Gain Muscle Fitness Blog

Why do older people somehow seem to not be as firm inside as they were when they were younger? It isn’t just the elasticity of their skin that they are losing that gives you the impression. As we grow older, a process known as sarcopenia takes over, and it progressively dissolves our muscles.

It isn’t a disease. It is just the way we age, and it starts right around the time we hit 30. We lose a certain amount of muscle mass every year from that point forward.

By the time we actually hit 65, anyone can tell that we’ve practically lost a third of all the muscle mass we ever had. It makes us more frail, it makes us more prone to fractures if we fall.

Is there a way that you can fight the natural decline in your muscle mass?

A well devised strength training program certainly can make up for most of your body’s tendency to dissolve itself. And then there are the supplements you can take.

Those popular omega-3 fatty acids that you keep reading about have a great deal to contribute to a person experiencing sarcopenia. It was a study done at the Washington University that set the medical seal of approval on the contribution that omega-3 fatty acids can make to the problem of older people losing muscle mass.

It was a small study with a dozen or so healthy older people. They gave some of them omega-3 fatty acids as supplements, and they gave the others corn oil. They studied  what these supplements did to them over the whole two months the study lasted.

Of course, they found that seniors who had been given the omega-3 supplements were able to synthesize their muscle proteins far better. They didn’t even put them through a grueling exercise routine. All the encouraging improvements they saw came about entirely through the supplements they took.

Just imagine to what you could achieve if you took omega-3 supplements and put it together with a great resistance training routine. It could help your muscles stay so healthy, you could completely stop worrying about becoming frail and prone to injury.

And that isn’t all – healthy levels of omega-3 will help your heart too. There’s just one little disappointing caution to all of this – lots of seniors take anticoagulant meds to help thin their blood. It helps them stay clear of a risk of stroke. And omega-3′s don’t go well with blood thinners.

Seniors who are worried about losing their muscle mass to sarcopenia should also the take a look at adding a vitamin D supplement to their list. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get checked for adequate levels of vitamin D. too.

A word with your doctor, and you’ll find out that vitamin D can be a real culprit in the way you lose your muscle mass as you grow older. For some reason, older people often have low levels of vitamin D. It’s just something they need to keep an eye on.

So do you have to start at a reasonably young age to have your supplements really help you? You certainly do need to not put it off for too long; but they find that when coupled with a healthy exercise routine, your supplements really can do you world of good at any age.