Strength training can do more than protect your joints. Any injury to a large muscle group, such as your hamstrings or quadriceps, can often be overcome and very likely repaired by high-repetition, low-weight exercises specific to the injured muscles and those around them. This seems like such a novel, almost contradictory conceptthat frequent contraction and then relaxation of an injured muscle can actually work to repair it. By doing low-weight, high-repetition exercises, you can actually strengthen those muscle fibrils that are still intact and not injured. Meanwhile, you can improve blood supply and oxygenation to injured muscles, thus helping to repair them.

Muscular strength is the amount of force a muscle can exert against any given resistance. There are plenty of ways to increase muscular strength. You can strengthen a muscle by overloading itthat is, by forcing it to work at greater loads than usual. Or you can do lighter work at increased repetitions. Some muscle groups respond better to one technique than to the other, and each method is good for specific types of muscular conditioning. Your arms and legs, for example, respond well to overload training; your abdominals and pectorals respond best to low-resistance, high-repetition exercise.

If you’re looking for the most rapid gains in strength, you can exercise a particular muscle group at 80 to 100 percent of maximum. However, because there’s a lot to be said for going “slow and low” to help avoid unnecessary injuries, remember that you can still develop strength with exercise intensities of 60 percent of maximum. Using this approach lessens your possibility of “bulking up.”

Muscular endurance, on the other hand, requires exercising muscle groups at lower intensities and higher repetitions to the point of fatigue. As they say, “no pain, no gain.”

An important concept is the “overload” principle, which states that the amount of weight must increase as the muscle gets strongerthe “progressive resistance” theory. This is the basis for weight training programs and why lifters so frequently boast about the amount of weight they can lift, press, or squat. “Gosh, I can bench press my grandmother plus 150 pounds. How much can you lift?” It’s their measure of how well they’re doing. Weight training is also extremely versatile. Done properly (ideally with expert supervision), there is a great deal of specificityof your contraction, your training intensity, your training velocity, and the pattern of your movements. Let’s call it an art form.

The methods of developing muscular strength are categorized according to types of muscular contraction regimens: isometric, isotonic (concentric or eccentric), and isokinetic training. free sample anti aging

Once you’ve decided to get into shapeor that you’re going to retain the shape you’re already in, assuming it’s pretty goodthe object is to design a fitness program that you can stick with, one that will provide maximum benefit for the time you spend at it. Your regimen should be enjoyable and give you benefits for your mind as well as your bodythat old Greek ideal again.

Here’s how you do it.

Strength training can do a number of things for you that tend to get forgotten in this age of aerobic mania. Ubiquitous health clubs everywhere promote cardiovascular fitness that, without question, has been the watchword to the exercise set. Yet strength training, too, especially now and at later stages of your life, must not be forgotten. There are good reasons for this.

First, strength training, as much as stretching for your warm-up and especially your cooldown, is a critical element in preventing injury. By conditioning opposing muscle groups (e.g., quads versus hamstrings, triceps versus biceps), you can strengthen the maximal number of joints and tendons connected to those muscles. One way that well-conditioned muscles can protect joints is simply by preventing hyperextension. Hyperextension is what makes the delicate (and hard-to-heal) tendons and ligaments crack like dry spaghetti. For example, if you have weak knees, you should strengthen opposing leg muscles around the knee: quadriceps versus hamstrings, calf muscles opposing the muscles at the front of your legs (anterior tibialis) and the tendons around this crucial joint.

Have you ever had a shoulder separation? If so, I don’t need to tell you the wisdom of strengthening your arm, back, shoulders, or any of the rotator cuff muscles above or behind your shoulder. A systematic muscle-strengthening program can make the potentially unstable shoulder joint stronger.

Second, strength training can also increase your performance by making you more powerful. By carefully strengthening neglected muscles, you can protect muscle groups that are not necessarily sports specific for you.

Third, there’s vanity. Those in the bodybuilding trade jokingly refer to the process of strengthening your biceps as producing “curls for the girls,” because your biceps may have little significance athletically other than to enhance your physique and make you look better on a New Jersey beach. So Bruce Springsteen really does have a reason for lifting. anti aging botox treatment

One convenient measure of aerobic fitness is called the VOmax. It is essentially a measurement of the maximum amount of oxygen a person can use per minute per kilogram of body weight. It typically declines 1 percent each year past age 25.

