Monday, May 25, 2009

Cool article on the benefits of resistance training for older adults

The title of the article is "Resistance Exercise Reverses Aging In Human Skeletal Muscle," and you can read it here:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0000465

The basic gist, as near as I can tell, is that resistance training reverses a lot of the mitochondrial dysfunction that is widely thought to be implicated in human aging.

I know it's not exactly news that exercise is a Good Thing (TM) for adults of all ages, and that older adults who exercise tend to be stronger and better able to perform the functions of everyday living than older adults who don't. But even I was surprised at the extent to which resistance training apparently reprograms our bodies to perform as they did when we were young.