Weight gain in senior women can mask the fact that concurrent muscle loss is compounding the problem of poor fitness. Wayne L. Westcott, fitness research director at South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Massachusetts, and author of 20 books on fitness, notes that a woman in her 50s may have 15 lbs. less muscle and 45 lbs. more fat than she had in her 20s. Strength training offers you a chance to reverse that muscle loss, increase your metabolic rate, lose weight and gain power for everyday activities.
Misconceptions
Many women of all ages focus on eating fewer calories to prevent weight gain, but this does not reduce the rate of muscle loss or metabolic slowdown, Westcott notes. Strength training, with free weights, machines or exercises using the body’s own weight, addresses both issues head on and should therefore be an essential component of every senior fitness program.
Benefits
Previously sedentary senior women can add 2 to 3 lbs. of lean muscle weight after two to three months of strength exercises. This increases the resting metabolic rate by about 7 percent in older adults, says Westcott. Teresa Liu-Ambrose and colleagues at the Vancouver General Hospital reported in 2010 that older women who did an hour or two of strength training exercises each week improved their cognitive function as well.
Expert Insight
Tufts University researchers, who developed the Strong Woman program to improve the health of older women through strength training, report arthritis relief, better balance, stronger bones, better weight maintenance and a healthy state of mind as additional benefits of strength training for older women.
Features
A well-designed strength-training program for older adults consists of several exercises that address the major muscle groups. Older women have benefited even from programs involving just five exercises, doing three sets of each exercise: the leg press, leg extension, pulldown, back extension and abdominal curl, according to Westcott.
Time Frame
If your strength-training program includes four to eight exercises, try to do two or three sets of each, as recommended by protocols reviewed by Westcott. If it covers eight to 12 exercises, try to do one or two sets each, and if you’re doing 12 to 16 exercises, do one set of each. Take 2 minutes of recovery time between each set. In terms of repetitions, try to complete 12 to 16 repetitions at about 65 percent of your maximum resistance when you start weight training. Work up to eight to 12 reps at 75 percent of maximum, and ultimately four to eight repetitions at about 85 percent of maximum resistance.
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