Use Them Or Lose Them – How Important Is Muscle Maintenance?

The old adage still rings true and it shouldn`t be taken lightly. Use them or lose them, the importance of muscle maintenance should never be discounted if you want to live a fit, mobile life for as long as possible.

For years people have associated strength training exercise with athletes and bodybuilders, believing that it is all about building big muscles.

Yet only a very small percentage of men and women possess the genetic ability to develop the sort of muscular development that we associate with bodybuilders.

It is strange that many people worry about developing large muscles when on the contrary, those who do not do enough strength building and maintaining activity should be concerned about losing their muscle.

Age Related Muscle Atrophy

After we get to our mid 20’s and reach maturity, our body begins a long and gradual degenerative process.

One of the effects of this is the loss of about one-half pound per year of muscle tissue until around age 50, then this rate doubles.

Our muscle fibres simply become smaller and weaker – a phenomenon called disuse atrophy (waste away). If you`ve ever, had an arm or a leg immobilised in a cast, then exactly the same thing would happen.

When challenged by weight bearing activity, muscles and the bones they are attached to continually renew themselves.

Old worn out degenerated cells and tissue are swept away and in their place new tissue is rebuilt that is younger, stronger and healthier.

Without the challenge of strength building and maintaining exercise the human body has no stimulus for the ‘growth and repair’ mechanism to be activated.

Cells and tissues weaken, degenerate and become prone to injury and disease. The old expression ‘use it or lose it’ is never more apt than in this instance.

If you don’t use it often and coax your body into doing some physical ‘work’ you will certainly lose it.

Resistance Training For Body Strength

If you haven’t heard about strength training exercise, or resistence training, it is the process or exercising the muscular system with weighted resistance to strengthen, condition and to keep it strong and healthy.

As we no longer get enough natural activity in our modern sedentary and largely inactive world, we can only stay fit and healthy when we take the time to put intentional exercise back into our busy lives.

Strength training helps develop a leaner, stronger body and boosts the metabolism (the body’s engine), increasing available energy, endurance and stamina.

Mental and emotional health is improved all round as well by increasing self-esteem, confidence and self worth. These improvements have a great influence on our metabolic efficiency (the way our body uses food to create energy), physical appearance, performance and reducing risk of injury and illness.

Nothing can match the benefits produced by strength training exercise. Low intensity recreational activities like walking, jogging or cycling work the muscles only in limited ranges of movement and therefore cannot strengthen the muscular system and combat declines in strength. It also struggles to maintain bone density and muscle mass that accompany disuse.

Taking Responsibility For Good Health

If you don’t look after your muscles through the years you will lose up to 50 percent of them when you reach you senior years. This will leave you in a poor condition for the rigours of ageing.

Why not get yourself started on a proper strength training programme and keep yourself strong. Nobody wants that awful situation where someone needs to help you get up from a chair, dress or even feed you. It is in each of our hands, it is our responsibility….so don’t delay.

Maintaining your muscle could be one of the most important things you can ever do to keeping yourself fit and strong. Use them or lose them? The choice is yours.