There are a lot of myths about exercise and bodybuilding. One common myth is that exercise, and especially bodybuilding, is only for the young.
Because of this, there are many overweight and out of shape middle aged and older adults. As it turns out, exercising as you get older may be even more important that exercising when you are younger.
As people age, they lose more and more muscle. This leads to a number of problems, one of these is that you also lose bone along with the muscle. Strong muscles need strong bones to support them, but weak muscles only need weak bones to support them. The human body has evolved so that it gets rid of anything that it thinks it doesn’t need. If you have weak, rarely used muscles, then your body is going to respond by only keeping enough bone to support those very weak muscles.
Not only that, but as people become elderly those that are stronger are more likely to be able to continue living independently because their mobility will be better than those aged persons who are weaker.
This is why I advocate bodybuilding for adults of all ages. Of course, before starting any exercise or bodybuilding program you should check with a physician and have a complete physical beforehand to make sure that it is safe for you to begin your exercise program.
The key is to start slowly. If you have never worked out before then you should either invest in a few sessions with a personal trainer or get some books and/or videos to show you the proper technique for performing the exercises.
While it is true that older muscles may need more recovery time and may not respond quite as strongly to exercise as younger muscles, even older muscles will respond positively to exercise and progressive resistance training. Everyone will show some improvement from exercise and weight training.
