OK so you’ve made the decision that you’re sick and tired of sitting around and letting your muscles waste away and your bones get thinner and thinner. It’s time to do something about it! And you’ve realized that weight training is the best way to do gain your strength, balance, and bone mass back. But weight training for senior fitness can be intimidating if you don’t know where to begin. So we’ve made it easy for you! Read on and find out how weight training for seniors can be simple, fun, and best of all, addictive!
Understanding Weight Training Terminology
The first place to begin is with your brain. You need to understand the basics of how weight training works, and the basic process by which your muscles get bigger.
Sets Vs. Reps
The easiest way to understand sets and reps (short for repetitions) is to picture someone doing push-ups. If they do 10 push-ups in a row, that is one set, with 10 reps. If they then rest for 30 seconds and proceed to do 10 more push-ups in a row, that’s two sets of 10 reps.
Rest Intervals
A rest interval is the amount of time you wait in between sets. This can range anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on what you’re trying to achieve (the less time you spend on your rest interval, the better your endurance becomes).
Free Weights
Free weights are weights that aren’t attached to a machine. These are often preferred by personal trainers since they require more use of the trainee’s stabilizing muscles (in other words, your body has to work harder to keep the free weights stable than it would with a machine, which stabilizes for you).
Atrophy
The wasting away of your muscle mass. This can be caused by lack of use of the muscle (ie. you’re not working out enough), injury, or disease.
How Does Weight Training Work?
You know that if you lift a certain sized weight a certain number of times, a few times a week, over time, your muscle will become bigger and stronger. But why and how does this happen? It’s important to understand this before you begin your weight training regime. We’re going to use the bicep curl as an example. A bicep curl involves holding a free weight in one or both hands, arms extended, and bending your arm(s) upwards towards your shoulder. When you perform this activity, it creates little tears in your bicep’s muscle fiber. Amino acids (the building blocks of protein) then come in an repair and reinforce the torn muscle fibers, making them resistant to future damage. This process starts right away, but because it is so microscopic, it will take time before you start to see visible results in the form of stronger and bigger muscles. Be careful though, your muscles can start to atrophy after just two weeks of non-use (ie. if you don’t continue doing your exercises weekly, you’ll lose any gains you make).
Getting Started with Senior Weight Training
Now that you understand some basic weight training terminology, and the basic science behind muscle, you’re ready to start some basic weight lifting exercises. We highly recommend starting with Ron’s Super senior fitness DVDs, which take you through each exercise that will truly benefit your body, and eventually provide you with a full workout you can do for incredible strength gains in just a month’s time. Begin with a self-assessment to see how much weight you’re ready to start with. Get two full one-litre bottles of water, and hold them in your hands. Holding the water bottles, do 8 repetitions of the following movements:
- Lift your arms out to your sides, so that your body looks like a lower-case “t”
- Lift your arms directly over your head, keeping your shoulders down
- With your legs about 2 feet apart, squat down, keeping your knees in line with your toes, back straight, and head up
- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and come up onto your toes
- I couldn’t complete the reps for one or more of the exercises — Stick with the water bottles for now. Empty them halfway and do the exercises with the half-filled bottles, gradually adding more water as you get stronger.
- My muscles were really sore after each exercise — Continue using the full water bottles until the exercises become easy.
- My muscles were a little sore after each exercise — Purchase some 3 lb and 5 lb dumbbells and do the same exercises with 3 lb weights, working up to the 5 lb ones.
- The exercises took very little effort — Purchase 5 lb and 7 lb dumbbells and do the same exercises with 5 lbs weights, working up to 7 lb ones.
- The exercises were ridiculously easy — Purchase 7 lb and 10 lb dumbbells and do the same exercises with 5 lbs weights working up to 10 lb ones.
Super Senior Fitness 