Weekly weightlifting improves elderly strength and performance

No surprise here. A good well planned comprehensive strength and conditioning program can help improve anyone at any age. Get your program here. 

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -- Lifting weights as little as once a week can increase strength and functional performance in individuals aged 65 to 79 years.

In people over 65 years, resistance training "is now recognized as a safe and effective method for strength development and an important contributor to maintaining independence and enhancing physical capabilities," according to Dr. Dennis Taaffe from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Palo Alto, California, and colleagues. Their report is published in the October issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The investigators assigned 19 women and 34 men to one of four 24-week regimens: three sets of eight muscle strength exercises once, twice, or three times weekly, or continuation of usual activity alone.

All three exercise groups increased their muscle strength -- ranging from 37% to 42% during the 24-week program -- significantly more than the control group (4%), the report indicates. The exercise groups also experienced an increase in lean body mass compared with the controls without an increase in fat mass.

Interestingly, the team found no difference among the three exercise groups for upper body, lower body, or whole body strength.

As tests of physical function, the exercise groups all performed more quickly in rising from a chair and in toe-to-heel backward walking for 6 meters (nearly 20 feet) compared with the control group, according to the results.

Thus, "participation in resistance exercise twice, or even once, each week achieves substantial strength gains similar to those accomplished in a standard 3-day per week program, and these gains are accompanied by improved neuromuscular performance," the investigators conclude.

"As declining muscle strength and balance promote falls and fracture in older adults, we suggest that a high-intensity progressive resistance training program of only one session per week may prove useful in reducing the risk of falls and, hence, fracture," Taaffe and colleagues propose.

Source: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 47:1208-1214.

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Breakfast: The essential meal

No way around it. If you want to body to change nutritionally it will start with a healthy consistent breakfast. 

-Nate

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By Elizabeth Somer, R.D.

(WebMD) -- Your mother was right: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. People who skip breakfast tend to struggle more with weight problems and suffer low energy later in the day when compared to those who take the time to eat.

If you're a seasoned breakfast skipper, change your ways and start eating breakfast -- even if you aren't hungry. It takes two to three weeks to reset the appetite clock. After that, you should notice a boost in energy and fewer problems with overeating later in the day.

breakfast?

The eight or more hour time span between dinner and breakfast is the longest span between any of the three meals of the day. In the hours since dinner, and even while sleeping, the body still needs fuel to keep the heart beating, nerves transmitting, eyes blinking and cells dividing. Much of that fuel comes from the readily available stores of glucose in the blood, liver and muscles.

By sunrise, the body is essentially in a fasting mode, with more than half of the body's glucose usually drained by morning and needing the jump-start that comes from eating a carbohydrate-rich meal. That first meal of the day literally breaks the fast.

Energy drop

If you skip breakfast, you might feel fine, full of energy and ready to go for the first few hours after you wake up. That burst of energy typically comes from a mind and body refreshed after a good night's sleep. But this initial burst of energy wears off as the morning's demands add stress to a body already running on empty.

If you allow even four hours to pass between meals, blood sugar levels drop, resulting in fatigue, poor concentration, irritability and lethargy. Double the time to eight or even 12 hours and you can imagine the energy-draining effects of failing to refuel.

By afternoon, even if you eat a relatively good lunch in an effort to boost lagging energy levels, it's difficult to regain an entire day's worth of energy that you would have had if you had taken five minutes to eat breakfast.

A breakfast primer

What should and shouldn't you eat for breakfast? Avoid high-sugar breakfasts, such as doughnuts and coffee, which provide a quick boost, but leave you feeling drowsy within a few hours. Instead, choose meals with a mix of protein and starch. This will help you to maintain blood sugar levels throughout the morning.

Some good morning choices include:

-Whole-grain cereal and milk

-An English muffin with low-fat cheese and orange juice

-Nontraditional breakfast foods, such as leftover pizza, soup and toast, or a sandwich

-Egg substitute and toast

-whole-wheat toaster waffle topped with fat-free sour cream and fresh blueberries

-A flour tortilla filled with cottage cheese and fresh fruit, warmed in the microwave

-A low-fat whole-wheat bran muffin topped with applesauce and yogurt

-An English muffin topped with one ounce of fat-free cheese and broiled until bubbly, served with a glass of orange juice.

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Exercise, eating, and fat loss.

It's all about balance. All US Sports Online Strength and Conditioning Programs come with our state-of-the-art nutritional planning software. NOT a diet or restrictive fad program. Sensible eating to help you energize your body for your challenging workouts, 

-Nate

Most people who exercise and decrease caloric intake can expect to see decreases in body fat. However, health and fitness professionals are becoming aware that this isn't always the case.

Research has shown that the body has an internal control mechanism that drives it to maintain a particular level of body fat. The term used to describe this phenomena is "set point."

The set point mechanism acts much like a thermostat, turning energy expenditure up or down to avoid either weight gain or weight loss. So when you restrict caloric intake, the body attempts to maintain its weight and fat by lowering the metabolic rate. Conversely, the body will lose weight gained in excess of its internally regulated point by increasing metabolism. This may explain why some people have to exercise quite a bit in order not to gain weight.

Until recently we were told that the most efficient way of manipulating the set-point was by increasing exercise, thereby programming the body to store less fat. Now we know that after a certain amount of time this is no longer true. That internal control mechanism wants to maintain the equilibrium defined by your genes. So, although you can exercise your way to a leaner body than your parents, at a certain point it becomes counter productive.

Most people who claim to be exercising more and eating less without seeing changes in body composition feel desperate. Consequently, they exercise more and eat less. In fact, the "cure" for a damaged set point is to drop back on your exercise program and increase the nutrient density of your diet. Since this flies in the face of everything you have heard it's a difficult task that can only be managed with daily support and dealing with body image issues that normally cause problems at this stage.

Stress is another well recognized cause for the inability to decrease body fat despite a physically active lifestyle and low calorie diet. Experts now acknowledge there is a relationship between stress and weight gain. They even suggest that it has to do with the fight or flight mechanism that encourages the body to store fat under stress. However, there is no significant research to explain this phenomena.

If you are exercising more and eating less and still not able to lose weight, you should seek professional help with a credited dietitian and/or nutritionist.

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