How Exercise Can Help as You Age

Contributing post

If you are looking for something that is all-natural to give you a boost, as well as something that can help your muscles, protect your mind and body against aging, and lift your mood, then exercise is the thing that you need. It is one of the most powerful things that can help your body, but the good news is that your body is all that you need to get started.  

As we start to age, then there are two different elements of exercise that you need to focus on, with strength training, to help your muscles, and aerobic exercise, which helps to get blood pumping through your body and making you sweat. A lot of the time, you won’t need to have lots of expensive or fancy equipment either, so there is no excuse to get started, to help you to help reduce the signs of aging. Of course, there are some things in the aging process like hearing loss that can’t be helped through exercise, but there are plenty that can be. So here are some of the things that you can do to incorporate fitness into your life, and then it can make a difference to help the aging process for you.

Aerobic exercise to reverse damage to the heart

There are many studies that look into fitness and health, especially in aging, but one study did some years of supervised exercise, several times a week. Another group of people did yoga and balance activities, with the same monitoring. Those that were doing the aerobic exercise had some improvement to their heart’s performance, which gives us an idea that an aging hear could be helped and prevented with some regular cardiovascular exercise. 

Strength training to preserve muscular decline
Strength training is something that can take a variety of different forms. But ideally, it involves a range of movements that are geared towards building muscle and then preserving muscle. Lifting weights is an obvious choice for many, but strength training doesn’t have to always look like that. You can try things like yoga, pilates, Tai-chi, and other martial arts can make a difference. These are all about flowing movements, which can help your muscles too. Tai chi is also something that is good for older people too, as the balance can decline as we get older. It is an important component of our fitness, so these kinds of exercises really do help.

Cardio can help the look and appearance of your skin

There was a study done by a University in the UK that found that people who were over the age of forty who do some cardio regularly do tend to have better-looking skin than people who are the same age but are sedentary. The overall make-up of skin from those people who regularly exercise, was comparable to skin of people nearly half of their age. It isn’t always clear why doing cardio makes a difference for your skin, but it is definitely worth looking into, if you want to improve your skin as you age. 

For more fitness inspiration and barre workouts visit Nadia Murdock Fit on Instagram @NadiaMurdock and the NMFIT Blog!