While I was taking statins, although I hadn't connected it with that yet, it felt like any kind of exercise that I might do would strain my bones while doing nothing for the muscle, which barely seemed to be there. I had mentioned it to my doctor, a couple of doctors ago, and he never made the connection, telling me about how it's harder to build muscle mass as you get older, but I was barely sixty then. I quit taking the statins because of restless leg syndrome and leg spasms, then I found this added advantage. Oh, and by the way, a couple of years without statin drugs, and my cholesterol is back within normal ranges.
It’s kind of a toss up about the statin drugs thing but I tend to believe that they actually do break down muscle fiber which to me mean muscle strength as well. My octogenarian weight lifter friend said that he was prescribed statins (can’t remember the name of which one) but he was advised not to take them by his nutritionist who also lifts. The long and short of on my side of the road is that my VA doctor had a statin sent to me but after a little research I too opted out and tossed the whole prescription in the garbage. Everything we put into our body, even if it is supposed to be good for a certain function will affect brain performance and if there’s a slight chance of that plus losing muscle fiber in the mix, I’m out. Just as a small addendum, the main reason older people cannot build muscle mass as easily as when we were younger is the lack of actual work. Seniors have a tendency to slow down and do less hence not working the larger muscle masses which will naturally increase testosterone, a major player for building muscle mass. That, added to the fact that when we slow down we also do not burn as many white fat cells which make a nice home for aromatase, a chem that breaks down testosterone and converts it to estrogen. The more white fat cells, the more aromatase and the more testosterone converted into estrogen and it’s look out body, here come the “man boobs”. Note: I do not know why doctors will not automatically order a hormone panel whilst ordering a blood test but they normally will not. Hormone levels determine everything from the ability to maintain muscle tone, how glucose is produced, maintaining a healthy weight, energy, mood and among other things, yes, a person’s sex life. Chances are, if a person keeps a higher hormone level there will be no need for any kind of drug to correct one’s cholesterol and a myriad of other maladies.
I know several people who are taking statin drugs and having no problems with them, so it's not like I have something against statin drugs, although I do think they are prescribed too easily and too often, and they caused problems for me. I think you're right. Not only in their work but in their play, young people are engaged in more physical stuff. Even running a paper bag machine, although it involved standing there watching the bags go by when everything was working well, things wouldn't work well for long if you just stood there and watched the bags go by. So, I would be climbing all over that machine, scraping off clumps of glue or ink before they built up to result in a machine crash, tightening bolts, and so on, and sometimes I had to get in and get out before the next cycle came along, and I was really hurt. Plus, there was the maneuvering of two-ton rolls of paper in order to line them up. As a paramedic, the lifting might have helped with the arm muscles but, physically, it did more harm than good. In between calls, we'd either sleep or hang out in a restaurant, and the job I'm doing now keeps me sitting in front of my computer. I do have a standing desk that I use from time to time, but nothing in the way of exercise. Traditionally, a person's first jobs were physical in nature, while later jobs tend to be more sedentary.
Rather than start a new thread concerning my own muscular woes, I decided this would be a good place for this post since it does involve age, muscle mass and as an added age related problem, tendons. In short, I’m getting a tad older but I really love natural body building and what it has done for my physical and mental well being for the past 5 or 6 years. When I’m working out, I watch everything and by everything I mean how much weight I’m working with and I pay attention to How I am working with the weights. If my form isn’t perfect then I not only reduce my chances of building good, symmetrical muscle mass but I also risk getting hurt. Beyond getting a cortisone shot in my right knee and having some problems with golfer’s elbow, i have had no injuries come from lifting weights, or at least, the type you’d find in a gym. All that said, the other day it took only about 40lbs to really do a number on myself. I was doing something I have done hundreds of times before which is to load drywall from one location to another. In this case, from the outside of the house to the inside a total of about 50 feet. No problem. Been there before, done that, easy except this time was different. After loading only 10 sheets in, one sheet at a time, I reached down and picked up the 11th with my right hand supinated (reversed from normal) at the bottom of the sheet and my left hand as the guide on top, I picked it up and POP, PAIN, #%$#%%$^%&^ I felt like I had broken my right arm! I didn’t break it and was able to shake the pain off a little but there was no way I was going to try to lift something with that arm and it was going to rain so.......I went back about 15 minutes later and proceeded to reverse the process by using my left hand and arm as the load bearer. About 6” off the ground and POP, PAIN, more &^%$&%#%$#$$*%$!!!! I did it again but this time, worse than the last. Both my arms were blown. Instead of writing a whole book on the trials and tribulations post screwed up arms, I was able to see an orthopedic doctor the next afternoon. What I had done was to partially tear both bicep tendons at the elbow. But why? I am used to picking up huge amounts of weight and my form was proper so what was so different about 40 lousy pounds? Answer. My arms were not warmed up for the game. If my hands were in a pronated position then the warming process might not have been so vital but with the supination of the hand its a whole different ball game and what is worse, I knew better but thought that such a light weight would be no problem. Duh! Different muscles, different stress points and for lifting they need a lot more stretching even with light weight. Building muscle mass sometimes shortens the heads of the muscle which stretches the tendons. I have been working a lot to build the posterior biceps whilst also building the braccii which pushes up the posterior muscle thereby shortening the head. By not warming up and stretching those muscles and going into direct lifts, the muscles didn’t take away the shock of lifting from the tendons which caused some tearing. Alas, it could have been worse and I could have completely torn one or both tendons which would have landed me on the operating table and it would have taken a couple of years to get back to normal. As it is, it’s going to take at least 6-8 weeks or more before I can hit the weights as hard as I am used to. Yes, age did play its part and with that we seniors need to be especially aware of how important warming up and stretching out is. Even if we’re going out for a nice long walk, warm up first. A few curls with a dumbbell...stretch out, warm up. Knee bends.....stretch out. Heck, today is the first day since I blew my tendons that I have been able to use both hands to type. The last three days it’s been a painful, one letter at a time with one right hand finger.