However, if the amount of physical activity and body composition is kept constant, the decline can be minimized to less than 0.05 percent a year. Keeping in mind that mind and body are interrelated, a decline in VOmax is not just age related, but influenced by other factors, such as age at onset of training, how much you train, any history of illness, or your genetic profilethe parents you didn’t choose.

Effective training can prove effective time and again in maintaining and improving physical fitness. A 1987 evaluation of 24 male track athletes ages 50 to 82 reported the effect of age in training on VOmax over 10 years. Those who remained active maintained a 10 percent higher VOmax than their noncompetitive cohorts even though each group showed the same decline in maximum heart rate (there are certain things over which we have no control).

Keep in mind that the majority of the general population wouldn’t run for a bus. Most aging men must accept that they are, unfortunately, slowing down in a few more ways than one. But you don’t have to let the reality of your aging affect you all that drastically. Sure, you may lose speed, but you don’t have to lose endurance. So, all in all, as we cruise through our forties and into our fifties, we have to expect some decline in strength, and an expected decline in the speed we are capable of achieving. Adaptation is the message here. That there seems to be less decline in endurance activities explains why older athletes can achieve some impressive results in endurance events.

Most loss in aerobic capacity fortunately is something that can be controlled by an act of will (mind and body again). You can will yourself to stay physically fit and make that conscious decision part of your daily regimen. But although the Olympics may be out of the question, statistics confirm you can maintain body (and mind?) if you exercise reasonably and remain fit. Rather than sprinting into your forties only to fizzle out at this critical turning point, the idea, I believe, is to keep at it for the rest of your life. Albeit, as you motor along, you’re ultimately gonna be shuffling along. But that’s really OK. facts about anti aging vitamins and supplements

For those who participate in endurance sports, there is even more to be cheerful about. There is less loss of the endurance capacity that sustains us in a marathon than there is of the muscle strength that counts so heavily in an anaerobic event such as a sprint. Read on.

Endurance is defined as the capacity of the body to sustain while performing continuous submaximal contractionsthat is, maintaining a less than all-out pace for an extended period of time. This is why many runners, swimmers, cyclists, or cross-country skiers gravitate toward longer races as they age. Such a progression is testimony to how endurance predominates over strength as we age. We may not be faster, but at least we can go longer.

When age-related changes in athletes over 30 are reviewed, running speed of men over 40 declines less with longer races than with shorter races as compared with similar times for younger athletes. This difference is substantiated by microscopic changes found in our neurons as well as at the muscle, tendon, and cartilage level. Strength (speed) losses are greater than endurance losses, and results in the sprint are more likely to decline with age than in the marathon. Losses are also greater in events such as high, long, and triple jumps, where explosive strength becomes a more significant factor.

One theory, by the way, on why older men perform better at longer races is that many opt to avoid rigorous, intense, and often painful interval training required for the shorter length races. In other words, although they are able to compete in shorter events, they often choose not to. As the body changes, so does the mind, or maybe vice versa.

With years (should) come(s) wisdom. anti-aging diet

As you age, your muscles lose strength. If you are active, if you exercise and participate in sports, that loss will be minimized. But if you insist on being a couch potato, watch out! Those precious muscles will get noticeably flabbier and weaker. And you’re going to have a tough time getting to the refrigerator. But you probably figured this slice of reality out already.

Muscle strength is defined as the maximum force (tension) generated by a muscle in a single maximal (read “all-out”) contraction. Just as there is a loss of muscle strength, there is also a decrease in muscle mass with aging, commensurate with a decline in the size and number of your muscle fibers. Such an inevitable decline, however, is smaller among active older adults. Naturally, this decline is a function of the type of activity you choose and how the muscles are used. Evidence suggests that vigorous activity, such as weight lifting, running or swimming intervals, pace workouts, and racing, can actually reverse this muscle loss (maybe, so much for a very mellow jog three times a week). In fact, older men (and women too) can actually increase their maximum strength by exactly the same percentage as younger subjects, but only after just eight weeks of progressive strength training. In short, exercise can have as beneficialand as immediatean effect on an older body as on a younger one. Hey, guys, that means you. anti-aging pods

