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It turns out, there’s more value to strength training as you get older than muscle maintenance. Strength training leads to feeling fitter, increasing muscle mass, improving mobility, greater balance and more energy – all which helps you live your best life.
If you’re just beginning to understand the importance of strength later in life, you are n to too late! A new study, featured in a New York Times piece, showed that older people who engaged in strength training not only maintained their muscles and slowed the effects of age related muscle loss—sarcopenia—but they also discovered newfound motivation and confidence, which allowed them to happily continue with their exercise routine.
The study had 81 older men and women (age 65-75) start a routine and pushed them to maintain it for 6 months. After 6 months, they removed access to the gym the volunteers were going to and told them they were on their own if they wanted to continue. They went back to check on the subjects 6 months later and found that almost 50% of them had continued weight training on their own, at least once a week.
“...people who discovered that they enjoyed and felt capable of completing a weight-training session subsequently sought out and joined a new gym and showed up for workouts, despite no longer receiving nudges from the researchers or encouragement and companionship from their fellow volunteers… Most of them also told the researchers that weight training had provided them with renewed confidence in their physical abilities beyond the gym.” (
Aging = Muscle Loss = Disease Are You At Risk: Learn More
