Atrophy or Hypertrophy

So, the trophy you will receive is atrophy or hypertrophy. Your muscles will be in one of these states if you’re still breathing. Hypertrophy will take you closer to your goals and atrophy will take you further away. Your muscles are directly related to function and metabolism. Without any real challenge, you will receive atrophy. This is the concept of muscles wasting away. Which then can affect your ability to do everyday tasks as well as slow your metabolism a lot. This is why resistance training, done wisely, is so important the older you get. When you’re younger resistance training is all about getting a certain look. When older, it’s about maintaining strength and vitality!

Hypertrophy is when you purposefully challenge the muscles to cause them to break down with the programming of grow back stronger and more efficient. So my challenge to you is, do you do enough to maintain or gain function and strength. Trust me, this is not about blowing a gasket at the gym with the meatheads. This is about challenging your body’s balance, stability and strength in functional movements to gain mobility.

So see? You will experience atrophy (muscle wasting) or hypertrophy (strength gaining) depending on whether you choose a sedentary lifestyle or an active challenging one. Everyone gets a trophy:)

Is it enough?

I hear a lot “I walk everyday so I’m good”. I would challenge that statement. Your body walks everyday, everwhere it’s not driving, so how much of a challenge do you think that brings to your muscles. Don’t get me wrong, walking daily is great for your health. But, if you want to prevent weakness, instability and the loss of certain activities such as getting up and down from the ground or being able to bend down to put your shoes on, it’s not enough. To do this you need to move into more planes of movement and into deeper ranges of motion for your muscles. Translation: bending, squatting, pushing, pulling, and doing 1 leg movements better mimic real life situations.

If you’re interested in learning more about this, please feel free to set up a complimentary 30 minute consultation to see how I might be able to help.

Why me? Because I have 22 years of experience training older adults, have a bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science and am a Functional Aging Specialist!