Healthworks Happenings

It's March already.  How did this happen?  I can honestly say that my busy-ness at the gym has hit new highs.  While still serving my SunnyDayFitness clients on their territory, I worked many long days and nights with new gym joiners in this new year 2011 at Healthworks Fitness for Women.  So many people are now training with me for weight loss and in small groups, it's wonderful!  

Although January was epic and February was full,  I still gave time away to do what I love:  teaching folks how to do new things like

Indoor Rowing

This lady loves taking a break from rowing

Kettlebell Swinging  

She needs a bigger bell to swing, for serious, really. 

and Making Better Nutritional Choices.

Me at Tulsa's QT trying "boston baked beans" and a slushy drink.
Not really your best choices for convenience store eating...sorry!

 Here in March I am actively seeking other venues to teach.  Do you have a community center, a church, or a tennis club where I could share a class like "Restore the Core" to post-natal moms?  Or a senior center with people who'd want to know about "Building Bones with Weight Bearing exercise" to prevent osteoporosis?  

Please think of me and SunnyDayFitness for your fitness teaching and athletic coaching needs.  I offer a complimentary in-home training or consultation to all new clients and a free training session to you if you refer me to someone who does become a client. It's nearly time to run and play outside again, but will your body (or your mom's or your sister's or your grandma's) be ready for that next sunny day...?

Getting older, Not fatter

Getting older gracefully is something many aspire to do.  Some people, however, want more than that.  Flying into our 90s is the dream... right? Look at Olga up there -- she's flying!!  She wants to age with speed, agility, and athletic achievements in age-group competitions.  But getting to the top of "masters" divisions or the "senior games" isn't as easy as it used to be for the Olgas of the world.

Nowdays instead of ever-shrinking 65-70 and 75-80 year old competition brackets, they're growing...  more about that in a future article  But first, the bad news remains:  we lose 10% of our lean muscle every decade.  Only strength training and regular exercise can prevent muscle loss.  Left unchecked, the lost muscle is replaced with fat.  

So for a woman who starts out in her 20s or 30s with a relatively healthy 80% lean, 20% fat body she'll enter her 40s with a 70% lean, 30% fat even IF her weight stays the same.  Her sizes will go up ever so slightly and it may "not matter much" at first, but there are consequences:   

Everything feels pudgy.  Energy levels drop.  Life gets harder.  

People already in their 40s and 50s folks know that losing weight gets harder as we age, and why is that?  It's because the metabolic engine that is our lean muscle mass is getting eaten away.  Like termites gnawing away at wood, fat creeps in to replace our muscle as our own bodies only naturally conserve and build strength in youth but atrophy with age.  

Hormones have a role in this process, no doubt, but rather than hitting the needles and popping pills... why not use the muscle you have to conserve the metabolism you need to age gracefully and healthfully.  

As reported by the NY Times, there is inspiration to be found in the 80-year olds who stay fit with good, old-fashioned work.  Consistency is the key.  And researchers learning more about aging every year:  

Some researchers now see aging itself as a kind of mitochondrial disease. Defective mitochondria appear as we get older, and these researchers say that they rob us of endurance, strength and function. There’s evidence that for young patients with mitochondrial disease, exercise is a potent tool, slowing the symptoms. If that’s true, then exercise could also potentially be a kind of elixir of youth, combating the ravages of aging far more than we thought.

Sunny and SunnyDayFitness training sessions can help you, Olga, or anyone interested in aging gracefully.  Why don't you e-mail Sunny for a complimentary session today?  

Defying the laws of Aging with Exercise

"We all probably know of at least one senior citizen who seems to defy the laws of aging and remains in top physical shape well beyond their peers. We also tend to dismiss this person as genetically gifted or just unusual. However, research, and more and more seniors, are showing us that this doesn’t have to be the case. Many of the declines in fitness with age are due to lack of use, not just the normal aging process.

While it’s true that as we age we have to work harder than the young, a lot of the declines that we attribute to aging may be reversed with fitness training."

Above RaeLee Elder, 77, exercises wearing a T-shirt that expresses her positive outlook on life.

Over the past two years, Senior Journal.com has published the following among many headlines and research findings about benefits for senior fitness training:

Strength Training Is an Antidote to Muscle Loss In Elderly
Resistance or "strength" training has repeatedly been shown to be a safe and effective method of reversing sarcopenia, or muscle loss, in the elderly. The condition actually starts around age 45, when muscle mass begins to decline at a rate of about 1 percent per year. Scientists funded by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have been studying the factors involved in gradual muscle loss since 1988.

Boomers, Young Seniors Can Extend Life With Minimal Exercise
A new study gives people in their 50s and 60s another reason to get off the couch and be physically active — especially if they have conditions or habits that endanger their hearts, like diabetes, high blood pressure or smoking.

Elderly Women Should Worry More About Exercise Than Weight
Elderly women should worry more about exercising than about controlling their weight in order to prevent their physical decline, according to a study done at the University of Pittsburgh and recently published in Preventive Medicine.

Exercise also Improves Memory, Balance, Emotional State/Mood, Quality of Life, Bone Density, and even Skin Healing among Elderly. How many more reasons does one need to get active, stay active, especially in their retirement years. Time is on your side if you keep your body healthy and moving!

Source: http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/olderathletes/a/seniorfit.htm
Photo: MARK CROSSE / THE FRESNO BEE
http://www.fresnobee.com/907/story/1274482.html

Journal article: Age-related Changes in Marathon and Half-Marathon Performances

I've often wondered just how much age slows down an athlete. Cycling and running may seem like "a young person's game" when aging world-class athletes and Olympians over 35 are written off as contenders for first place. However, competition for many age-group prizes (based on 5-year or 10-year age brackets) remains fierce as aging athletes compete against one another.

But how much do aging marathon and half-marathon runners really slow down? A group of German researchers quantified the "age effect" a few years ago in the International Journal of Sport Medicine. Their answer surprised me: age is not statistically significant at all for age groups in the 20-49 range, and in the 50-69 age range each passing decade correlated to only a 2-5% loss in speed. Just 30 seconds per mile or less for a 2-hr half-marathoner!



Such a small effect from age surprised me and reassured me that age isn't everything. In fact, it's very little. The ability to exercise and dedication to training is the key factor in the older athlete's success. As the researchers conclude their abstract: Lifestyle factors have considerably stronger influences on functional capacity than age is supported by these findings from physically active and fit elderly.

Reference: http://www.thieme-connect.de/ejournals/abstract/sportsmed/doi/10.1055/s-2006-924658