According to a survey conducted by the United Nations, the world population of people aged above 80 by the year 2050 will be 379 million. Of that India alone will account for 48 million, which is 12% of the world. The life expectancy over the ages has certainly increased! The early humans did not generally live long enough to develop diseases. From 30 years of the Neanderthal man to about an average of 40 years during the 1950s, today the average life expectancy has certainly grown to almost 80 years! The national average for India is only 65 years. But considering the vast populous of India that is below the poverty line and below the access to any form of medical support and better living conditions, I think we can safely judge the average life expectancy of the urban working Indian to be 70 to 75 years. So it is not all that hard to live to be 75 or 80. But our longer life also comes with unprecedented loss of mental faculty and mobility problems.

Any other disease, I can understand! But mobility? Every cell in our body is designed for movement. After all life is movement. And to lose such a major faculty like movement, agility, unable to carry a small bag of groceries, not able to climb a small flight of stairs, gasping to carry our own body weight… all these are indicative of an unfit life style at our prime. 

What enables us to move? The muscles in our body ! In fact, it is our muscles that help us with everything we do. From the way that we get out of bed to the way that we cook dinner, our muscles allow us to move through our day. However, muscles are also taking care of movements that we might not think about as well, like the function of all our organs that are not in our voluntary control. The food we eat moves from our mouth to our stomach and thereon to the small intestine by the action of muscles called peristalsis. All the organs in our viscera are kept in alignment by the muscles, weakness in them leading to several health issues. Without our muscles we practically have no world of mobility. So how do we maintain our muscles?

One of the basic properties of muscles is elasticity – they can extend and also rebound back. In most people who are not on a fitness program there is an imbalance where only one aspect of this property is in constant use. Very often, women are pretty flexible – their muscles are tuned for the stretch. However they never work on the rebound thereby lacking tonicity. They end up looking very flabby. Most men lift some kind of weights to keep their muscle tone healthy but as they never stretch, they lack the extension property of elasticity. They would expect objects to fly against gravity to reach their hands rather than bend down to pick them up! A good fitness program will aim to stretch all tight muscles and strengthen all weak muscles.

For the sake of better understanding we group muscles as prime movers and stabilizers. Prime movers are those muscles that aid in movement and stabilizers are those that help in retaining the rest of the body stable during such movement. This can be likened to driving a car. The prime movers are your accelerator, the stabilizers your breaks. It is impossible to drive safely if the breaks are not functioning properly. In fact the speed of the car depends not only on the power of acceleration but also on the conviction of a healthy breaking system. If the body believes the stabilizers are not really ready for movement, you will begin to find that you are very cautious when you move. Stabilizer exercises are very crucial to ensure safety in movement. If I were to throw a ball, the prime movers in my arms help me in the throw; yet it is my stabilizers that ensure my arm doesn’t get thrown off with the ball! All good fitness programs ought to address this aspect of stability training. That is why progressively we encourage people to incorporate exercises that are not machine based. Gym machines were designed to help train beginners in understanding muscle movement and ensuring good posture, for wrong body posture can cause enormous injury. Once you are confident that your posture is aligned, it becomes important to incorporate some amount of free weights to begin training your body’s stabilizer muscles. Machines aid those far advanced in their weight lifting as well by helping in training for peak performance.

Muscles act as body pumps helping to move body liquids around. With aging, when people lose their muscle tone, they become more and more metabolically weak. This is because our muscles are the most active metabolic tissue in our body. That is, muscles are like the furnace where the food we eat is converted into energy for use by the body. So the bigger the furnace the more energy conversion is possible, the weaker the furnace the lesser the amount of food is converted into energy, creating the necessity to store food as fat. Without muscles we simply cannot convert enough food into energy. By training our muscles to lift weights we will be protecting our bones from damage. Muscles can take the effects of wear and tear, our bones need to be protected. 

Being healthy and fit is the birthright of both the sexes. Why then should women give up on restoring the health of their muscle? There is a great deal of misconception that lifting weights will make women appear bulky and masculine. However this is merely a myth for women do not have the necessary levels of certain hormones (testostrones) to build that kind of muscle definition. Strength training is not just for super models and cine stars; it is mandatory for anyone who wants to be fit. Six pack abs and zero size are not the ultimate goal of a fitness program but more a by-product of a healthy lifestyle. Incorporating a few weight bearing exercises will go a long way in keeping us healthy and happy.

In a review studying the ‘fall in elder people’ Dr.B.Krishnaswamy & Dr. Usha Gnanasambandam of the Madras Medical college and Government General Hospital, write that most elders have great issues after a fall. Recurrent falls are caused by poor balances and weak muscles. A graphic representation from that report shows how the majority of the falls is because of Muscle weakness! Once our body is damaged, either because of a fall or simply because we have refused to use our muscles for movements all along, even simple tasks become difficult. Lifting small objects, bending and picking something from the floor, lifting our arms overhead, climbing stairs – all seem Herculean tasks. Basic movements like carrying groceries and vegetables, squatting or sitting on a low raise chair, agility in small kitchen works… even picking something from the floor – everything is now difficult. We no longer are able to run those last few steps to catch our bus or train. We no longer feel like reaching up to pick up anything. This type of aging – falls, imbalances, and inability to use muscles – all these are preventable! Any number of scientific studies has proven that consistent exercise and activity assures us of a fit body. By training our muscles into lifting a nominal weight, we will be gifting ourself enormous health benefits unimaginable in a weak body. 

Exercising retards the aging process. If life is our freedom, fitness is our responsibility. Why wait? Begin today…

Written by Gita Krishna Raj  |  Published in Food & Health in December 2012