THE BENEFITS OF STRENGTH TRAINING
A Benefit of Strength Training: Resisting the Aging Phenotype
The current and recent trend in the ‘fitness’ industry has been to focus upon intensity as functionality and ‘sport’ as a suitable daily training endeavor for the general population.
The reality is that most clients need to train in the way that best facilitates resisting the aging phenotype or more simply put just resisting aging. This In order to identify what that training base may look like, lets first discuss in brief what happens when a client ages.
What Happens When We Age
As we age, we all begin to suffer from metabolic syndrome, osteopenia (loss of bone density) and sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass). Typically these will be accompanied by a man-made side effect of aging, polypharmacy. Medical professionals will typically prescribe a multitude of medications to offset the side effects of when other, more holistic interventions can effectively address the same symptoms, whilst avoiding the unwanted side effects that so often come with pharmaceutical interventions.
Aging bodies suffer from what we term ‘anabolic resistance’ Put simply, metabolic syndrome side effects of things such as decreased nutrient sensing (ability to use and respond to nutrition, especially protein), the degeneration of the neuromuscular system and other potential risk factors such as insulin sensitivity.
Strength Training and Osteopenia
Osteopenia comes with a host of side effects that will be detrimental to the human organism. Namely, increased risk of injury during a slip or fall. Osteoporosis can result in serious bone fracture risk to the hips and spine.
Strength Training and Sarcopenia
Sarcopenia being a decrease in muscle mass means decreased force production potential, motor control, and frailty. When put hand in hand with metabolic syndromes, anabolic resistance and decreased bone mass, we have an undesirable situation and need to make a non-pharmalogical intervention which is strength training. We will do this via the delivery of training protocols as medicine. Formulation and dose being the program design. Get an introduction to programming strength to resist the aging phenotype here.
The Benefits of Strength Training vs. Aging
Strength and resistance training will give a client the greatest chance to overcome osteopenic and sarcopenic outcomes. The compression, tensive and moment (torque) forces which are experienced under a barbell will allow for the greatest disruption to the aging process. Wolff’s law (that an organism will adapt to the loads under which it is placed) results in increased bone density and tensile forces such as those experienced at muscular end ranges and in movements where gravity is pulling the body downwards (such as the pull up) will have a positive response on muscle mass and soft tissue resilience. Aside from the effects on the bones and soft tissues via strength training, resistance training at 70-90% of one-rep max as well as sub-maximal efforts to failure has been shown to be effective at the regulation of muscle protein synthesis. This will go a long way to reversing muscular atrophy. Take a deep dive into the back squat, one of the big three strength movements here.
In terms of specific formulation dosage, here at OPEX we have a strength lifecycle, which will enable you to assess clients and place them along a strength continuum. This understanding of contractions and how each type of training phase will impact each phenotype will be critical to the development of strength for a lifetime.
Strength is an elusive thing to develop. But with the proper education on the strength lifecycle, it doesn’t have to be. Learn how to program to resist the aging phenotype and the strength lifecycle with our newest course, Programming: Strength.