Strength training : The best way to combat muscle loss from aging
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A colleague said during breakfast one day that he wanted to start working out because he had just turned 40-years-old and had started seeing visible decline in muscle-mass. This is someone who had hardly worked out in the past, so a decline must have felt more jarring than amongst those who do workout.
In fact, this is a natural decline, known as sarcopenia, which starts among men after the age of 30, at a rate 3-5% per decade, and sometimes even faster. The silver lining is that all that is lost is not lost forever though, but it will only come back with effort and planning. “One possible contributor to sarcopenia is the natural decline of testosterone, the hormone that stimulates protein synthesis and muscle growth.
Think of testosterone as the fuel for your muscle-building fire," states a Harvard Health article titled Preserve Your Muscle Mass. In certain circles, it’s getting popular to go in for testosterone supplementation, but the procedure comes with risks and is not the solution to battle the decline in muscle mass. The real solution to arresting this decline lies in doing resistance workouts and combining that with a protein and complex carb rich diet.
The workout style does not have to be cardio heavy because one is chasing muscle gain. Instead, just like working out at any age, it should focus on PRT—progressive resistance training. Physiotherapist clinics in India are full of older people getting treatments for aches and immobility, but such treatments are focused on making people feel good, rather than helping them deal with the root cause.
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