Age does provoke a wide array of functions (and dysfunctions). We aren’t as quick. We aren’t as strong. Our joints may not move as easily or as far. Some other body parts degenerate, stiffen up, or generally don’t work as well. The late S. J. Perelman described the condition with humor and insight in his book Under the Spreading Atrophy. We wish it were, but aging is not always a humorous or simple matter. Physical function can still be preserved to a great extent by careful attention to your body. Physical conditioning, reduction of stress, a good diet, and a host of other intercessions can hold off the decline and in some cases even reverse it. In plain English, If you don’t use it, you lose it. Following a plan of regularly scheduled maintenance should keep you running right.

We’ve been conditioned to accept a certain amount of dysfunction as we age. Yet it doesn’t have to be that way. We love the story, for example, of the elderly patient who goes to see his doctor. Doctor Cohen examines his sore right leg and says, “I’m not surprised that you have some problems with your leg. You’re not a youngster any more. You’re almost 80.” The annoyed patient retorts, “But Doc, my left leg’s 80 too, and it doesn’t hurt.”

The point is that there definitely are preconceptions and misconceptions about growing older. For instance, some would have us believe that we aren’t supposed to do certain things any longer because we are aging, or that our bodies have inexorably deteriorated and there’s nothing we can do about it. These, it appears, are myths. Thank the gods. Just think of Roy Carlsted, an internationally ranked ski racer who at 70 keeps up joyfully with racers 30 years his junior (laughing at them, to boot, as he speeds by). best anti-aging for men

Okay, this is the truth: Sorry to tell you, guys, but… Aging is a heterogeneous, genetically determined set of processes.

There simply aren’t a whole lot of things we can do about it. That’s the bad news. The good news is that despite all the signs our bodies show and the messages we get that we are aging, the slowing process does not have to be as dire as many of us fear. Some of the world’s best over-40 master athletes prove that the older athlete may be able to keep up with his younger competitorsor at least keep them in sightespecially in the endurance sports.

Examples abound: The marathon in the 1984 Olympics was won by 37-year-old Carlos Lopes. In cross-country skiingarguably the most aer-obically demanding sport of allthe Olympic 1988 silver medal in the men’s 50-kilometer race was taken by 39-year-old Maurilio DeZolt of Italy, who repeated the feat in 1992 at age 43! He then finished in the top 10 in that event in Lillehammer in 1994.

So biological aging alone may not be the limiting factor in how well one man runs the marathon. Besides the obvious factordedicated conditioningsuch intangibles as job stress, inevitable hassles with children, or an aging parent suddenly diagnosed with lung cancer can have a significant impact.

Still, there are enough changes in our lives and especially in our physical capacity to make us question whether we can still leap over the fence in pursuit of an errant four year old. Is this an indication of some irreversible, age-induced disability? Maybe. Maybe not.

Here, to the best of my ability, is the latest rundown on what your aging body can or cannot do, assuming that you maintain a modicum of fitness and health. olay total effects 7-in-1 anti-aging body wash

In spite of the best efforts of your associates and family, you probably aren’t losing your mind. Then why does it seem that as you get further into midlife, there are times when you’re sure you are? In most instances, except in regard to the unfortunate progression of Alzheimer’s disease, which knows no intellectual or personal fitness boundaries (but fortunately also afflicts fewer than one in five older adults), using the brain-like physical exerciseprotects your memory and mental acuity. Studies also ascribe mental benefits for the elderly from three-times-a-week strength training. If this sounds very much like that Hellenic ideal of a sound mind and sound body, you’re getting my drift.

The fact is that at any stage in lifebut especially at midlifecognitive problems are seldom caused by actual neural degeneration or change. They are most often due to other factors. There continues to be a considerable underappreciation of how depression and anxiety can interfere with cognition. Being depressed, stressed, anxious, or under some other mental pressure can masquerade as a loss of mental capacity. Commonly, such conditions might make you forgetful or distracted or interfere with your attention span.

