If you are a senior, your book club probably doesn’t spend much time talking about weightlifting.
But here’s the thing: the science tells us — kinesiologists, doctors, trainers — weights give you the biggest bang for your buck when you want to get stronger, more fit and healthier. That’s especially true for seniors and compound that for seniors with bone-loss issues. So, if that’s you, stay with me.
A physiotherapist is reputed to have said: there’s only one fountain of youth — weights.
A New York Times article last summer described a retired medical doctor training seniors, up into their 90s, with little weightlifting experience, to lift crazy amounts of weight. An 84-year-old woman was lifting 170 pounds and striving to return to her personal best of 204.5 pounds from before her hip surgery. Serious weight.
The critical piece is lifting under supervision by a person who can guide you to do it correctly, to protect your whole body. That matters. But first let’s talk benefits. We aren’t talking sculpted bodybuilding here. We all know about muscle loss. We are talking about gaining muscle, strength, mobility and greater independence.
Certainly, most general fitness classes for seniors, including the ones I’ve been taking for the past year, include hand weights ranging from one to fifteen pounds. Most classmates pick weights they can manage comfortably. Many gradually inch up. That’s great. But here’s the thing: the real benefit of weight training lies in pushing any given muscle until it almost can’t do it anymore. It’s in the last few repetitions when the muscle is seriously tested, that it notices it needs to grow stronger to meet demand. You force it to up its game, so to speak.
Back to form. The heavier the weights the more form matters. Hence the value of having an experienced instructor. Robyn, our downtown YMCA Program Coordinator, found a room, a day and a time slot, crafted a program, and offered it for up to ten members over sixty. The class filled quickly and I signed on.
My preparation? Purchasing weightlifting gloves because my hands are weak and skin fragile. My daughter quips you could cut my skin with a spoon. These were not expensive ones.
Robyn details how we should be standing and what core muscles need to be bracing us, how to hold our abs, shoulders, back, whatever is stationary, solid and tight, while we move the critical muscle being trained in a prescribed range of motion. With the progression we are targeting, we are doing about ten repetitions – pause, refresh, drink water. That’s one set. Then a second and third set of the same, always holding form, and really feeling it as you reach nine… ten…
You are going for muscle exhaustion. If the first set was easy, you go up in weight, if you couldn’t make it to ten, you go down. Robyn walks around, checking our form, guiding us back on track.
This is all after comprehensive warmup that gets blood flow into the joints as well as the muscles followed by stretching to restore muscle length, take advantage of warmed muscles to enhance flexibility and accelerate recovery.
Robyn gives us a sheet of “homework” because one weight training session a week is good, two better, three optimal. I fit in the extra days because this training is the chance of a lifetime to build my bones. I’ve got one more year to succeed.
If you are a senior, or approaching seniority, open your mind to professional weight training. Get your book club to read a book about weight training. Just because we are old doesn’t mean we can’t change. We can be old AND tough. Weightlifting will maximize what you get from your fitness time investment, it will also make you feel like a badass, and that’s pretty nice for a Little Old Lady.
Margaret Archibald is a 79-year-old Kamloops retiree, who is neither medically nor fitness trained. She is not qualified to diagnose nor recommend health or fitness. She is simply learning how to optimize her own fitness, determined to keep on loving aging. See Margaret’s Aging Fitfully on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@AgingFitfully