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For longevity, muscle strength may be as important as aerobic exercise

washingtonpost.com

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Re: For longevity, muscle strength may be as important as aerobic exercise

#31

Post by jcoq »

jackschultz wrote: post #15
Temporary_31337 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the science around endurance sports (cycling, nordic skiing, rowing, running etc) has got this covered in quite the detail and does recommend that majority (80%) of your training should be aerobic - i.e. below first lactate threshold. That said, especially as you're unfit early on, doing above aerobic exercices is absolutely fine to increase toe aerobic capacity.

What I'm saying is that for the majority of people, even those who are considered "fit", don't default to aerobic system of energy when doing endurance sports because they don't have a solid enough base. They think because they're going for a 30 minute run it _must_ be aerobic, but if tested, they'd find it wasn't. To know if this is true or not would require testing and numbers and defining what's considered "fit",…

Agreed. I'm an extremely fit runner doing 50+ miles a week and almost all of my runs are in a super easy zone that is equivalent to an uphill walk for most people. A lot of this has to due with well developed biomechanics, but also superior vo2max.

Most health focused runners should be walking at an incline or running downhill except for 1-2 high intensity interval days. There are huge benefits to low intensity activity and higher doses are almost always better. The sort of intense, grueling runs that most people do are likely counterproductive. It's like running a race every day as a workout. It's just not sustainable and unhealthy at high doses.

(Of course, if the goal is to be a runner and not simply be healthy, you'll need to push your body to a point where running is like walking but it takes a long time to do correctly.)

Re: For longevity, muscle strength may be as important as aerobic exercise

#32

Post by layer8 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #28
Temporary_31337 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not just bones - it's also the tendons, ligaments, heck even the skin

All true but it's not without risk. I'm in my 50s, lifting weights for about 3 years now, slow steady increases in weight and am much stronger than I was in 2019. Recently while bench pressing I felt something "pop" in my shoulder and now can't do any pressing movement at all without significant pain. Diagnosed and tried to rehab it as a tendon strain with no improvement. Getting an MRI soon to see what's going on. A…

Yeah, one is always limited by the weakest link in the chain, unfortunately.

Re: For longevity, muscle strength may be as important as aerobic exercise

#33

Post by saiya-jin »

sonthonax wrote: post #14

I’ve always thought there’s something misguided about the legions of “want to get fit” types who self flagellate with long runs. Running is terrible exercise. Terrible because it’s extremely hard on the body unless you’re on the lower end of the BMI scale. If you do any sport with a high mobility requirement, you can feel how tight a single run makes you. The killer in old age is immobility, of your knees and hips. R…

Strange opinion... no runner I ever knew nor heard of does just running, its part of whole fit regime, usually on cardio side, but its relatively easy to do some form of HIIT once achieving certain level of fitness. All runners I know do quite rigorous stretching after each run, so I'd say they have better hip mobility than average. You keep challenging your body with variation, not daily grind of exactly same exercise and 0 of anything else. It also adds fun and mental challenge.

Also, nobody overweight nor sedentary should start with running (nor do it generally), this is 101 of getting fit.

Our bodies are not that complex, but behaving stupidly ain't reaching anything good, ie I am fat and weak, everybody is running, so out of blue lets do that... and in max 3 months joints are a mess. Heck, I'd say health and fitness is one of the most important matters in each of our lives, isn't it worth spending just few hours learning about it? Resources are literally everywhere, expert physiotherapists too if one can't wade through all available info easily. Every gym has host of trainers that tailor working out to person's abilities and goals.

Re: For longevity, muscle strength may be as important as aerobic exercise

#34

Post by saiya-jin »

Temporary_31337 wrote: post #10
beardedman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess my question here is: what exercise/s are you referring to with "majority of our aerobic exercise"?

what the article mentioned - Running, swimming, playing soccer and other similar ones such as cycling, kayaking, you name it

Soccer is more like HIIT if you think about it (and actually play it with a bit of heart) - few +-100% sprints and a lot of walking/slow running to fill the rest.

In team sports in general you are not so much in control of intensity, the game/other players are. Other sports you mention are more like that.

Re: For longevity, muscle strength may be as important as aerobic exercise

#35

Post by John23832 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #30
ren_engineer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is not a scientific argument, but if you build up conditioning safely, i think running should be excellent for you the problem is that running/jogging is usually the first thing people turn to for "getting in shape" and these people are often significantly overweight. Starting off with a high impact exercise is a recipe for disaster. Put on a 50-100lb weight vest and try running around and feel the impact on yo…

If you are 50lbs "overweight" your body has built the strength to carry that weight. Look at any champion powerlifter or "strongman" champion, they all look overweight. It's not all fat, it's the muscle to move that weight around as well. So it's not really the same as a normal-weight person putting on a weight vest. But long term overweight is hard on your joints, no disupting that.

