Over the years, I have been privileged and honored to interact with, learn from and observe men and women who have been weight training for thirty and even forty years.
These dedicated fitness buffs do it because they have built exercise into their lives not just for the health benefits. Exercise is no longer something they do, it is something they’ve become. They exude a vitality, zest and physical energy that would make a 50 year old woman seem 30 and a 70 year old woman seem 40.
They like exercising and much of what they do at the gym is resistance training based. It is the key – the one major reason for their shared youthfulness is weight-training.
Because they are dedicated to their craft of resistant training, they have stronger bones, infinitely better posture, carry themselves like much young people, possess a youthful mindset and vitality that is unique to a strong, fit, healthy person. They appreciated the fact that science now bears out what they have known instinctively – that proper resistance training sessions can profoundly improve one’s quality of life by boosting all the key hormones associated with youth and vitality.
On the other hand, communities are filled with people that are tired looking, shoulders stooped, struggling to move properly, overweight, unhealthy looking skin and so on. A close look in their eyes reveals a certain lifelessness – a type of deadness is felt as the life-force within them is clearly being sucked out.
This gradual, yet progressive loss of muscle mass and function is quickly becoming a recognized major health concern linked to increased disability, loss of independence, and decreased life expectancy.
These sedentary individuals are simply not getting the positive metabolic by products and hormonal stimuli of physically challenging their body regularly.
However, those who lift weights at a certain high intensity automatically enjoy an energy, enthusiasm for living because they are get a constant trickle of the all important “youth” or growth factor hormones like testosterone, thyroid, and Growth Hormones that otherwise decline with age.
After an intensive study, Professors of nutrition and medicine at Tufts University USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, William Evans, PhD, and Irwin H. Roseberg, respectively, determined 10 biomarkers of aging. Biomarkers are things that tell how old you would be if you didn’t know how old you were in years.
Biomarkers of Aging:
1. Muscle Mass
2. Strength
3. Basal Metabolic Rate
4. Body Fat Percentage
5. Aerobic Capacity
6. Blood-sugar Tolerance
7. Cholesterol/HDL Ratio
8. Blood Pressure
9. Bone density
10. Ability to regulate Internal Temperature
Although this study was a bit radical for the time, Evans and Rosenberg found that strength training exercise was the intervention that most positively affected all the bio-markers.
When weight-training, intensity is important. A degree of intensity is defined as working as hard as you possibly can. It is giving your best effort using the most weight you can for the required amount of repetitions you can do in an exercise with good form. If want to continue to see progress, you must continue to challenge yourself.
The point is, not to over work yourself and have to crawl to your car after, but to challenge yourself enough yet leave a bit of steam in the tank. This healthier stance keeps you motivated, energized and ready to come back for the next session.
Adding a couple of strengthening exercise sessions a week is important to achieve enough muscle strength and muscle mass to take into your later years and is vital to maintaining functional capacity.
There is absolutely no doubt that a well thought out and consistently applied strength training program will put both years in your life and life in your years.
It’s an anti-aging certainty with lots of reverse-aging potential!
You can regain vitality, muscular strength, endurance and lead a higher quality of life beginning now…
If you truly want to take command of your life and tap into the true “fountain of youth”…
“Healthy Self Healing” can help you do just that…
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