The magic of muscle and bone mass and brain health

Lifting weights is key to retaining lean muscle mass and keeping your weight down.
Photo-Metro Creative Connection

Hands down, the biggest reason people hire a personal trainer is that they want to be stronger and healthier. To achieve that goal, throughout a lifetime, it is essential that we maintain a vigorous level of physical activity to not only age well and be healthy, but also to keep our bones strong.

Lifting weights, or resistance training, is the key to retaining lean muscle mass and keeping your weight down. Around the time you turn 30, you start to lose as much as 3% to 5% of muscle mass per decade. The rate of decline of an inactive 80-year-old could be as much as 30%.

In fact, the American College of Sports Medicine and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommend two or more days per week of moderate-to high-intensity resistance training, using all major muscle groups. Use it or lose is correct, as keeping your muscles strong and flexible after 30 prevents scarpenia, a condition characterized by loss of skeletal muscle mass and function. Scarpenia is a natural part of aging, but muscle loss is largely accelerated by inactivity. For many, as we get older, we tend to move less.

The ACSM’s Physical Activity & Bone Health position stand is a recommendation that adults maintain a relatively high level of weight-bearing physical activity, with no upper age limit. Activities like plyometrics—jumping jacks, for example—and high-intensity resistance training are beneficial ways to increase bone mass, as well as to preserve skeletal integrity and improving balance to prevent falls. Kids that are involved in gymnastics and sports that involve jumping, like soccer and basketball, have a great strength advantage in later life, as their bone mass is maintained into adulthood, the report notes.

The main concept of resistance training is to produce changes that result in various strength adaptations. The 80-year-old mentioned? One set of arm curls, to overload his or her biceps, can result in strength gains in the arm muscles lasting as long as a month! While my job as a trainer is to set up great programs for individuals, consider ways you can start to train, if you haven’t already, with a simple home setup, including weights, elastic bands, medicine balls, or a TRX.

Remember when?

There is good reason to stick with your routine. Physical activity is a powerful intervention to reduce anxiety and depression during a pandemic. Those of us who stayed or became active during pandemic lockdowns were less likely to experience subjective memory decline. A recent study in Preventative Medicine looked at the effect of physical activity on subjective memory decline before and during social distancing. One in three participants experienced feelings of memory decline when socially distanced, however the active participants did not.

Muscles knock back inflammation

Besides brain health, regular exercise promotes a healthy immune system. Muscles that you use doing squats, arm curls or running down a trail have an innate ability to reduce inflammation. Lately, scientists studied lab-grown engineered human muscles to examine the role of a pro-inflammatory molecule, interferon gamma, which breaks down muscle. Typically, chronic inflammatory diseases break down muscle. The lead author of the study, Zhaowei Chen, a postdoctoral researcher in biomedical engineering, found that when exercising, the muscle cells themselves are a powerful shield and can directly counter interferon gamma, the pro-inflammatory molecule, as well as protecting other tissues and cells.

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_b2d26462-11af-11ec-b04a-23ef35ce0778.html

Do what you can

Staying physically active may be more important now more than ever. Photo SQNSport

Motivation comes in many forms. When it comes to why you do or don’t stick to an exercise program, research shows that physical exercise that focuses on enjoyment, competence, and social interaction leads to long-lasting exercise engagement.

Dr. Kenneth Cooper, pioneer of preventative medicine at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas, coined the term “aerobics” in 1968. Now 90 years old and still practicing medicine daily, he’ll tell you that about 76% of diseases in the US today are a result of our lifestyle. Numerous reports have emphasized that physical inactivity is a leading cause of death worldwide. It’s all well documented: It’s not our heredity; it’s our lifestyle, Cooper says. Changing our behavior and concentrating on lifestyle changes will get us the results we want. Especially now, during a pandemic, staying physically active may be more important than ever.

So how do we pivot to solutions and actions that can promote our health and well-being? Two drivers of behavior can maximize your success.

The first is a meaningful, personally tailored rationale. What do you really care about? For example, if family means the entire world to you, a meaningful rationale would be to recognize that exercising allows you to be the healthiest version of yourself for those that you love the most.

