It’s never too late to start weight training. Sport has many health benefits for people over 90.
Sport is good for your health, and at any age! Indeed, a study carried out on some Spanish nineties shows that it is never too late to start bodybuilding, a sporting activity which is largely beneficial for the health of our seniors. The results of this work appeared a few days ago in the journal American Aging Association.
This research was carried out by scientists from the University of Navarre. It consisted in making follow a program of bodybuilding, and balance exercises two days a week, to a group of 24 seniors aged 91 to 96 years. According to these Spanish doctors, in just 12 weeks, the participants were already registering significant improvements in balance, and in their walking speed. The latter also got out of their chair more easily, and also had less tendency to fall, compared to a sedentary group, acting as a control group.
The Brittany Health Observatory had already measured in their region the virtues of the development of physical activity among residents of accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people.
Among these seniors, the number of falls and fractures had decreased, the list of medications was slightly reduced, and the use of physiotherapy care was less frequent.
According to Prof. François Carré, sports cardiologist at the CHU de Ponchaillou in Rennes, contacted by why actor in July, “with aging, the vessels have less ability to open, so they provide less blood and all the components such as oxygen and sugar that the muscles need. It is by playing sports that we give the vessels the ability to dilate well. And what is most beneficial are the activities that involve significant muscle masses, such as walking, cycling or even Nordic walking, ”he concludes. So many factors that give greater autonomy.
In France, the challenge of motivating the elderly to play sport is major for doctors, since in 2040, a third of the French population will be over 60 years old.
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