How about more motivation for strength training?

My last posting focused on strength training benefits.  Let me continue.  This is just too good not to share.  Let me start with results from a study done by USDA Human Nutrition Resource Center on Aging at Tufts University.  It was conducted by Miriam E. Nelson, Ph.D.  It was accepted for publication in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) Dec. 1994.  It is a study of women over 40 years of age. This study took ten overweight women and gave them individual customized food plans.  50% of the participants performed strength training exercises twice a week while the others followed just the prescribed diet.  This study was for a year.

a.  The "diet only" volunteers lost an average of 13 lbs. during the study.  2.8 lbs of this weight loss was lean muscle mass.  The women who strength trained lost approximately 13.2 lbs.  These women gained 1.4 lbs. of lean tissue and experienced a total fat loss of 14.6 lbs.  In conclusion, the group that performed strength training 2x a week lost 44% more body fat than the diet only group.

b.  The women performing strength training regained bone density instead of losing it as women normally do at this age.  This was without taking drugs.

c.  The women that did not strength train had an average decline in balance of 8%.  The decline in balance may be attributable to the fact that this group was one year older.  At the same time they became even more sedentary as they aged.  Meanwhile, the women in the strength-training group showed an average of 14% gain in balance scores.  This change is because of their enormous improvements in strength and muscle strength and in part to the associated, neurological improvements.

I mentioned strength training and the relationship to bone density in my last posting.  I would like to continue with that topic.  Each year after menopause, a woman typically loses 1% of her bone mass, even more during the first five menopausal years.  In Dr. Nelson's study it was found that women who strength trained not only did not lose bone mass they gained 1% bone mass.  The non exercising women lost about 2% of their bone density over the year of the study.

Strength training helps prevent bone fractures from osteoporosis because it dramatically reduces the risk of fractures.  Because of the improvements in strength there is more bone density and balance.  Typically a woman of 70 faces 30% odds that she will break her hip if she lives another twenty years.  Each year, about 300,000 people wind up in the hospital with hip fractures because of osteoporosis.  Half of the victims never go home again... and 1 in 5 die from complications within a year.  A woman is more likely to die as a result of a hip fracture, than from breast cancer, uterine cancer and ovarian cancer combined.  Elderly women fall because they lose their balance easily and aren't strong enough to recover.

One last thought here involves a study of 60 - 70 year olds.  In the 1980's Walter Frontera, MD of Tufts Center on Aging conducted the following study.  Traditionally strength-training exercises were performed on seniors at only 40-50% of their capacity.  Dr. Frontera had his volunteers exercise at 80% of capacity. This study shattered myths about aging.  There were no injuries and no cardiac episodes.  In just twelve weeks the muscles that were exercising became 10 - 12 % larger and 100 - 175% stronger.

We all know exercise is important and many of us actually enjoy the experience.  I hope that learning these facts will help motivate us to continue (or start) our  habit for lifelong health and fitness.