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Exercise for Seniors to Lose Weight

If your goal is weight loss and you are in your 60s or 70s, you cannot exercise in the same way as a 25-year-old. The body and needs of seniors are different from much younger individuals. The most significant difference is the lack of muscle mass non-exercising seniors experience simply due to having aged.

  1. Weight Training

    • According to a recent article in the US News and World Report, "muscle mass declines with age, starting in the 40s and picking up speed after about age 50." And after that, the article continues, the muscle loss really starts to accelerate, to the point that it could become severely debilitating. The website FitnessTipsForLife.com states that, "a pound of muscle will take about 50 calories to maintain for a day while the pound of fat will take about 2 calories to maintain per day." Weight training while eating correctly is the best way to add muscle to the body. Since a muscular body needs significantly more calories to sustain itself than a fat body, it means that the most important form of exercise for an older adult is to weight train.

      The government-sponsored site CDC.gov publishes some excellent advice for the beginning senior weight lifter. You want to do exercises that include all the major muscle groups. These are the legs, hips, shoulders, back, chest, abdomen and arms. You can use weights or resistance bands. You can even use your own body weight like when you do a push-up or pull-up. Stick to between eight and twelve repetitions per exercise and make sure it is hard to complete the last rep. When it gets easy to lift the weight after the last rep, find a heavier one.

      Consider signing up with a personal trainer experienced with training an older population, as you may easily hurt yourself if you are new to working with resistance. Before you get started, visit your doctor and have him clear you to exercise.

    Aerobic Training

    • Miriam Nelson, director of the John Hancock Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition at Tufts University, agrees that strength training is very important. However, she points out that "muscle tissue needs to effectively store glycogen and have capillaries that infuse it with blood, both of which are aided by the aerobic component." In other words, you need to also do some cardio. A brisk 30-minute walk five days of the week in addition to weight training twice weekly is good.

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