I was reading through a few of my health and fitness magazines to reinforce the importance of strength and flexibility in life and especially in runners. Several articles emphasized how important it is, as a person gets older, to stay strong and flexible. For many people that watch road races and observe the category of senior master’s runners cross the finish line, the most common recognizable sign is a shortened stride and a sort of shuffling gait. The long stride of younger or older, faster runners is replaced with shorter strides and often slightly bent knees. It seems as the person gets older, they lose much of their flexibility. And several of the articles had a comment that the loss of muscle strength occurs faster in older individuals.
Two points about maintaining strength. One is that muscle strength and muscle size are not necessarily related in that the larger the muscle, the stronger the person is. There are many thin individuals that are amazingly strong. A point to mention is how much strength is needed. The answer is enough strength to move your body. If you are overweight, you will need more strength to lift your body up if you fall than if you are a lighter weight. And even the lighter weight person needs enough strength to lift or move their body. The other most common statement in muscle development is that a muscle will follow the rule of “use it or you will lose it.” The senior citizen runners that seem to have a shuffling gait have not maintained the muscle strength and flexibility. Those senior-age runners that win the age category are usually those that still have a good stride and are running faster because they have maintained leg strength.
The one topic that keeps appearing in fitness articles relating to senior-aged individuals is the risk of falling. If they fall, can they get back up without assistance? There are too many cases of older persons falling that are not able to get back on their feet without someone to help them or have some sort of assistive device. This is a problem for individuals because getting up off the floor or ground requires both strength and flexibility. I can relate to this as I have an artificial hip and no cartilage in the opposite knee. Trying to get the feet under the body to stand up gets difficult when the range of motion is limited. I still manage to lift myself off the ground, but it takes a little longer than my younger days to bend those joints enough to get the task done.
The good news is a person is never too old to get stronger or to increase their flexibility. It isn’t as easy as it was in those younger years. But muscle responds to stress, and adding some resistance from weights or cables will find the muscle getting stronger. What seems amazing to many of the individuals that start a strength-training program is how fast they seem to see the gain in strength. A few weeks of good training will show results in everyday tasks and movements.
A personal observation is the increase in joint and muscle flexibility that seems to take longer. Whether this is true or not, it is just a personal experience regaining my flexibility. Being a gymnast in my younger days, I had great flexibility. After many years of not doing cartwheels and forward rolls across the gym floor, my flexibility has decreased. I know a static stretch is a better method than the rebound or bouncing movement to reach that next mark and not tear a muscle. It just seems that gains are only an inch at a time over a longer period of time. There is improvement, but it just seems as I have gotten older the gains are much slower. The key is to keep maintaining your strength and flexibility for health, so that you can look good running faster.