Both of us have to have some arm/leg muscle in order to launch/retrieve our boat. But, we did get smart and buy an electric winch and have it installed on the trailer. A simple push of a button on a hand remote and the boat slides off of the trailer, and with another button, the boat is pulled back up on the trailer. I have small lifting weights that we bought for my "home shoulder rehab" after rotator cuff surgery, but don't use them anymore. The only fairly physical thing we do is the boat.
Gadgets that work are a nice thing and do tend to make some things easier. The problem with that is that most people rely on the gadgets so much they forget that the human body needs to be worked too in order to work properly. I see stoop shouldered and weak looking seniors everywhere I go (especially at the VA) and some of them are younger than I am but look to be years my senior. There is NO reason, other than some debilitating disease or accident, why someone with some age on them isn’t physically fit and able to do just about anything they wish to do. I have gadgets too. I have nail guns, paint spray machines, screw guns etc but there are times when I’ll grab a hammer, screwdriver or a paint brush instead of the gadgets and do things manually because ......I can and I want to be able to keep saying I can.
Jars can be opened more easily if you first poke a hole in the lid to let the vacuum escape / let atmospheric pressure in. They are vacuum sealed much like grandma's canning jars.
Well, the last time I seen my wife struggle in using the manual winch on our boat trailer, I knew it was going to be time to buy an electric boat trailer winch...….after the boat was in Colorado. For the years the boat was stored in a Dry Storage rack in Florida, we didn't use the trailer. However, she will still have to use her hands to tie up the boat to the dock cleats. Don't know yet, but this may be the last summer we use/have this boat. I have the battery-operated Phillips/Flat Head screw driver, but there are times I have to use the actual tool.
Strength in older people is probably a combination of age and disuse. We get old prematurely, in effect, because, as we age, we quit doing so many of the things that keep us in good physical shape. Usually, the first jobs that someone gets are physical in nature, or at least that was the case for many of us our age, plus younger people tend to spend much of their spare time being more physically active. It began for me when I became a paramedic. While the job involves some physical activity, most of it involves only those muscles required to lift a patient onto a stretcher, to raise the stretcher, and to lift the stretcher onto the ambulance, and that's pretty much the same sets of muscles. There's not even so much of that anymore since the new stretchers aren't as demanding as the old ones were. Other than that, once in a while we might have to walk out in the woods to get someone or do water rescue, but, in between, we sit around in restaurants or at the station, waiting for the next call, or doing our paperwork. In my spare time, I ran a computer BBS and did programming, which sat me behind a desk, and, from there, I went to building websites and web directories. Living in Maine, I do get out in the woods some during the summer but the winters are spent indoors, shoveling snow being the primary exercise and, oddly enough, given the difficulty of it at a time, shoveling snow doesn't provide much in the way of healthy exercise. Someone is more likely to have a heart attack shoveling snow than to get physically fit. While I haven't had the problems @Bobby Cole speaks of, I get it. Walking, I can get so that I can walk a long way without putting much of a demand on my muscles, but when I have to walk uphill or downhill, or even when I have to step over stumps, different muscles come into play.
I simulate getting the most from my "at home" walking by setting my treadmill to its steepest incline. This way I don't have to stay on very long to get my cardio benefit! Hal
Exercise and proper diet help keep us in good shape but, face it, a 70 year old body is seventy years old. It can't do the same things it did at thirty, certainly not as well. If you push it too far, it will break.
The largest problem an aging person has is the way he or she treated themselves when they were between about 16 - 30 or so. Another problem that we have is to overcome is what the medical “professionals” tell us. I was extremely hard on my body when I was younger and although it’s an obstacle, the human body is a wonderful machine in that it’s very forgiving when its finally treated right. The other problem I mentioned is that the medical professionals say that men in particular cannot build muscle mass after about 50 or so years of age. They cannot seem to recognize that a lot depends on a person’s genetic make up and a slight twist on Newton’s 3rd Law in that we get out of it what we put into it. Action & reaction. When I hit 64 or 65, I decided it was time for a change so I made a bunch o changes. I wasn’t going to join a gym simply to get healthy and toned up because that’s not the way I am mentally constructed. It’s either all or nothing with me so I picked “all”. Now, as a very natural bodybuilder, my hormone levels are higher than most 20-30 year old men and I’m more muscular and healthier than I have ever been and that includes my time in military service as an 82nd Airborne Paratrooper. Note: Yes, I do get hurt but it doesn’t happen because of age necessarily but because I did something in a way that I shouldn’t have. It’s not just me. There’s a gazillion guys and gals out there beating the doctor’s odds and doing things that they’ve never done before and doing it extremely well. When I see 80 to nearly 100 year old people putting everything they have into their workouts and getting heavy duty results, I know that a lot of what we are being told is simply what some folks want to hear, what some misinformed doctors want us to believe which has nothing to do with the over all possibilities. Heck, even the insurance companies love seniors who hit the gym. I mean, they’d rather pay for the gym than for a hospital bed so I’m in...all the way.