Weight workouts build seniors' muscle strength

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Older people who "pump iron" for two hours a week for 12 weeks can build muscle mass and strength while trimming fat, according to the results of a small study continued in Austria.

Women (20 subjects) and men (4 subjects) had the same degree of improvement, even though women started out with more body fat, Drs. Manfred Wieser and P. Haber of the Medical University of Vienna found.

There were no drop-outs or injuries among the study participants, showing that "correctly carried out and controlled systematic resistance training is very safe," the researchers conclude in the International Journal of Sports Medicine.

Wieser and Haber determined if the latest resistance training techniques for younger people could be adapted to older individuals. They randomly assigned 24 men and women, average age 76, to a training program or a control group. Training consisted of a cycle of eight exercises, each for a different large-muscle group. Participants began by completing one cycle a day, twice a week, and added another training cycle every four weeks, so by the end of the study they were performing two cycles a day on two days a week.

Men and women in the exercise group gained an average of 2.9 kilograms, or 6.4 pounds, of fat-free body mass, while losing 4.0 kilograms (8.8 pounds) of fat. Two exercise sessions a week were as effective as three, as long as participants performed the same number of reps per week.

Muscle strength increased by 15 percent, the researchers found, while the ability of muscles to use oxygen rose by 12 percent. The increase in maximum strength ranged from 26 percent for the bench pull to 38 percent for the leg press.

There was little difference between men and women in muscle strength after training, with women able to leg press 86 kilograms (190 pounds) compared to 82 kilograms (181 pounds) for men.

The researchers conclude that systematic resistance training is "highly recommended" to reverse the muscle tissue wasting that occurs with aging.

SOURCE: International Journal of Sports Medicine, January 2007.