Exercise is essential to living a long and healthy life. In particular, after middle age, muscle mass decreases and the risk of various diseases increases, so regular exercise is important. ‘How you do it’ is just as important as ‘what you consistently do’. After middle age, if you exercise in the wrong way, it can be toxic, so you need to be familiar with the right type of exercise and the type of exercise that suits you body.
After middle age, you must exercise regularly to improve physical strength and control and prevent diseases｜Source: Getty Image Bank
Exercise method to win
1. Practice Walking
According to domestic and foreign studies, walking exercise has various benefits such as weight control, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, relieving stress, and increasing lifespan. It is also effective in preventing chronic diseases that increase the risk of occurring after middle age. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), walking for 21 minutes a day can reduce the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, and can prevent obesity.
Walking exercise also has the advantage that you can get more varied effects by changing the way you walk. In particular, ‘Nordic walking’, walking with Nordic sticks, is good for middle-aged and elderly people with weak knee joints. This is because it has the effect of protecting joints by ensuring stability when walking and maintaining correct posture. If you want to increase your energy consumption, ‘power walking’ is recommended. However, in the case of middle-aged people and the elderly, it is good to power walk only for those who do not have problems with the musculoskeletal system and do not have problems with their sense of balance.
2. ‘Exercise strength’ in the correct posture
Strength training should be combined with aerobic exercise. Muscles usually begin to gradually decrease after the age of 30, and by the time they reach the age of 80, they are reduced by almost half. When muscles are reduced, the risk of falls and fractures, as well as a decrease in the basal metabolic rate, changes to a body that easily gains weight even if you eat less. Therefore, after middle age, in order to prevent muscle loss, you need to eat protein and do strength training regularly.
Strength training is especially important if you suffer from high blood pressure or diabetes. This is because when you increase muscle mass, you can store more blood sugar in the form of glycogen in larger muscles, which has the effect of preventing a rapid rise in blood sugar. It also helps to control blood pressure, especially to prevent blood pressure fluctuations.
When you start strength training for the first time, it is recommended to set it to the lightest weight and gradually increase the intensity of the exercise according to the strength improvement. In particular, if you have an underlying disease, it is recommended to perform several repetitions with light weight. In addition, the intensity of the exercise needs to be adjusted according to the individual’s physical condition. It is also important to maintain correct posture during strength training, because incorrect posture does not help improve muscle strength and can strain joints.
3. Balance Exercises
As important as cardio and strength training, there are exercises that many people miss. It is a ‘balancing exercise’. As you get older, your body’s reflexes slow down due to ageing, reducing your body’s ability to balance. The problem is that when the sense of balance is degraded, the risk of falling increases. Falls can cause simple bruises and scratches, as well as hip fractures with a high risk of death in the elderly, so care is needed. Regular balance exercises can improve stability and prevent falls.
In particular, if it is difficult to stand on one foot for more than 10 seconds, active balance exercises are needed. A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that not being able to stand on one foot for more than 10 seconds after the age of 50 almost doubled the risk of death within the next 10 years.
When performing balance exercises, it is important to progress gradually from low intensity to high intensity. To begin with, exercise while holding on to a wall or supporting a stable object, and then slowly release your hand as your sense of balance improves. Balance exercises include △ backward walking △ toe walking △ heel walking.
Exercising the wrong way after middle age can be toxic｜Source: Getty Image Bank
Toxic exercise method
1. Exercises that start without warming up
Before starting any exercise, a ‘preparatory exercise’ is essential. Warm-up exercises prevent muscle and joint injuries by expanding the body’s range of motion, and therefore have the effect of ensuring stability during exercise. Additionally, according to the Korea Sports Policy Science Foundation, it increases blood flow in the coronary arteries while properly supplying blood to the heart, thereby helping to reduce the risk of exercise-related heart problems body. It efficiently improves exercise function and has the effect of preventing the initial generation of lactic acid, a by-product of fatigue.
In particular, warm-up exercises are more important after middle age because flexibility is reduced or there is a high possibility of suffering from degenerative arthritis. Generally, around 10 minutes of warm-up time is appropriate, and it is desirable to perform the exercise at a lower intensity than the main exercise. Warm-up exercises include joint rotation, light walking, and stretching.
2. Practice
Exercising too ‘too much’ can harm your health, so you need to be careful. Excessive exercise not only increases the risk of injury, but also causes and worsens disease. Diseases that can be caused by excessive exercise include rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdomyolysis is a disease where muscle necrosis due to sudden high intensity exercise causes muscle components in cells to dissolve into the blood. It is characterized by a change in the color of urine to reddish brown or brown, and in severe cases, it can cause acute renal failure as a complication.
After middle age, there is a high risk of developing musculoskeletal diseases such as degenerative arthritis, osteoporosis, and intervertebral disc herniation due to ageing. In the case of these diseases, excessive exercise can worsen the disease. In particular, patients with intervertebral disc herniation should be careful when lifting heavy objects, patients with degenerative arthritis should exercise their joints repetitively and extend them excessively, and patients with osteoporosis should be careful in exercises that involve twisting or bending the spine too much and apply a strong impact. .
3. Exercise outdoors when it’s cold
If you suffer from diabetes or high blood pressure, you should avoid exercising outdoors in cold weather. Blood vessels are suddenly exposed to cold air constriction, which can cause blood pressure to rise, which can worsen underlying diseases or cause complications. In particular, the risk of myocardial infarction and stroke increases, and these two diseases are fatal diseases that can lead to death if you miss the golden time. Therefore, it is recommended to refrain from going out in cold weather when the temperature is above -10 degrees Celsius.