A powerlifter who skews the BMI charts is different than someone who carries 50 pounds of fat.

The powerlifter is mobile and carrying the extra weight and has the strength to do so. The fat person is sedentary and doing whatever possible to NOT carry the fat. They do not have the strength to do so.

Re: For longevity, muscle strength may be as important as aerobic exercise

#36

Post by jackschultz »

jcoq wrote: post #31
jackschultz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm saying is that for the majority of people, even those who are considered "fit", don't default to aerobic system of energy when doing endurance sports because they don't have a solid enough base. They think because they're going for a 30 minute run it _must_ be aerobic, but if tested, they'd find it wasn't. To know if this is true or not would require testing and numbers and defining what's considered "fit",…

Agreed. I'm an extremely fit runner doing 50+ miles a week and almost all of my runs are in a super easy zone that is equivalent to an uphill walk for most people. A lot of this has to due with well developed biomechanics, but also superior vo2max. Most health focused runners should be walking at an incline or running downhill except for 1-2 high intensity interval days. There are huge benefits to low intensity activ…

> The sort of intense, grueling runs that most people do are likely counterproductive. It's like running a race every day as a workout. It's just not sustainable and unhealthy at high doses.

Totally, I agree, in that the reason they're intense because they're using the wrong energy system.

My half baked theory is that the reason people (like me) don't like running at all is because the our subconscious mind tells our conscious mind to not like it because it's so inefficient and a waste. If, however, we trained our bodies and mitochondria to use more fat for energy aerobic-style, we'd like running a ton more. I'm betting that'll be the case with me.

Re: For longevity, muscle strength may be as important as aerobic exercise

#37

Post by saiya-jin »

SoftTalker wrote: post #28
Temporary_31337 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not just bones - it's also the tendons, ligaments, heck even the skin

All true but it's not without risk. I'm in my 50s, lifting weights for about 3 years now, slow steady increases in weight and am much stronger than I was in 2019. Recently while bench pressing I felt something "pop" in my shoulder and now can't do any pressing movement at all without significant pain. Diagnosed and tried to rehab it as a tendon strain with no improvement. Getting an MRI soon to see what's going on. A…

The problem is (and it increases with age) - muscles are not your limiting factor long term, connective tissues are. They can be damaged by long term fatigue, or sudden burst of too much strain.

Pushing weights continuously, in higher age, will eventually lead to injury, even if muscles would easily go even further, they are much better at repairing/building up quickly compared to ie tendons or ligaments. Even for young, there is general advice to put 1 week out of ie 10/12 of complete rest, or probably active rest. It is for all those little fractures and sprains in connective tissue to heal a bit. With age, this should be more frequent and/or longer and as usually everything is very individual.

Re: For longevity, muscle strength may be as important as aerobic exercise

#38

Post by LorenPechtel »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #16

presumably this already is a kind of a fitness test. anyone able to walk 10 miles per day is already fitter than most boomer Americans, even 5 miles, is not likely to die

Yup, but there's also the reverse factor that those who are approaching death rarely are capable of walking that far. I strongly suspect that most measurements of factors related to longevity are actually measures of health.

That being said, I think both strength and cardiovascular fitness matter. If nothing else, strength matters in terms of being able to save yourself from a stumble.

Re: For longevity, muscle strength may be as important as aerobic exercise

#39

Post by jwiz »

HNDen21 wrote: post #4
surfsvammel wrote: post #2

My anecdotal experience is that whenever old people fall and break something, then it all start going downhill, health wise, very quickly. I’ve always thought it’s because they don’t have very much muscle to begin with, that braking a leg or something, forces you to be still so much that you loose whatever muscle you do have left. That in turn has other negative effects; socially from not going out of your house, may…

Exercising strengthens the bones in addition to building muscle. DEXA scans will show this... when a person starts squatting for example, bone density goes up as well

When I did a DEXA scan a while back my density was literally off the chart (higher score than the highest one written).

I strength train for about 8-10 hours a week.

Re: For longevity, muscle strength may be as important as aerobic exercise

#40

Post by hprotagonist »

jackschultz wrote: post #3

> Running, swimming, playing soccer and other aerobic exercise do a lot for the cardiovascular system — our heart and blood vessels — but they don’t do much for overall muscle mass or strength. Preface: like most people here, I'm not a doctor or physiological specialist. I am decently active, and what I've found from the papers and science that gets brought up, and from my own self experimentation, is that the majori…

see the "steady state" line of thinking among rowers.
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