Health & Nutrition Health and Nutrition - February 2018.edcoan.ir | Page 83

STRENGTH TRAINING
If it’s aerobics that keeps you alive and moving, it’s strength training that offers you quality of
life. The rule: Strength train two days a week. For the rest of your life. Normal ageing is grim.
It means losing 10% of your muscle mass every decade after age 40. Ditto bone mass. At 60,
you can’t get out of a deep chair. Or the tub. Your joints hurt. So do your back, your hips, your
knees. You fall down and break a hip. You’re a boring old wreck. That’s normal ageing.
But do serious strength training two days a week and you’ll have little muscle loss and
much less bone loss. You don’t need machines. Use free weights, elastic bands, your own
body. Worry like crazy about posture: Lousy posture is the mother of bad hips. Which are
the mother of bad backs. Get a decent exercise book or video. Doing strength training
wrong is worse than not doing it at all.
5 EXERCISES TO BUILD MUSCLE
1
The Squat
q
Why bother? It’s superb exercise for strengthening
your core and the big muscles of your legs.
� Step 1 With your core tightened and your back
straight, drop your butt back and down until it
almost touches the chair. Hinge from the hips.
� Step 2 Return to standing position. Repeat.
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HEALTH & NUTRITION February 2018 83