The Sunday News
Simon Gama
Just as with young people, older people need to be physically active to improve their health, functional capacity, and quality of life.
But how do older people’s bodies respond to physical activity? Do older people improve their cardio respiratory endurance, body composition, muscular strength and endurance, and flexibility at the same rates that younger people do? Lets take a look at two of those components: cardiorespiratory endurance and muscular strength.
Hagberg et al (1980) conducted a cardiorespiratory endurance training study with men and women ages 70-79. The participants trained for six months to improve their cardiorespiratory endurance. They improved their maximal oxygen consumption (VO²max) by 22% — an improvement not often seen even in younger adults.
This study demonstrates that older people respond positively to cardiorespiratory endurance due to the same physiological changes observed in younger adults. Other studies have demonstrated that meaningful improvements in the cardiorespiratory endurance of older people can occur with lower exercise intensities than are recommended for younger adults. This is significant, because the lower intensity also lowers the risk of musculoskeletal injuries in older people.
Fiatarone, O’Neill, and Ryan (1994) studied high- intensity strength training in more than 100 men and women whose average age was 87 years and who were described as frail nursing home residents. A in the study shows the men and women made dramatic improvements in strength, gait (walking) speed and stair-climbing power. (Walking speed and stair-climbing power are typically used as relevant measures of functional capacity in older people.) Strength training can produce dramatic increases in strength in frail older people.
The improvements were much greater than those seen in younger adults who had not already lost much of their strength, and the training produced improvements in functional capacity as well.
These men and women also gained 3% muscle mass in their thighs, which indicates that older people can improve their lean body mass through strength training.
Several other studies have show that older people can improve their strength and functional capacity through strength training. It’s safe to say that fitness training in older people improves cardiorespiratory endurance, lean body mass, muscular endurance, strength, flexibility, balance, reaction time, and co-ordination — thus improving their quality of life.
