Lifting Weights to Help Later in Life

Lifting Weights to Help Later in Life

Lifting weights isn’t just for the young, or people wanting to look “buff” or sports people. Lifting weights should happen at any age, especially as you start to get older.

As you get older everyday activities are more difficult, muscle mass is lost, changes in your body occur which sometimes makes things more difficult and because of these things plus more you start to lose independence.

Australia’s National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey says that only 15% of us bother to lift weights or even perform bodyweight exercises. One huge, harmful myth is that older adults and strength training don’t mix but we believe that maintaining muscle should be a lifelong habit, because the sharp end of losing it is frailty and loss of independence.

I had a client who is 64 years old say to me today that she is doing personal training and has done for the past 12 years, to “pay it forward” so she can maintain her level or strength and fitness she has now later in life and not struggle to do things when she hits 70.

And of course there is the massive benefit of increased muscle means increased metabolism and of course lifting weights increases strength of bones.

So…. there is no upper end age limit of lifting weights, if you aren’t already, make sure you start!