For thousands of years, humanity has wanted to find a way to extend our time on earth. The legendary “fountain of youth”, said to be a spring that supposedly restores eternal youth, has been promised through the centuries. However, few if any potions or treatments have been able to deliver on the promise of slowing down the aging process, until now. Today when we refer to the fountain of youth, what we mean is that it restores strength, health and vitality.
Old age has become a bad thing. The irony of wanting to grow up and get old when we’re young suddenly becomes a devastating reality when we get older. Suddenly we want to be young again. The question being asked is how much truth is there in this new notion of anti-aging and is it possible to seriously combat the signs of aging?
Aging is not just about what shows on the outside in the form of sagging skin and wrinkles, gray hair, and sagging bodies that have lost their shape and firmness. These external signs of aging originate from what is happening on the inside, where we cannot see the deterioration. But it’s happening stealthily, starting in your 30s and accelerating at frightening speed after your 50s.
The first serious internal signs of the aging process are the loss of lean muscle tissue. About 300 to 500 grams of this very special and important body resource begins to disappear each year unless one works hard to maintain it. This loss of muscle mass has serious consequences for the entire metabolism (the engine of the body), slowing it down and triggering a very long and slow “shutdown” sequence of the human body.
Many of the health problems attributed to aging are actually symptoms of diminishing strength and declining fitness caused by laziness, idleness, and listlessness. This downward spiral of accelerated aging often ends in premature disease or illness and the likelihood of life being cut short.
The most powerful anti-aging remedy is to work hard to develop and maintain your physical strength throughout your life. A very important reaction occurs when we engage in vigorous physical activity. Hormones are stimulated that send signals to all the cells of the body, organs and systems that activate the repair, reconstruction and renewal of these tissues, having a total rejuvenation effect.
By getting stronger and staying strong, you can break the downward spiral of aging and weakness and enjoy a more active lifestyle with a better quality of life. If you want to stay young, it’s crucial to follow a proper exercise program that contains at least 60% strength training exercise. No other type of exercise will do the same job, so don’t be fooled into thinking that all you need to do is just go for a walk or do a little gardening.
These activities are great for an active lifestyle, but they won’t be intense enough to make any changes to your cellular metabolism, which must return to an anabolic (growth and repair) mode to have an anti-aging effect.
It is also very important that you seek the help and guidance of a fitness professional to teach you the correct exercise technique and set up your program with the correct exercises for various muscle groups for best effect. You’ll also need to learn about exercise intensity, duration, and frequency to get the most out of your program. Your progress also needs to be monitored and the program needs to be changed every few weeks to maintain your results.
Each of us longs to maintain our youthful appearance, energy, and good health free of disease and illness for as long as possible. Now we can have it and we just have to choose an active lifestyle which is something you have to decide you want and something you have to decide to do.