Help!!! I’m Losing Muscle!!!

Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle tone that happens as we age.  It can be seen in lack of strength, balance, and speed—though there are currently no definitive measures for practitioners to look at when diagnosing sarcopenia.  That might be changing as sarcopenia became an official disease in 2016.  It’s considered a treatable disease.

New research indicates it also might not be inevitable.  Humans may not just lose 3-8% of our muscle mass each decade starting in our thirties (that’s the actual data).  It could be that each decade we move less and therefore lose muscle.  That makes the answer simple: move more and keep your muscles.  It also implies you aren’t fighting an uphill battle.  So how do we keep as much of our muscle tone as possible?

Keep Moving and use the acronym MOVE:

Movement Awareness:

Notice anything you’ve lost.  Is it harder to balance? Can you no longer get up and down off the floor.  When you pick something up do you no longer squat and instead hinge from the back? Is it hard to lift a heavy pot suddenly?

Objective:

Set an objective.  What do you need to train to help rebuild what you’ve lost? Who can help and is there anything […]

Help!!! I’m Losing Muscle!!!2024-01-26T12:07:20-05:00

Grip Strength

Multiple research shows a correlation between overall health markers and grip strength.  There seems to be a particular correlation with cardiovascular health (based on a study of 140,000 people over 4 years).  Some researchers think testing grip strength might be a cheap, easy way to assess general heart health.

This matters because grip strength often starts to diminish between the age of 50-55 (I don’t know about you, but that sounds young to me).  And Millennials have lost grip strength compared to their adult counterparts from the 1980s.  This loss is more pronounced in men than women, but both have lost their grip.  (Note: the research on this did not indicate they are concerned this is causing heart issues in adults today, more just that as a population we do less manual labor.)

The real issue is that grip strength has such practical applications in life, so if and when you lose it, you notice it daily.  If your grip strength is still good you might take for granted using a fork, pumping gas, vacuuming, lifting a water jug, or opening a jar of pickles, but all these tasks require grip strength.

Grip strength is interconnected with wrist health and forearm strength.  So […]

Grip Strength2023-09-28T12:46:41-04:00
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