TRAIN TO BE A BETTER ATHLETE
WORK OUT TO GET YOUNGER
Do you work out hard to be faster, stronger and more powerful? Here's how to add to your workout to also make your body physically younger.
Everyone must get older, but not everyone must age. Athletes have certain advantages that can slow down the aging process.
Many people spend hours every day sitting on their butts, allowing their body to weaken and atrophy...especially those important butt muscles, the glutes. But an athlete spends time working his or her glutes to build those muscles instead of allowing them to soften and flab up. Athlete who regularly work their bodies are already making moves that help them de-age.
A disciplined athletic workout includes bending and flexing the joints, as well as stretching tendons and ligaments, the white connective tissues that attaches muscles to bones (tendons) and connect the bones to each other (ligaments). One of the prime signs of aging is stiff joints.
Ever wonder why some baby boomers move as if they were 20 years younger? Two factors keep them moving young: flexibility and anti-atrophy. The steady loss of muscle and increased lack of flexibility that starts in the 30's (yes, the 30's!), will be delayed. If muscles and joints are consistantly moved against resistance. When done on a regular basis, the body will keep much of its strength and range of motion.
A neglected part of de-aging your body is keeping it flexible. Age, as someone once said, reels you in. That goes for the ultra-important range of motion, or ROM. Muscles which have not been stretched on a regular basis will contract. You won't be able to reach high to catch a ball or out to re-balance yourself if you are about to fall. Reaching past your available range of motion will cause a pull or even a tear of the muscle or tendon.
Connective tissue, the white ligaments and tendons, are the biggest perps in the stiffness that comes with age. Muscles have a tendon at each end which connects to a bone. Those tendons contract and get stiff with age and also with disuse, making it harder to move. This can happen long before middle age.
The young executive who rides to and from work and sits all day; or the young mother who gets no exercise because she is home with the kids, will end up with stiff joints long before middle age. But again, white tissues can be made more flexible with regular stretching, the big key to a youthful body. Not only will the increase in flexibility allow smooth and graceful movement, it will help prevent injury.
Joints, where a bone meets a bone, are connected by another type of white, near bloodless tissue, the ligament. These also contract if not bent and moved on a regular basis, which means you can't move your limbs or your back in the same range of motion you did when you were younger. Stretching with a regular (that means daily) program will keep your white, or connective, tissues, flexible enought to allow you to move with a greater range of motion. That means you can make that "Hail Mary" leap or throw that puts you ahead of your competition, or push down hard on that bike pedal without hurting your knee, or even reach high grab the roof eve when you're about to fall off the ladder.
But the biggest part of getting old is atrophy. It happens when muscle and connective tissues weaken because they are not stressed by regular activity. The rate of atrophy increases astronomically as we age. The 50-year-old unexercised body will lose as much in two days as a younger body will in two weeks of not exercising. That means that a masters athlete can not skip even one day of working out; it has too great a cost in athletic ability.
Here are some tips for a de-aging workout: First, warm up. This is essential to get the tissues pliable enough to handle resistance and movement without damage. Warmups should include going through resistance motions without weights, just to move the joints. If you are biking, move your arms up, sideways, and in circular motions to work the shoulder joints. Bend your arms and straighten them to flex your elbows. Move your feet in circles to work the many ligaments that make up the ankle.
Joint movement should be done for a minimum of ten minutes. Resistance work comes next. There are two methods to build muscle: many reps (20-50) with light weight, best for endurance athletes, or fewer reps (10-12) with heavier weight for power atheltes. Strength, which dissapates as we age, can be built back up to younger levels with regular workouts.
The next biggest factor in making your body younger is stretching. This should be done after your workout, when the tissues are warm and pliable. Don't do ballistic, or bouncing stretching; instead gradually stretch to the limit of your range of motion and hold for a count of fifty. There are plenty of good stretch books available, use one to learn how to most efficiently stretch each muscle.
A strong body, with joints that move smoothly and easily, is not just the property of youth. Extend your limits, both athletically and in everyday life, by stretching daily and doing resistance work at least three times a week.
Look for detailed sport specific workouts for athletes of various ages in future issues of Adventuresportsweekly.com.