Good news for sedentary people: after 50, it is also possible to get in shape

[Inkriql]

31% of the po[CENSORED]tion that declares itself openly sedentary (according to the study of the World Burden of Diseases, published in The Lancet magazine) and that in the mid fifties does not do any physical exercise, will be interested to know that, according to new research, It is still time to avoid muscle and bone degeneration that can make you an old man ahead of time. The study, carried out jointly by 5 universities, has compared muscle function, bone mineral density (the amount of calcium and other minerals present in an area of the bone) and the body composition of older people who have practiced sports throughout his adult age with those who started late, specifically after 50 years. The objective was to determine if the fact of having started training so late prevents reaching the level of athletic performance and musculoskeletal characteristics of those who trained all their lives.

To do this, the researchers evaluated two groups of people between 70 and 80 years old. On the one hand there were those who had been moving all their adult lives, some even competing, and, on the other, those who started past 50. All of them underwent weight training and were followed up before and after the activity, evaluating the intensity of training, performance according to age and musculoskeletal characteristics. The results showed that there were no differences between the groups in terms of training intensity or performance according to age, despite the 30-year difference in training history. The researchers, who initially tried to show how people who have exercised throughout their lives have a greater ability to develop muscles in adulthood, discovered that both groups had the same ability to build muscle in response to sport.

Of course, the work also showed that veterans in training had less body fat and greater lean mass in the legs than those who had been more sedentary. However, the body composition and performance were very similar in both groups and the bone mineral density of the hip was also the same. It must be said that there are very rare cases of increased bone mass related to physical exercise exceeding 50 and that when talking about the ability to develop muscles in advanced ages, as in this study, experts refer to a lower loss of mass; that is, it is more related to the saving effect than to the profit. Enough to prevent serious diseases.

"When we reach forty we begin the loss of bone mass, a process that in women is more accelerated because of menopause. As we blow candles, from that age the bones lose flexibility, resistance and modeling ability, and osteoporosis appears, a disease that will cause, in any bruise, the chances of fracture increase.With the muscles something very similar occurs.If there is no stimulus for exercise, in older people sarcopenia can occur; that is, degenerative loss of muscle mass, which causes a weakness that can affect the person in the form of loss of strength, balance and falls, "explains David Curto, family doctor and head of health care management at Sanitas Mayores.
Ideally, start before 30

What does all this mean? "Well, starting in the practice of physical activity has no age and that the recommendation regarding staying active includes them all, always adapting to the needs of each po[CENSORED]tion group and taking into account, if they exist, medical contraindications. It is true that the ideal thing to see the reward in adulthood is to acquire those healthy habits at an early age, but also the recommendation to stay active also extends to people from 55 years, "explains Eva Ferrer, doctor of the unit of Sports medicine at the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in Barcelona.

Starting to exercise at an early age (before 30) has its advantages because "it allows the body to adapt progressively. This implies that there is a better tolerance to exercise, especially at high intensities. But that does not mean that a start late exercise or physical activity is harmful or not good at all. It is true that from this age you have to be cautious and take it as a background race, but in no case is it bad to exercise (proof of this is that, in patients with acute cardiovascular diseases such as myocardial infarctions, exercise is recommended as part of cardiac rehabilitation), "says David Curto.

It is not that you have to relax and keep running away from exercise like the plague because one thinks there is plenty of time to start moving.