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Weight loss is one of the goals common to almost everyone in Spain, but there are still some false beliefs surrounding this goal: that after 50 or 60 it is more difficult to lose weight, and that no practice is worthwhile to achieve it. Some even go so far as to say that men and women should do different workouts.
But, as a recent study published in the journal Sports Medicine, the reality is very different from what is often thought. And it is that, according to this new work, the endurance training it would benefit both men and women over 50.
One of the main points that would motivate some false beliefs is muscle growth in resistance training or strength training. The Menusually have one greater absolute muscle gain; however, Ladies they have a few very similar relative gains.
Basic resistance exercises.
In other words, although men’s muscle size would be greater, the relative gains would be comparable when considering the base size of men and women. TO percentage level, this much Men such as Ladies win the the same level of muscle mass when they do strength training. And these gains would continue after 50 years as well.
To come to these conclusions, researchers at the University of New South Wales analyzed it results of 30 studies resistance training in which more than 1400 volunteers participated. The work in question specifically evaluated the outcomes of men and women aged 50 and older.
As Dr. Amanda Hagstrom, a professor of exercise sciences at UNSW Medicine & Health and lead author of the paper, recalls, men have historically been better suited to strength training.
Dr. Hagstrom remembers that, however the data was mis-focused: absolute profits were taken into account, not relative ones. And men’s body size tends to be bigger, so their overall gain tends to be higher in the end. But when you consider profit at a percentage level, things change.
Previous research analyzing data from young adults (aged between 18 and 50 years old) has suggested that relative muscle gains would be similar in both men and women. But this would be the first meta-analysis that would examine these data in older adults.
Get well after 50
In total, the muscle mass and strength gains for 651 men and 759 women aged 50-90 who participated in the above 30 studies. Most of the participants had no previous experience with strength training.
It should be noted that although the 50 years of age is not usually considered ‘older adults’, this threshold was chosen taking into account the possible hormonal changes during menopause and their influence on the outcome of resistance training.
Therefore, it was concluded that there are no significant differences in relative muscle size changes or strength gains between men or women after 50 years. In fact, they point out that knowing that this data has since been important to professionals dedicated to educating people this age there would be no basis for differentiating them by gender.
According to this study, older men tended to develop bigger muscles if absolute gains were taken into account. In addition, they were also prone to achieving greater absolute strength gains compared to women.
However, when the relative strength gain (taking into account body size) was taken into account, older women achieved better results in relative lower body strength compared to men.
In addition, the researchers also conducted a sub-analysis of the literature to see which strength training techniques would be best for each gender:
– The old man They seem to benefit more from higher intensity training programs to improve absolute strength in both the upper and lower body.
– The older women They seem to benefit more from higher total training volumes, which means that more weekly reps would help women increase relative and absolute lower body strength.
Likewise one longer training would also help to increase absolute and relative muscle size for older men, or absolute upper body strength for older women.
Finally, it would also turn out that resistance training has to offer other health benefits, such as increasing strength, balance, flexibility and bone density; in addition to improving sleep, feeling of well-being and reducing the risk of injury.