The aging process can be slowed -- or even reversed. But you must develop a concern for strength and muscle. If health, vitality and a long life free from serious disability are what you want you must consider what I'm about to say.

The most common disease of aging

The most prevalent condition to occur with age is sarcopenia, or what is better known as frailty. Sarcopenia is the medical term for "muscle weakening" or "body thinning." It is basically the muscle equivalent of osteopenia (bone thinning), or osteoporosis. Unfortunately, this condition has received little attention, even though its prevention is at the very heart of living a functional, independent life into older age.

The danger of neglect and inactivity

Even a young person, if you confine him to bed or a chair, will biologically age in fitness by almost two decades in just 21 days. This was actually demonstrated in the 1960s by Swedish physiologist Bengt Saltin. Since older people's bodies are already predisposed to losing muscle tissue and strength ("Use it or lose it," remember?), if we put them in a bed or easy chair for 21 days we can cripple them for the rest of their lives.

The real fountain of youth

Life extension and anti-aging have been pursued with increasing interest during the last three decades, so you can imagine my surprise when one of the only documented research studies showing reversal of aging at the cellular, genetic level in humans went largely ignored. In 2007, researchers published work revealing that a very basic weight training program practiced just twice a week improved strength, and actually reversed aging in 179 genetic markers at the cellular level.

These people's bodies were beginning to operate on a level that was many years their junior. A person who is 70 years old can weight train and more than double their strength over time -- easily outdoing a sedentary person two or more decades their junior. Or they can be sedentary and lose muscle and strength to the level of a 90-year-old. Your chronological age has little to do actually with how old you feel, or how old you are biologically. It is much more important to think in terms of healthy function and strength, and that is subject to 50-100 percent improvement or more with training.

The power of strength training

The good news is we have not found an age where the ravages of sarcopenia can't be reversed in a willing participant who can move themselves and maybe need only moderate assistance. In 1990, a study was done with nursing home residents in their 90s (each possessing at least two chronic diseases apiece). The researchers wanted to know if the residents' frailty and low muscle strength could be aided even at their advanced age. Working with the leg extension machine three times a week, these residents showed over a 150 percent increase in strength in just eight weeks. For a few this meant being able to stand unassisted, or walk without a cane. The potential was there all along but had been allowed to wane by neglect.

Don't allow your potential to wane with age.

Thomas Morrison is a fitness coordinator at Bradley Wellness Center.

Excerpt from:

Keeping fit: Overcome aging with strength training - The Daily Citizen