Exercise and Aging

As people live longer, most everyone in America has heard how important exercise is for your body as it grows older. The question is why is exercise important and the answer is very simple : flexibility. After age 30, the number one component of the body which fails most quickly is within the flexibility of the body’s tissues. This doesn’t just mean your ability to touch your toes or swing a golf club, although the lack of flexibility due to aging will be a key component for both of these activities. Flexibility is also related to non-structural tissues such as blood vessels, nerve casings, organ tissues, and even the viscosity of various fluids in your body.

Many health professionals will emphasize strength training for the aging population. This is due to recent studies which show that the body can lose 10% or more of its strength and muscle mass each decade after the age of about 35. Bone loss is also a very common boon to the aging process. Since strength training addresses both muscle and bone strength and integrity, this sort of exercise is often suggested to many people attempting to subvert the physical aging process. Strength training is an excellent method for slowing the degradation of bones and muscles, but it doesn’t address other issues like mental capacity, heart and lung strength, and ability to fight disease.

Before I go any further I should mention that aging is a very complicated process and its affects alter greatly from person to person based upon genetic factors, prior history of individual health, and current and future activity levels. Just because you exercise does not necessarily mean that you will all of a sudden live longer or more functionally than your neighbor who does not. You can’t base your own progress on someone else’s results and, therefore exercise will serve to improve your life relative to how that life would have been without the exercise, not relative to your neighbor (unless that neighbor happens to be a relative). Don’t get discouraged if you aren’t seeing as good results as your friend working with you, just remember that your body is handling your longer life of exercise the best way it knows how.

Everyone, no matter what their genetics or chosen path in life, can benefit from a healthy dose of cardio-vascular exercise in their daily life. For the younger population, this type of exercise usually means improved heart, lungs, veins and arteries, coordination, and joint and muscle function. For someone over 35 all of these characteristics apply as well as the added benefit of maintaining brain function, maintaining reproductive organ function (not necessarily the ability to bare young, but at least assisting in the absence of abnormality), maintaining digestive function, and hindering the effects of arthritis. Frequent and varied cardio training from hiking and biking to swimming or skiing is so important as we get older that practically every body system benefits as a result.

As many of us know, activity helps maintain flexibility in the physical tissues like muscles, bones, and joints. Frequent movement - tennis, walking, dancing or any other physical activity helps to maintain the inherent strength and integrity of the body structure and the muscles which hold it together. Freedom to move is one of the simplest feedoms we have and can be well maintained with proper repetitive activity. With lack of movement, the tissues and semi-liquid portions of your joints start to harden - both restricting mobility and causing pain. The only way to avoid this hardening is to keep exercising. Even your bones have flexibility related to the manner in which they consume nourishment and go through their natural building and rebuilding processes. Bone flexibility ensures fewer breaks related to impact and other unforeseen mishaps we may encounter in our daily lives.

A hardening of veins, arteries and lymph vessels (part of your immune system) restricts the ability of these systems to work properly. When your vessels harden you are more susceptible to internal pressure problems, scarring, clotting, and rupture all of which result in very serious and sometimes life threatening conditions. Again the flexibility of these tissues can be maintained with some form of cardio exercise.

It was classically thought that people could keep their mental acuity by doing “mental exercises” such as thinking games, reading, and puzzles. Thus far, there is no conclusive evidence that these activities actually maintain brain function. I’m not saying stop doing them - just because proof hasn’t been found yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist - but I am noting that the only result these activities have shown is better capability at solving thinking games, reading and puzzles. Cardio-vascular activity, however has actually been found to force the body to nourish the outer covering of nerves and nerve endings called the myaline sheath. In some extreme cases some studies have actually shown an increase in brain mass as a result of adhering to a new cardio routine. These results are not terribly conclusive, but even the possibility is encouraging.

Even your organs benefit from this heart pumping exercise. Cardio encourages your body to utilize oxygen and electrolytes which acts as the energy and nourishment for every one of your cells. Your liver, pancreas, stomach, lungs, intestines, and sex organs all benefit from continued activity in older age.

Hopefully I have convinced you that exercise - both cardio-vascular and strength - is extremely important as we grow older. The only question now is how much of each? Certainly it doesn’t make much sense to be doing more activity as we get older than we did when we were young and spry in our teens and early 20’s. Your body will slow down and natural processes will indeed make it more difficult to physically perform the way you did when your body was younger, but this means that to maintain some level of strength, balance and flexibility as we age, we must in fact put more effort into that maintenance. If you have the time, spend more time exercising when you are older than you did when you were young. Certainly not to the intensity you did when you were younger and don’t just jump right into it if you have been without exercise for a while, but your body will respond to exercise as you age the same as when it was younger - just more slowly. If you have the time to invest three or four hours a day of good physical activity whether that activity be in the gym, on the golf course, or anywhere else ... do it! Keeping your body active truly is the secret to everlasting life - at least everlasting capability and independence through a longer life.