you rarely lift anything heavier than a cell phone, it’s time to build enough
brawn to get along in the real world. Increased strength is what you need to
unscrew the top off a stubborn jar of pickles, hoist your kid onto the mechani-
cal horsy, and close a suitcase that’s too full. Even if you have the stamina to
sprint the full length of an airport to catch your plane, it’s not going to do you
much good if you can’t lug along that overstuffed luggage.
Keep your bones healthy .................................................................
Twenty-five million Americans have osteoporosis,a disease of severe bone loss
that causes 1.5 million fractures a year, mostly of the back, hip, and wrist.
About half of those who break their hips never regain full walking ability, and
many of these fractures lead to fatal complications. When bones become
extremely weak — picture them like chalk, porous and fragile — it doesn’t
even take a fall to break them. Someone with osteoporosis doesn’t fall and
break a hip; she breaks a hip and falls.
Osteoporosis isn’t something that happens to you overnight, like becoming
eligible for a senior discount at the movies. Most people start out with strong,
dense bones — imagine them as poles of steel. But around age 35, most
people — men included — begin to lose about^1 ⁄ 2 to 1 percent of their bone
each year. (For women, bone loss accelerates after menopause — 1 to 2 per-
cent a year for the first five years and then about 1 percent annually until age
- Then the loss slows back to^1 ⁄ 2 percent a year.) If you do everything right,
however, you can decelerate this bone loss significantly — by about 50 per-
cent. If you’ve already lost a lot of bone, you may even be able to build some
of it back. Strength training alone can’t stop bone loss, but it can play a big
role. Also important are calcium, vitamin D, and aerobic exercise such as walk-
ing and jogging. (Swimming and cycling don’t work because your body weight
is supported, either by the water or the bike; when you have to support your
own self, your bones respond by building themselves up.)
a Stronger Bod with Weights .................................... Part IV: Lift and Curl: Building
