7 Ways to Reverse Muscle Loss with Age!

The rate at which humans lose

muscle

mass with age is absolutely terrifying, but fortunately there are

ways

to

reverse

it. Hi everyone, my name is Will Harlow and I'm the Over 50s Specialist Physiotherapist here at HT Physio in Farnam and I'm coming today. to reveal the seven

ways

you can

reverse

the natural

muscle

loss

that occurs with age now before we dive into the video content, if you haven't already, like the video and subscribe to the channel because then you'll be the first to hear about our new videos when they come out and if you find videos like these helpful, consider sharing them with a friend or family member who might benefit because organic growth is the only way we grow this channel, so thank you.

Thank you very much if you share it now that everything has been said, let's talk about muscle

loss

with age and the numbers are absolutely terrifying, so the truth is, and this has been shown in studies over time, that They are on average per decade of life after the age of 30, humans tend to lose between three and eight percent of their total muscle mass. That's huge. Imagine if you lost eight percent of your muscle mass between ages 30 and 40, then another eight percent between ages 40 and 50, and then another eight percent. From 50 to 60 it wouldn't be long until you had almost nothing left and the problem with this is that that rate accelerates even faster after age 60.

And most of the people I treat are over 50 and research shows that on average each year, most people over 60 lose about one percent of their total muscle mass, so it doesn't happen a long time before that really starts to add up and their muscle mass becomes significantly less than what they need, so why is it all? Having little muscle mass has been shown to increase the risk of falls, increase the risk of fractures, decrease quality of life, cause greater morbidity from other health problems, and is even a significant predictor of premature death, so losing mass muscle is a very important factor.

The downside is that it's something we should try to reverse if we can, and luckily there are some great ways to reverse it. It was now believed that we will all lose muscle mass as we age. There is nothing you can do to avoid it. but this is actually incorrect and there are many things you can implement starting today that will maintain and even reverse your muscle loss so that you can maintain muscle mass and be stronger, fitter and healthier as a result, it is also worth it say that. People with less muscle mass tend to suffer from more painful problems, that is why I implement many of these strategies with my patients if they have knee pain, back pain, hip pain, whatever the problem, we always talk about these methods in clinic because they tend to help with a lot of painful problems in addition to simply maintaining muscle mass, so let's take a look at seven things you can do to reverse muscle loss with age, so the first and best way to reverse muscle loss muscle with age is to engage in resistance training now resistance training just means moving against resistance resistance could be a weight like a dumbbell resistance could be your body weight like if you were doing a push up or if you were sitting down to get out of your chair, but you have to do it Do something that involves hard work on your muscles and that pushes against some type of external force, this does not mean that you have to run out and join a gym, although it would be a good option, there are many things you can do at home.

I have other videos on my channel showing the best bodyweight exercises to strengthen your legs and arms. You can find them if you browse my channel, but basically it's about doing something regularly, it doesn't have to be complete. hour every day, sometimes I give people just 10 minutes of work a day and that is enough to combat the effects of aging. Some of my favorite exercises are squats and push-ups are brilliant. You can use the bench press or dumbbell press at the gym to maintain your upper body and the overhead press is great. Lifting things off the floor like a deadlift is also very good and then you can also do single leg movements like lunges which work one side of the body more than the other and improve your balance at the same time there are hundreds of different things that you can do, but the key is to find something that you enjoy, something that doesn't hurt, something that makes you feel tired when you finish doing a set. and do it consistently, so those are the main things you should do when it comes to resistance training.

If you are unsure, I would recommend getting personal advice from a physiotherapist who can put together a program to help you maintain that muscle mass. Now, the key here when doing resistance training is that the exercises should make you feel tired at the end of the set. We tend to work in rep ranges between five in a row and 20 in a row when you first start doing them. more than 20 you are working more on your endurance and if you are doing less than five then if you do it unsupervised there is a slightly higher risk of injury, so between 5 and 20 in a row works well and at the end of that set, so when If you do your five six seven eight nine ten reps in a row you should feel tired as if you would have a hard time doing many more.

We generally recommend a few sets of each of those exercises and doing at least something resistance-based each. Just one day is a recipe for success in maintaining muscle mass. Now the second way to reverse muscle loss with age is to choose compound exercises, so this is based on resistance training and what I'm going to do now is explain an exercise. which is okay, but not that good, and then it's a great exercise that takes exactly the same amount of time as each other, but will give you a lot more bang for your buck, so the first exercise I'm going to describe and this is one that doesn't No An isolation exercise called bicep curls is necessarily recommended to maintain muscle mass and you have no doubt seen people in the gym doing this.