Stress and confusion can turn into Edgar Allan Poe’s “Descent into a Maelstrom.” Depression and distraction can affect your performance on the job. Your wife and family can become upset with you. Your friends may try to avoid you. The whole process becomes a vicious cycle, with the effects exacerbating the condition, the condition creating still more deleterious effects, and so on. This, coupled with the other pressures associated with hitting midlife, can bring the enjoyment of life to a wicked halt. The worse it gets, the less able you’re going to be to break the cycle.

Many men deal with this through self-medicationdrugs or alcohol, to be specific. This creates still another complication, one from which society suffers greatly. Where does it all end?

Men, unlike women, don’t go to the doctor or hospital unless they think they’re dying. Women go for birth control pills, pap smears, babies, premarin (a hormone treatment for menopause), and so on. Their mothers have done this before them. But men have historically sought medical help only in acute situations, and sometimes not even then. If men don’t seek medical help for an aching joint or even to get new glasses, how would they be expected to ask for assistance for something as nebulous as “mental illness”?

Fortunately, mental illnessor even just feeling blue, a bit out of sorts, less than top-notchis increasingly being regarded more as a physical disease and less as something one can control through willpower: It’s chemical, it’s biological. There is a curious intermix among the workings of the brain, the body, and the spiritone that we will probably never definebut just because you believe in the strength of one over the other doesn’t mean you can’t ask for help in areas where you are weak. That’s what being a member of society is all about.

Thus, if you feel you may be losing your mind, a trip to the doc’s could more easily solve a problem that could only get worse. An antidepressant drug or mood stabilizer, or simply just a few good conversations about what’s on your mind, could break the stress cycle just enough to let you get back on task.

Don’t let feeling down go too long. A good rule of thumb is: If someone tells you to seek help, they’re probably right. how much resveratrol to take to get anti aging benefits

Your reflexes get slower as you age. But you knew that.

Studies among older people show that reaction latencies, or how fast we react, are slower than those for younger people. Also, the more complex the movements that are made, the greater the disparity in response latency with age.

Aging in general affects a wide variety of nonverbal information processing. A good example is trying to focus eyesight at distances after looking for a long time close-up. Fortunately, in older individuals, practice time still manages to shorten reaction time. Some geriatric facilities have even had success using Nintendo to sharpen mental acuity and hand-eye coordination of seniors.

A variable to consider when comparing the psychomotor performance of the young with the elderlya 20 year old with a 70 year old, for exampleis not just age. You also have to consider the dramatically different levels of health, physical fitness, and nutrition that individuals may have experienced during their lives. One study has shown how a four-month exercise program improved aerobic endurance and psychomotor performance in older athletes. The psychomotor latencies of older, physically fit men or women are shorter than those of sedentary individuals.

If you stay fit, you’ll still inevitably end up losing quickness and reaction time, but you’ll lose less of it. jackie seymour tv commercial anti aging skin care products

Hearing impairment with age can be normally mild or moderate in severity, yet it tends to be a widespread problem. Such problems begin to show up in midlife. These difficulties have a number of causes and can have various effects. In some cases, as in losses in ability to hear high-pitched sound, the causes are self-inflicted, stemming from having sampled too many rock concerts. Other problems are hereditary in nature. Still others are due to normal changes associated with aging that affect all of us differently.

Background Noise

As we age, we lose the ability to tune out background noises. Consequently, we frequently have greater difficulty hearing in noisy settings. This would affect your ability to hear a friend trying to get your attention across a crowded room. This is a difficult problem to overcome. Hearing aids tend to amplify sound indiscriminately, leaving up to you the problem of separating those sounds you want to hear from those you don’t. You can only hope that your particular case is mild and uncomplicated by other hearing problems.

High-Pitch Hearing Loss

There are plenty of reasons why anyone who has spent time around high-pitched noises ends up testing positive for high-frequency hearing loss. Call it “rock ‘n roller’s ear.” Individuals working around foundries, boiler making, or loud noises such as gunfire may also flunk hearing tests for high-pitched frequencies. Such problems, fortunately, may be treatable with a myriad of types of hearing aids or, as a last resort, surgery. Researchers even have developed an implantable synthetic cochlea (the balance center of the ear) already.

More important, high-pitched hearing loss is preventable just by wearing noise-deadening ear protection. For this reason, airport personnel exposed to high-pitched sounds of aircraft engines or municipal workers using a myriad of machinery should have ear protection in place. anti-aging winter park