Why weight training matters in middle age
A recent convert’s not alone in discovering benefits of lifting
Six months ago, I was having a middle-aged meltdown. Juggling too many professional projects, I wasn’t sleeping properly and lacked focus during the day. I felt old and emotionally fragile — anything from a broken plate to a bank statement seemed to overwhelm me. The treadmill running sessions I was doing were exhausting and not shifting inches from the places I wanted them shifted (waist and thighs). So I did what any self-respecting “mid-life crisis-ist” would: I got a personal trainer I couldn’t afford.
Suzi Sorokova is a 24-year-old trainer. During our first session, I expected sweat-filled jumps, but instead got slow, refined weightlifting moves — old-fashioned bar-type squats and chin-ups. Though worried that I’d bulk up, six weeks later I was sleeping better, felt more focused at work and my clothes were looser. Six months on, I have dropped a dress size, lost two inches off my hips, one inch off my waist, can squat my own body weight and, in my late 40s, have found a new confidence in my body.
I’m not alone in my new-found fondness for weightlifting. Strength training with weights was fourth in the American College of Sports Medicine’s fitness trend predictions for 2016. Look around most gyms and you’ll notice the weights area is no longer peopled only by grunting muscle-y men, but by average-sized men and women looking toned and happy, and doing old-fashioned lifting moves previously reserved for powerlifters, such as kettlebell swings, press-ups and bench-press lifts. Trainer Michael Ryan put Hugh Jackman, 47, on a regimen of traditional lifts and bench presses to get him in shape for the latest Wolverine film. And, where Hollywood women once did it covertly so as not to taint their damsel-ly images, more A-listers are lifting than ever. Cameron Diaz, 43, Jennifer Lopez, 46, Halle Berry, 49, and Jane Seymour, 65, all swear by weight training.
If preventing middle-aged spread is a priority, strength training is key. Each decade after 30, muscle declines by between three per cent and eight per cent, and because it has a higher metabolic rate than fat, the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn, not only during exercise but also while at rest.
“Muscle requires more blood and oxygen to be supplied to it than fat, and that increases the energy expenditure the body has to make to maintain it,” says John Brewer, head of sports and exercise science at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, England.
A 2011 paper from the American College of Sports Medicine warned muscle loss was the single greatest contributor to age-related decline in metabolism. It said by adding just two to four pounds of muscle, you could burn 100 extra calories a day at rest (that’s 3,000 calories in a month, technically enough to lose a pound).
Moreover, lifting workouts such as circuit training can burn about 200 calories while you’re doing them, but unlike cardiovascular exercise such as running, they burn about 25 per cent more additional calories in the first hour following your workout and can keep your resting metabolic rate elevated by 100 calories a day for up to 72 hours afterward.
It takes a surprisingly short time to build muscle. My sessions with Sorokova were only twice a week, half an hour each, and the results were impressive. One study from the Harvard School of Public Health followed 10,500 U.S. men aged over 40 for 12 years and found that of all the activities they did, weight training for 20 minutes three times a week had the greatest effect on preventing age-related abdominal fat.
“Muscle builds up quickly, even from the first session of exercise when you get sore. That minor damage repairs itself and you become stronger,” says Brewer. “Within two weeks you should start to see benefits.”
Weight training can also help control blood sugar levels in patients with Type 2 diabetes: one meta-analysis concluded that resistance training should be recommended in the prevention and management of the condition. Moreover, it might help age-related bone loss, resulting from a decrease in estrogen, a hormone that helps calcium production. Studies carried out at Glasgow Caledonian University have found that strength training improved bone density in postmenopausal women.
“Previously it was thought only aerobic exercise could deliver positive mood benefits,” says Dr. Claire Marie Roberts, a lecturer in sports psychology at Worcester University. “But we now know that resistance and weight training can have the same or better effects.”