Muscles play a vital role in supporting overall health and wellness, especially into old age. They aren’t just about looking good , although that would be a big plus, and they aren’t just about the occasional need to help your friends move; they’re a critical factor in metabolic health, body weight control, bone strength, and resilience to stress and disease.

Did you know you have more than 600 muscles in your body? These muscles help you move, lift things, pump blood through your body, and even help you breathe, basically muscle keeps you body alive!

When you think about your muscles, you probably think most about the ones you can control. These are your voluntary muscles, which means you can control their movements. They are also called skeletal muscles, because they attach to your bones and work together with your bones to help you walk, run, pick up things, play an instrument, throw a baseball, kick a soccer ball, push a lawnmower, or ride a bicycle. The muscles of your mouth and throat even help you talk!

Healthy muscles let you move freely and keep your body strong. They help you to enjoy playing sports, dancing, walking the dog, swimming, and other fun activities. And they help you do those other (not so fun) things that you have to do, like making the bed, vacuuming the carpet, or mowing the lawn.

Strong muscles also help to keep your joints in good shape. If the muscles around your knee, for example, get weak, you may be more likely to injure that knee. Strong muscles also help you keep your balance, so you are less likely to slip or fall.

And remember—the activities and exercise that make your skeletal muscles strong will also help to keep your heart muscle strong!

Keeping your muscles healthy will help you to be able to walk, run, jump, lift things, play sports, and do all the other things you love to do. Exercising, getting enough rest, and eating a balanced diet will help to keep your muscles healthy for life.

Muscle has a stronger connection with our health than many people realize. There is growing evidence that skeletal muscle is a key biological marker of health, aging, and disease. The best medicine available to maintain muscle mass and strength is less complicated and costly-namely, exercise and a healthy diet. Yet about 60% of people over 65 are insufficiently active or overtly inactive, and many have poor nutrition. Most people will lose approximately 30% of muscle mass over their lifetime, and as much as 50% by the time they reach their 80s or 90s. The loss of skeletal muscle mass, quality and strength that is associated with aging is known as sarcopenia.

If you’ve suffered a noticeable loss of muscle mass, strength and function as you’ve gotten older, chances are that it isn’t a random occurrence. It very well could be a condition known as sarcopenia, or adult onset muscle loss, a progressive and generalized loss of muscle mass that is directly associated with the aging process.

In fact, sarcopenia affects 14 percent of 65-69 year olds and 53 percent of the population 80 and older. And with the number of people around the world aged 60 and older expected to reach 2 billion in 30 years, even conservative estimates show sarcopenia affecting more than 200 million people by 2045.

An even bigger concern for all of us today is that deteriorating muscle mass affects more than just strength; it also negatively impacts our balance and gait as well as our overall ability to perform what were once routine tasks of daily living, from hauling groceries to walking the 

dog. All too often this leads directly to frailty, morbidity, disability, poor quality of life, increased dependence on long-term care and eventually mortality. As of the early 21st century, the estimated direct health care costs related to sarcopenia already exceeded $20 billion.

As a general rule, the body seeks stasis (equilibrium), which means a balance between protein production (synthesis) and usage (metabolism). However, while we never really lose our ability to metabolize protein, we do lose the ability to synthesize our own as we get older. So, at a time when we actually require more protein to stay healthy and strong (given that our muscles account for 60% of the body’s protein stores),we’re actually getting less.

As such, any interventions for sarcopenia should also focus on meeting all nutritional requirements. Unfortunately, most of us tend to adhere to the same diet throughout our lives, and consequently many seniors find themselves protein-deficient. (It’s important to point out that a recent study showed that due to the anabolic resistance of aging, dietary protein is not as effective in older adults, which means no matter how much protein you eat, you will never achieve a balance between how much muscle protein is produced and how much is lost.)

When it comes to disability, the loss of muscle mass and strength is a significant risk factor in the aging population. 

And when coupled with other diseases associated with aging, sarcopenia’s effects can be even more pronounced.  For example, when patients suffer from both sarcopenia and osteoporosis, the risk of falling and fractures—and the accompanying loss of autonomy—rises precipitously.

But perhaps the most powerful indication that the loss of skeletal muscle (and the accompanying loss of strength) is vitally important stems from its propensity to act as a precursor and predictor of future mortality in middle-aged and older adults.

Many scientists still believe sarcopenia is an inevitable fact of life for those who live long enough, but the process is significantly more complicated than that. Although primarily a condition of older individuals, sarcopenia’s development may be associated with conditions that impact younger generations as well, such as the correlation between inactivity and the corresponding loss of muscle mass and strength.

However, the medical community has identified three primary factors that cause muscle loss:

1. Hormone decline

2. Protein deficiency

3. Motor unit restructuring

Motor units are muscle fibers (slow twitch and fast twitch) and the motor neurons that command them. Fast twitch muscle fibers tend to die off first, and when this occurs, muscle fibers like these that are no longer commanded by a motor neuron are in danger of atrophying (muscle death). The body combats this by instructing the closest slow twitch motor neuron to take over (motor unit restructuring), but when a slow twitch fiber replaces a fast twitch fiber, it results in a loss of coordination, balance and general slower reflexes and muscle reactions, all of which are common symptoms among older adults.

Individuals who have maintained an active lifestyle typically have more lean body mass and muscle mass even at an advanced age, and resistance weight training exercise has been shown to be particularly effective for slowing and even reversing the age-related loss of skeletal muscle by helping the body to synthesize protein better. This in turn suggests that physical activity should be utilized as a protective factor for both the prevention and the management of sarcopenia.

In fact, one USDA study showed that elderly participants who did resistance training for 45 minutes three times/week over a three-month span showed an average increase of 32 percent muscle fiber and a corresponding 30 percent increase in strength.

While some things, like death and taxes, are inevitable, research indicates that two important physiological factors associated with ageing can be easily controlled or reversed. These two factors are muscle mass and strength.

Strength training is key to a healthy and rewarding old age because it can improve health and well being on so many levels. An exercise prescription that includes two doses of resistance training per week, can improve muscle mass, strength, bone density, functional ability, blood pressure, metabolic rate, glucose metabolism and cardiovascular health.

Muscle strength is one of the keys to healthy aging, yet after we achieve peak mass in our early 40s, it's pretty much downhill from there. Most people begin to lose modest amounts of muscle at that point and experience progressive deterioration as the years go by, especially if they are sedentary.

The Fact is: 

Strong muscles are perhaps the greatest defense against weight gain, sickness and aging. Building the muscle mass and strength you want is also incredibly healthy!!

We can help you build stronger leaner muscles for more Energy, Vitality, Strength and Mobility.

"The most important nutritional supplement to impact human health"- Dr. Robert Wolfe, PhD