The Super-slow High-Intensity exercise program is a basic program that can work for any goal that you’re looking for. It works for everyone from athletes to seniors.
The following is condensed from:BODY BY SCIENCE 6 (CONSIDERATIONS FOR ATHLETES AND SENIORS)
The final chapter of the book, Body By Science, discusses this form of exercise for seniors because of any group of people that can benefit most from this type of exercise its seniors. Seniors have been badly victimized by our traditional notions of exercise. We treat them as if they are fragile, as if the adaptive response for exercising them is somehow compromised and it’s not. It is intact all the way to age 100 and beyond and we were fearful of having them exert themselves forcefully. Yet we will turn around and have them do a form of exercise that is significantly less intense. But when you investigate the type of exercise they’re doing, whether it’s aerobics or being on a stepper or going walking what we find is the intensity is low but the cumulative forces are large and the acute forces are also large and it puts them at risk for injury.
What they need is a low force form of exercise that’s ferociously hard that will cause them to reclaim their muscle massbecause if you look at what can go wrong as you age starting atabout age 35 without an appropriate exercise stimulus you will start to lose about 1 pound of muscle per year of life. Well the elderly have simply more time to accumulate this muscle loss.
Once you have muscle loss, a whole other series of things starts to cascade:
- Your cardiovascular system no longer has as much tissue to have to provide support for, so it starts to decline.
- Your bone mass is very much predicated on your muscle mass so osteoporosis sets in.
- Your gastrointestinal transit time is directly proportionate muscle mass as that starts to decline.
- You start have problems with constipation.
- You develop diverticulitis.
- You’re at risk for colon cancer.
Every single negative health aspect that can be associated with aging can be backtracked to a loss of muscle mass. That’s the bad news.
The good news is, is the adaptive response to intense exercise is still present and it can be delivered to the elderly in a very safe manner that doesn’t cause them to occur incur excess force. We have an eighty three-year-old gentleman in our facility, who suffers from a genetic type of arthritis called Ankylosing Spondylitis. Most people his age that have that disorder are wheelchair-bound. Mr. Davis is stronger than the average 20 year old we bring in off the street for an introductory workout. He’s chest pressing close to 300 pounds. He does our compound row machine with 320. He’s into the 700s on the leg press at age 83.
So the process is still intact for reclaiming strength and muscle mass and elderly people and they are the ones that have the most to benefit from it and that’s kind of how we tie the book up is with them as an emphasis because despite the title of the book which makes it seem directed towards the bodybuilding audience the book is really dedicated towards a broad audience and our emphasis is particularly on the people that have the most to gain from it which elderly but it really truly is for everyoneand it really can bring exercise back to a rational scientific basis of producing results for yourself.
Refer to the last few weeks blogs for demonstrations of the Super-Slow High-Intensity exercise program.
I highly recommend Dr. Doug McGuff’s book https://www.amazon.ca/Body-Science-Research-St…/…/0071597174
If you wish to comment or contact me please use this form using my email address, lpolstra@bell.net. Thank you.
Disclaimer: The content of this email is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader.
May you Live Long Healthy.
Yours truly,
Lydia Polstra
lpolstra@bell.net
2HealthyHabits 