They usually hold a dumbbell, bend their arm up and then lower it like this and it works. this muscle here now there is nothing wrong with this exercise but the problem with this exercise is exactly that it only works this muscle so when you do this exercise you are isolating the biceps and it is working just this biceps here and then a couple of other little muscles around of the elbow, but other than that, you're not getting much benefit out of your butt, it takes as much time as doing any other exercise, but you're not getting much benefit out of it, which is why we avoid isolation exercises. for most people and instead we guide people to do compound exercises, so an example of the compound exercise would be the squat and a squat would be with your body weight when you just lift up like that and then squats.

You can do it from a chair or if you feel a little stronger you can put a weight on your back and you can bend down like this if you are in a gym and the best thing about squash is that it not only works one muscle group, it works three or four muscle groups. muscles, work the muscles in your hips that help you move up and forward, work the other muscles in your hips that keep your pelvis level, work your thigh muscles to make your quads, and even work some of your tendon muscles. hamstring and even up to the calf and foot, so we call it a compound exercise because it involves two or three different joints all at the same time and all the muscles included too, so if you just choose the squat you can have a great workout in just 10 minutes doing four or five sets of squats and if you were only doing four or five sets of bicep curls, yes, you would maintain your muscle mass here, but nothing would happen at the end. rest of the body, while with the squat you are exercising the entire lower half of your body at the same time, so if you choose exercises to maintain muscle mass, always choose a compound exercise rather than an isolation exercise, another example of a great compound.

The exercise would be a push-up, so press up on the wall or the floor, which uses your shoulders, chest and arms, so that the majority of your upper body and core, as well as the press overhead, be another and the deadlift picking things up off the floor, so those are great options to choose from and don't avoid isolation exercises, you just don't get as much use out of them and choose a compound exercise instead. The third way to reverse muscle loss with age is to do a lot of weight training now. Weight-bearing exercise doesn't need to fall into the same category as resistance exercise, it could include just walking, it could include walking, it could include running, things like that, they all involve weight bearing, standing and bearing weight through the extremities, So why is that important and why is it better for maintaining muscle mass than things like cycling?

The reason it's a little better than things like cycling for maintaining muscle mass is because you're using more muscles because you're using your upper body. body as well and you are also carrying the entire weight of your body through the muscles of the lower extremities every time you take a step. The other good thing is that it also maintains your bone mass, so when we walk it sends a signal to the bones that we need as much density in those bones as possible to support our weight and we don't get that same signal from things like riding a bike.

I'm not saying cycling is bad, but walking is definitely better in old age. maintain and build muscle mass, so I would recommend everyone try to get in at least five to ten thousand steps a day if they can, it's a great way to send a signal to your body to maintain as much muscle mass as possible. Now, the fourth way to reverse it. losing muscle with age is getting enough protein now protein is a macronutrient that is included in our diets we have three main macronutrients: fat, carbohydrates and protein and we can think of fats and carbohydrates simply as sources of energy and protein in Instead of providing energy, what it does is provide building blocks for muscles, so one of the main reasons that people lose too much muscle mass as they age is because they don't eat enough protein and if they don't consume enough protein in your diet.

Your body still needs the protein, so what it will do is break down your muscle mass to get it, so protein is absolutely vital. If we don't have enough protein, the body says we can't afford to keep it expensive. muscle tissues no longer, so we will begin to remove protein from the muscles so that the muscles become smaller and weaker and we become weaker as a result. Government guidelines now generally recommend that most people eat about one gram per kilogram of body weight per day. day of protein, but unfortunately this does not seem to be the optimal range in many of the studies I have been reading, it seems that this may be an insufficient prescription for most people who want to maintain muscle mass.

I would recommend people look more towards the range of 1.5 to 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day because that seems to be the most accepted range for building and maintaining muscle now of course that won't work for everyone because some people have things like kidney problems that mean they can't eat as much protein safely, so always check with your doctor before making radical changes to your diet, but having protein availability in the body is absolutely critical to maintaining your muscle mass if you go all out. resistance training in the world but you don't eat enough protein you simply won't maintain or build muscle mass it will still decrease because your body simply doesn't have the building blocks so having enough protein is vital and you can find protein in things like meat , chicken, fish, eggs, nuts and many different sources, so regardless of how you prepare your diet, be sure to prioritize protein.

