We all know teens and young adults who are seeking to build muscle, “bulk up,” “get ripped,” pack on size for their sport … maybe you were one!
This is easy in your teens and 20s. Eat more food, look at a dumbbell and voila, more muscle with the snap of a finger.
Fast forward 20, 30 or 40+ years … it’s a bit different.
What we communicate at Zeal is the importance of building and/or maintaining muscle mass.
Chasing muscle mass helps to increase resilience to injury, decrease likelihood for falls, increase confidence, improve power output, increase cardiovascular fitness, decrease pain, decrease likelihood for frailty and osteoporosis … the list goes on.
This chase gets faster and faster decade by decade as we tend to lose 3 to 5% of our muscle mass PER DECADE over the age of 30 years old .. staggering.
How do we keep up with the chase?
Lift weights. I’m not talking about the Jane Fonda “lengthen and tone” style from back in the day. I’m talking about adding some load to your muscles in the form of bands, dumbbells, barbells, etc.
Be consistent. 3 days a week at least is ideal.
Be proactive. Ache or niggle coming back? Nip it in the bud. As we get older, the ‘-itises’ and ‘-osises’ of our younger years come back with a vengeance to stay (tennis elbow, plantar fasciitis, IT band syndrome for example). Find a practitioner who you can trust and commit to seeing them regularly.
Eat food. Probably more frequently than you want to. Also probably more protein than you’re used to. 1 to 1.3g of protein per KG of your weight daily.
Regular mobility to combat muscle tightness. This will help you keep your range of motion for your favourite lifts or activities AND ward off injuries.
Regular posture work. This helps prevent neck, shoulder & back injury. It will also ensure you can get full range of motion for your upper body lifts.
Regular balance work. Having a powerful engine is great… but if the wheels on your Lamborghini are wobbly, you’re going nowhere fast.
Get a baseline. I encourage this for all new members. Even if fat loss isn’t a goal of yours, hop on our InBody Scanner to get a baseline muscle mass number. If we measure again in 12 weeks and your muscle mass is decreasing, we need to change something in your current routine.
Get a coach. You’re going to be mad at yourself in 6 months for not getting a coach sooner. Trust me.
Yours in Fitness,
Tessa
Co-Owner, Director of Fitness @ Zeal Performance
PS. Schedule a free phone call with me to learn more about our Calgary-based In-Studio Semi-Private Training and 2-Way Virtual Small Group Training programs: SCHEDULE HERE