Where Should you Focus You Muscle Training

Muscle Training

This week on the Incrementalist we are focusing on Lower and Upper Body Strength

Thanks to Mariam Jacob for her question on where to focus your training - should you spend more time on Lower Body strength or more on Upper Body Strength

As she put it:

Wonderful video! I just read an article on this. One thing I've read over the years, is that people with strong lower bodies are usually healthier - better agility and balance, stronger stamina etc. While we should focus on the whole body, we shouldn't be afraid to try out the heavier weights, especially on our lower limbs. Would love to hear your thoughts in another video! Thanks for the video! #hcldr

I was certainly intrigued so I spent some time researching the current guidance and put together this

Every Journey Begins with One Small Step

The first point to note is that whatever you do, do some exercise. Even a simple walk, especially outside if that’s possible has so many health benefits. In fact, this recent paper (Nov, 2018) in the Journal of Applied Physiology: Cardiovascular and skeletal muscle health with lifelong exercise (open access) looked at a very distinctive set of older men and women. As they put it:

“We were very interested in people who had started exercising during the running and exercise booms of the 1970s,” says Scott Trappe, the director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State and the new study’s senior author."

While they did not look at muscle mass the picture was pretty clear for those actively exercising they enjoyed a 40% increase in Aerobic capacity over their peers

When it comes to body strength and the choice between working out your lower body or your upper body the science is unclear but if I was to tease out the prevailing view the lower body muscle decline will have a bigger impact on your health

Logically this makes sense - since without lower body strength you lack mobility and stability so getting other exercises will be more challenging. Lower body strength is also a key feature of any aerobic exercise which should also be part of a well-balanced exercise regime. What Happens When You Neglect Your Lower Body Composition- you end up suffering poor mobility and are more injury prone. In this limited study from Japan, and Koreathey showed a link between leg muscle mass to Diabetes - but to be clear no causal relationship here

As I shared in the previous post on Body Mass Index (BMI), Muscle Strength is a better indicator and in fact, this study showed it was better at predicting mortality

Low muscle mass did not explain the strong association of strength with mortality, demonstrating that muscle strength as a marker of muscle quality is more important than quantity in estimating mortality risk. Grip strength provided risk estimates similar to those of quadriceps strength.

They also showed that lower body strength and mass affects men more than women

Lower body muscle mass, strength, and power are affected more by aging than are upper body measures. Torque and power at fast velocities, specifically in the lower body, are affected more by aging compared to measurements at slow velocities. Aging seems to have a greater effect on power than torque. Only men were included in our study. Further research is needed regarding age-related changes in older women.

These findings are in agreementwith those of others who found lower body torque to be reduced with age while upper body torque was better maintained

But here’s the important point

The results of this study quantify the substantial longitudinal decline in maximal dynamic force production of upper and lower extremity muscle groups. Although strength is expected to decline in these older subjects, many individuals increased strength over the follow-up period, pointing to the potential to modify muscle function by exercise or through the accretion of lean tissue with age.

It is important to note there is some potential for bias in this as survivors and healthier people are more likely to participate in studies and perhaps also healthier people but irrespective they showed more decline in lower body strength than in upper body strength

So the message is clear - this decline in muscle mass is not inevitable and as Dave Albert, MD aptly demonstrated in this post

Just to confirm that anyone can improve their fitness. Here is a little video showing that when I say I can do 60 push-ups at age 64, I mean 61! Stay focused- get healthy #fitness #digitalhealth #confirmation

And you can too. He highlights the Incremental step - start with one and keep adding on every day. 3 months later if you stuck with it you will be at 60 too

Incremental Steps to Increasing Health

•  Start with simple easy to achieve exercise. If you can only do one thing lower body strength is an enabler for taking the next step giving you mobility and a sound foundation for other muscle and aerobic training
• No equipment - no problem. Check out the videos from Sydney Cumming’s with no equipment necessary just using your own body weight
• Set a goal and then start working towards it. Here’s mine - advancing beyond the basic yoga Bakasana (Crow) pose to this advanced Eka Pada Galavasana (Flying Crow)

This post was originally published on Incrementalhealthcare.com