It's best to consume protein spread throughout the day, so spread it over a few meals rather than a large amount of protein. This one-time meal, usually three or four servings a day and a total of 1.5 to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight tends to work best for building and maintaining. Now, the fifth way to reverse muscle loss with age is to take up hobbies. retirement now, this is more of a lifestyle tip because it's something I've observed a lot in the clinic. I treat a lot of people who are just retiring, so they're just finishing work andmoving on to the next phase of life and a Many of them have spent a lot of time throughout their lives working, they are very dedicated to their work and suddenly they stop and life is completely different and they don't know what to do with their time free.

They don't know how to fill it, maybe they are more socially active, but over time they find that they don't move as much because their job was something that kept them active, kept them out of the house, made them move, made them challenge their brain. and your body and now you have lost it, so it is very, very important that you take something in retirement that replaces your lost efforts at work. If you had a desk job this isn't as important, but a lot of my clients have physical jobs and if you imagine that you've lost all that physical exercise when you stop working, it's not going to do you any favors to just sit on the couch, so you need Incorporate something into your life to replace that lost exercise.

This advice really applies to anyone who stops playing a sport or hobby. We need to have something to take its place if we want to maintain muscle mass, so take a look at your life. Think about what you like to do. Choose something you like. I can do consistently and that doesn't feel like a chore that's going to get complicated. If you're active, it'll get you up and moving and that's a great way to log extra steps to do extra resistance work and maintain muscle mass. Now, the sixth way to reverse muscle loss with age is to choose stairs this way.

It's such a simple tip, this is something that many people always choose instead of taking the escalator or taking the elevator if there is an option, but if you make this simple change when you are out and always use the stairs. You are going to maintain much more muscle mass in your legs now that we have clients who go from a house to a bungalow. There is a phenomenon that we call bungalow legs. We see it a lot and that is in the first year that these people make that change they tend to weaken a lot. in their legs and are at higher risk for falls and other injuries as a result just because they missed those 10 or 11 trips up and down the stairs every day, so make sure you have When choosing between using the stairs or the elevator, you always choose down the stairs, it may seem like it requires more effort at that time and that's also the point because it will send a signal to your legs that you still need those muscles and as a result, it will maintain them and then the seventh tip I have for reversing muscle loss with age is to quickly solve painful problems.

The reason we say this is because painful problems often start out as a nuisance and people often think. Well, my knee hurts a little bit today, so what I'm going to do is not do my normal walk, so take a few days of rest and then the problem doesn't get better, it gets a little bit worse, you think. I'll rest a little more and then this becomes a vicious cycle because rest weakens the muscles, which means there is more pressure on the knee, which means the knee becomes more painful, which means the person rest more now.

I can replace the word knee with ankle hip back neck whatever it is I see this pattern all the time and it's people who try to tolerate a problem for a while and then when the nickel becomes little more than a nuisance they stop After doing so they do normal exercise and then that goes on for long periods of time and then I often see people in clinic who suffered for a year, two years, five years before they got any advice about their problem, it's been getting worse and worse. further. And in the meantime, you've missed tons of exercise as a result and your rate of muscle loss has increased dramatically as a result, so to combat that, I would say if you've had a painful problem that's been there for more than a couple of weeks It is always best to get some advice on this, even if the pain goes away on its own, very often the underlying problem that caused it in the first place is still there so it is likely to return.

Which is why it's always best to get counselling, even if it's just a session, to get something checked out and then prevent it from happening again in the future. If you can avoid injury, if you can avoid problems, then you will. Move a lot more, which will maintain your muscle mass. The people who maintain the most muscle mass in their bodies are simply the ones who avoid the most injuries quite often because if you're injured you can't do as much resistance. By training, you won't be able to walk as much and as a result, you'll lose muscle faster, so don't let things get so bad that you can't do any exercise.

Get something going as quickly as you can to fix the problem and you'll maintain more muscle mass as a result, so that's all the tips on how to reverse muscle loss with age. I hope you found it useful. If so, leave me a comment below and if you want more from me. You can get a copy of my book on Amazon. It's called Prosper Beyond 50 and it will give you many more tips, tricks and strategies to stay healthy at 50 and beyond. Anyway, that's all I have for you today. I appreciate your time. I'm watching this video and I hope to talk to you in the next one, thank you.