The second—particularly on the days that you weren’t up to it but decide to exercise anyway—is finding pleasure and satisfaction in the experience of exercising. These are integrated and intrinsic behavior drivers that lead to your success for long lasting health. They become a choice, not a chore. Make time you spent getting some exercise pleasurable and empowering.

There is much good being done worldwide of our efforts to move more and sit less. In a recent study published in the Lancet Global Health, researchers examined data from 168 countries to observe evidence supporting the advantages of healthy behaviors, including being physically active. The scientists found that almost four million lives were saved from an early death.

Equally important is to realize that the most common characteristics of the world’s longest living populations. Sardinians, Adventists and Okinawans all include daily walks. At the same time, The American College of Sports Medicine suggests that a prescription to walk 30 minutes per day could be one of the most important prescriptions a patient could receive.

We should all move our bodies more in some form every day, now more than ever. The pandemic crisis has made us aware that we can change, as our attitudes and needs continue to adapt to the new normal. Boosting our defense mechanisms through exercise is a simple way to keep our immune system healthy. Your immune system is a network of tissues, cells and organs that work together to attack foreign invaders and neutralize infection and disease. Your body identifies any threat and strategizes how to neutralize or destroy it. Every walk, hike or daily activity you do helps increase the rate at which an army of immune cells can defend against invaders and increase the odds of your immune system protecting you from harm.

It’s been said that “Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Wishing is not enough; we must do.” My hope is that you do.

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_a25e1c98-a3a5-11eb-a3e2-87a3281f3fd7.html

Breath and awareness can help us cope

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Now is the time to connect to our humanity, take a nice big breath and not be so hard on ourselves.

Fear and uncertainty are real right now, as each week brings even more uncertainty fighting COVID-19. Many of us are scared and lonely. But please don’t be so hard on yourself right now, because you already are doing something very brave and compassionate, staying home to flatten the curve. This extremely important measure is a global act of unity. By doing so, you are protecting others, especially our dedicated health workers, who are on the front lines, personifying service.

To feel anxious is natural. Right now, you don’t have to be a hero as you confront all the uncertainty of life. Like the earthquake we all just felt here in Idaho! Right now you want to put as little pressure on yourself as possible. Of course, volunteer to help those in need, get out for a long walk or start a new project. But there is one important thing that you can do to boost your spiritual immune system. Try to stop for a moment, and take a deep breath. This one new habit is one that is based in love, not fear. When you calm your mind down and pause, you connect to something bigger than yourself. Your breath and awareness become a tool to quiet the external fears and worries.

Peel an orange

In just over two weeks’ time, running to the store for one thing or another has come to seem like such a luxury. Today, if you are lucky enough to have fresh fruit in your house, peel an orange. As you peel it, think about how this piece of fruit grew on a tree, in an orchard, tended by a farmer. Think, for a moment of the sun needed for it to grow until it was ripe enough to pick. Take another few breaths to appreciate the trucks and drivers needed for this very orange to travel all the way to your supermarket. This small simple act of gratitude is meditation, connecting you to something much bigger than yourself.

Walk with purpose

Walking outdoors is good for you, and one of the healthiest things you can do for your fitness. You certainly have the time now. On your walks, think about how the arches of your feet absorb the impact of the ground for propulsion. The very act of walking, the human gait system, uses almost all of the 635 muscles in your body. Think, for a moment, of how lucky you are for your feet to be hitting solid ground, propelling you forward. Breathe out compassion for all the doctors, nurses and care givers who aren’t as lucky as you to be doing so. Breathe in love and compassion for all of those who have succumbed to the coronavirus, or who are struggling with the disease right now. As you continue to walk, envision your health and good fortune.

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Use this tool in as many ways as possible during the day. You might not realize it, but your courage comes from generations of people who survived wars, plagues and crisis, yet humanity finds a way to move forward. What is here and is coming is difficult, but now is the time to connect to our humanity, take a nice big breath and not be so hard on ourselves.


Connie Aronson is an ACSM-certified exercise physiologist at the YMCA in Ketchum. Learn more at www.conniearonson.com.

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_ef34fdda-752e-11ea-839f-834530597363.html