Many of the changes associated with getting older are actually due to becoming less active with age. Unless you regularly engage in activities to strengthen your muscles, you’ll lose about a half a pound of muscle a year in your 30s and 40s, and that rate can double once you turn 50. As you lose muscle, you lose strength, and that compromises your ability to do even simple things, such as carrying your groceries, getting up from a seated position or gardening. Your metabolism also slows down as you lose muscle, so your body will need fewer calories to maintain itself, and you’re likely to gain excess body fat, unless you eat less. Excess fat contributes to a multitude of health problems: heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. It doesn’t matter, if you’re 50 years old or 80, studies show that strength training can help.
Here are some good reasons to start weight training:
1. Maintain your independence as you get older
2. Improve your quality of life, allowing you to do the things you enjoy with less effort
3. Strengthen and preserve your muscle tissue
4. Strengthen your bones
5. Reduce your risk of falling
6. Improve control of blood sugar
7. Increase your metabolism
8. Improve your body composition to less fat and more muscle
9. Reduce your resting blood pressure
10. Speed up the rate at which food moves through your digestive system, reducing risk of colon cancer
11. Reduce your risk of low back injury
12. Elevate your mood and your self-confidence
13. Relieve pain from osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis
14. Enhance recovery from stroke or heart attack
