Health, Fitness, and Nutrition; Resource for Women

Category: Fit Tips

Can Women Slow the Aging Process With Free weight training?

Building strength for quality of life.

Building strength for quality of life.

Can Women Slow the Aging Process with Free Weight Training.

As we age, the significance and various advantages of free weight training, turns out to be progressively critical. Interminable exploration has been done on this particular topic, and as an aftereffect of these studies we now have hard proof that as we age our bone thickness density declines or weakens and we lose muscle (sarcopenia), however unlike some degenerative conditions, there is something we can do to fight both of these widely recognized negative impacts of aging.

Medical research has demonstrated, that by keeping weight on the bones and keeping the joints moving, we can keep up healthy bone density and more joint flexibility as we age. Why weight training? Basically, the process of  lifting weight causes the muscles and ligaments to pull against the bone, this procedure empowers various cells in the bone to produce more bone, therefore increasing bone density; the vast majority of the people don’t understand that bone is living – developing tissue and reacts to the stresses of weight training, by becoming stronger/denser, just like the muscles.

Unfortunately, there was old fashioned misguided judgment with respect to lifting weights that has kept much of our aging population of women from ever considering lifting weights. Until the 1980s, there were not very many health and fitness clubs, and the ones that were around, usually catered to bodybuilding men and athletes.  Women looked at weight lifting as something reserved for bodybuilders, athletes and manly looking women. Fortunately, the younger population in Western Society it’s very common to see women working out with free weights and embracing the strength and power it achieves. But sadly, many older women are aging even faster due to a lack of any form of strength training. 

There are a variety of ways to train for strength. The most simple, is using your own bodyweight against gravity, which can be done nearly anywhere. Most health clubs have machines that are built to facilitate your ability to lift the weight at the point where your joints and ligaments need the most assistance. Starting out, it is important to strengthen these joints and ligaments before overloading them with force and machines are wonderful at achieving this, whilst also allowing you to build ample muscular hypertrophy. But after building up some strength, it’s more beneficial to advance to incorporating more free weights and doing exercises in a standing position as much as possible. Free weights require your stabilizer muscles, or ancillary muscles, to come into play far more, while balancing and controlling the weights through the range of motion. Unlike machines, where the weights are balanced for you, and only force is needed to move the weight.  When ancillary muscles are used, it helps with overall proprioception/balance. With improved balance and increased strength, there is less likelihood of falls. And in the event of a fall, with increased bone density from the weight training, there is less chance of breaking a bone. 

Concerning seniors, grown-ups 65 and more seasoned, weighting training assists with bone density issues, as well as expands muscle quality also, in this way enhancing scope of movement and parity, furnishing them with a more secure and higher personal satisfaction. Like clockwork, a senior has a fall. At regular intervals somebody in this age group kick the bucket as an immediate aftereffect of their injuries brought on by a fall. Falls are the main source of harm related deaths. If they don’t die, typically they age faster and become dependent on family or caregivers, unless they change their course of action. 

In one year alone more than 1.8 million individuals 65 years or more were treated in emergency rooms, 20-30% of seniors who fall endure moderate to serious injury; wounds, hip breaks and other trauma. Quite a bit of this could have been avoided with increased senior physical conditioning through weight training and other exercise. Exercise and nutrition are so vital to remaining strong and healthy as we age. 

How Women Can Use HIIT Cardio to Burn Excess Fat and Keep Fit

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HIIT vs Cardio

If you’re looking for fitness related information, you’ve probably noticed “HIIT” all over the internet and in the health and fitness magazines. What “HIIT” stands for is High Intensity Interval Training. HIIT is one of the most effective ways for women to quickly transform their physique; get in shape by losing fat and gaining or maintaining lean muscle. HIIT derives most of its effectiveness from the “after burn effect”. The “after burn effect” is a layman’s term for addressing the excess post oxygen consumption levels (EPOC).  When you perform intense exercise, you throw your body out of homeostasis. Basically, your body is set to survive and this is part of your body’s way of surviving. So when you throw your body out of balance with high intensity exercise, you create an oxygen debt within your body, and your body will expend energy (burn fat/burn calories) to get back to its natural balance. This period of time when your body is recovering after the intense training is referred to as EPOC, as previously mentioned.

The easiest means to do this is with any form of interval training such as HIIT cardio. Since you incur an oxygen debt during HIIT, your body has to rebalance this debt and that is why your oxygen consumption increases after your HIIT exercise.  Your EPOC is positively correlated with metabolism. So when your EPOC levels are raised higher than normal, your metabolism is also raised and you burn a lot more calories at rest. The other cool thing about this phenomenon is that it can last for hours on end. In fact, some studies have reported this effect lasting for up to 36 hours after exercise.

One of the benefits is that the excessive calories that your body is burning up from the after burn effect, is being taken from your fat cells. That is one of the main reasons why I favor HIIT, over low intensity traditional cardio, for women who want to transform their bodies in the shortest amount of time, get in great shape and burn excess body fat. You can condition your muscles, strengthen your core, and burn fat in a condensed amount of time. But you will have to work hard. Need I remind you what HIIT stands for? So, the intensity will have to be high in order for this to work. You should not be able to carry on a conversation while performing the exercise and you should be breathing very heavily between sets.

Steady state cardio, which is just low intensity jogging, walking, elliptical, biking, etc., will burn calories (and fat if done long enough: in excess of 12-15mins is fat burning mode) over the duration of the workout, but soon after that, your metabolism rate drops down to baseline levels. The exercise was not sufficiently intense enough in order to incur an oxygen debt and increase your metabolism significantly for hours on end. The only way that the average aerobic exercises can create the same type of effect is if you are a complete beginner to exercise, are completely out of condition for cardiovascular exercise or are extremely out of shape. Exercising with too much intensity for an extended period (ie; not in intervals with lower intensity) can have an adverse effect and burn muscle. This could backfire and cause the metabolism to decrease. So, intervals are important when you increase the intensity.

Another benefit of HIIT is that it gets you out of the gym faster. Lifting weights with a high intensity and little rest between sets, adding supersets (doing two or more exercises without rest between them), dropdown sets (that’s where you decrease the weight when it gets too difficult and do more reps), or doing your interval training on the elliptical, will get your workout over in a fraction of the time. It may not be the ideal way to gain muscle size, but it is definitely an effective method in dropping body fat and getting lean. It’s not about spending all day exercising, it’s about exercising effectively while you’re in the gym. Less talk, more work. So, put on the headphones, turn up your music and tone up your body in less time. Check out some HIIT exercises for your at home workouts.

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