Q. I’m 62 and have trouble lifting my 2-year-old grandson. Am I too old to start a weight lifting program?
A. Lots of young people lift weights and push on special strength-training machines, but very few older people do, even though they need the training more than younger folks.
Your muscles are made up of millions of individual fibers. Each muscle fiber is activated by a single nerve that gets its messages from the brain. As you age, nerve cells wither and die. When a nerve dies, the muscle fiber that is attached to it also dies. With aging, each muscle has fewer fibers to do the same job, so it becomes weaker.
To retain strength with aging, you have to enlarge and strengthen the remaining muscle fibers. The only way to do this is to exercise against increasing resistance, but with aging you have to be more careful when you train for strength. Your muscles are weaker than when you were younger and are more likely to be injured. Lifting heavy weights can also cause blood pressure to rise considerably, and blood vessels that are already weakened by aging may burst or a weak heart may beat irregularly. This will not happen to people who have normal hearts and blood vessels.
Anyone who is over 50 and would like to become stronger should check first with their doctor. You can join an athletic club and learn how to use special strength-training machines. Pick 10 to 15 exercises and do each twice a week, using the heaviest weight that you can move comfortably 10 times in a row without straining and without losing form.
