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Building Up Your Strength

Unfortunately as we get older our muscles become more flaccid. These muscles are replaced by fatty tissue. As we gain more fat and lose more muscles our metabolism slows down. Many people think that aging means to be more sedentary.
Yet a passive lifestyle can place us at risk for high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, cancer as well as injuries. Those over 30 years old who keep their strength up typically stay more injury free and healthier than their non-active counterparts.

By maintaining our strength it is easier to heal and bounce back after a fall.
Working out with weights can also prevent osteoporosis and keep our bones healthy. Strength training is the best way to build up lean muscle mass.

Resistance or weight training can be accomplished with weight machines, free weights, and exercise balls or rubber tubing.
Weight bearing exercise can be accomplished with proper instruction. Health club or gyms have qualified people who can show you the correct way to lift weights.

Usually strength training begins with sit-ups, leg lifts and push-ups and simple balancing exercises. Knowing the proper way to use weight-bearing equipment can keep you injury free. It is best to start gradually.
A 2-3 times per week work is a perfect starting place.
It is best to start at the lightest level so that your body can slowly adapt to the new exercise.

A set typically contains 12-15 weight lifts/one minutes. It is important to rest for a minute and then repeat the set 2 more times. If you are a novice and just beginning, you might want to do only 2 instead of 3 sets of each exercise.

You can advance yourself to the next weight level once you can easily lift a certain weight for 3 continuous sets.

Another way to challenge yourself is to alternate machines or try doing a set of free weight exercises in between the machines.
For instance, after doing 3 x 15 reps on a leg machine, you could alternate with a set of arm weights and then go back to doing a final set on a leg machine.

By adding some aerobic activity to your weight lifting can be an effective as a warm up or warm down exercise. Maintaining a lean protein diet is essential for on-going strength training and also can help your muscles repair.

Also natural antioxidants found in berries and dark leafy vegetables are excellent in preventing cellular damage from injury.

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© Arlene Unger, Your guide to positive Stress, Relationship, Life and Weight Management.
www.MyPrivateCoach.com
Arlene Unger is the Clinical Psychologist with over 20 years of experience and additional certifications in Nutrition, Sports Psychology, Executive Coaching, Addiction, Nonverbal Therapies, and Communication Disorders Coach at MyPrivateCoach. She can be contacted at info@myprivatecoach.com.
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