New study advises rethinking
Fitness in times of corona: Why training your muscles helps you live a long and healthy life
The use of weights is not necessary. Exercises that work with the body’s own weight are also sufficient.
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For a long time, training, which primarily challenges the circulation, was considered the “holy grail” of personal fitness. Now it turns out that building strong muscles is much more important. Good thing: Anyone can do these workouts at home.
It is important to stay fit in the corona crisis. In Germany this is not a major problem, as there is no total curfew. One look into the parks is enough to see that many just keep jogging – as they are used to. In countries where leaving the home is only allowed in exceptional cases, however, many have to rethink. Instead of the usual running route, workouts on the living room carpet are the order of the day.
And that’s a good thing, writes the magazine “New Scientist” in its current cover story “Rethinking Exercise” (“Rethink Training”). Because muscle strength and not fitness is the key to a longer and healthy life, the authors write. For a long time, the training of muscles was neglected and sports were preferred, which put a strain on the heart and circulation. Aerobic training was the “holy grail” of personal fitness, the magazine complains.
Muscles shrink on their own
It is more important to strengthen the muscles. If you do not take countermeasures, the development of the muscles reaches its peak in the thirties, after which they regress. About five percent of muscle mass is lost in a decade. This effect was only correctly assessed in 1988 by Irwin Rosenberg. He wrote at the time, “No decline with age is more dramatic and functionally more significant than decline in muscle mass. Why didn’t we pay more attention to it?”
For a few years now there has been a change of direction. Official organizations such as the WHO are trying to demystify the myth of the “10,000 steps” and warn that walking alone is not enough. Studies show that strength exercises of less than an hour a week reduce the risk of a heart or stroke by up to 70 percent. Another study of 100,000 women found that those who did at least an hour of strength training per week had a lower risk of diabetes.
Strong muscles guarantee a longer independent life
Further research suggests that those with greater hand grip have a lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease and cancer. There is also a kind of truism. Those who have stronger muscles in old age are less likely to be injured in falls and other accidents and are able to live longer independently without help, reports the magazine.
The “New Scientist” lists other positive effects, such as the chance of surviving cancer. It is also important that building muscle helps to avoid obesity. A higher percentage of muscle leads to a higher basal metabolic rate in the body because muscles use more calories than other tissues to maintain themselves. Strength training also has the advantage that it continues to use calories even after the exercise, because the tissue repairs itself after the exercise. With regard to aging, the stimulation of the skeleton is particularly important. Strength exercises can stop or slow down the degeneration of bones.
Simple workouts help
So far, attempts have only been made to stop muscle wasting when it was too late. When seniors had progressed so far that they could barely get out of the sofa. With relatively little expenditure of time, it is possible to prevent the age-related breakdown of muscles from occurring at all. For the maintenance of health, however, different rules apply than for bodybuilding or body shaping. Here it is important that all muscle parts are addressed equally. Training individual muscles so that they stand out plastically has nothing to do with therapeutic training. It also makes little difference whether you work with high repetitions and light weights or heavy weights and low repetitions. To enjoy the benefits of building muscle, you should do exercises that target all muscle groups at least twice a week. The first workout has the greatest effect, the second a little less effect, and so on. You quickly reach a level where more exercise does not lead to better health. So there is no need to swing weights every day.
Ergometer test: Here it goes to the ergometer comparison.
Heart rate monitor test: Here it goes to the heart rate monitor comparison.
Fitness bracelet test: Here it goes to the fitness bracelet comparison.
Source: New Scientist
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