Strength exercises or not?

Clemmi17

I am a 58 year old woman who is trying (and succeeding) to lose weight by reducing calories and increasing my exercise. I cycle (4 or 5 x a week for between 45 minutes and 2.5 hours), do gardening about an hour 5 times a week and swim occasionally. I don't do any strength exercises at all. Would there be any adavantage in doing any? If so, what? I don't go to a gym and don't have any equipment. Also, I really don't want to get bulging muscles. What do you think?

kenyonhaff

Strength exercises are fairly important, especially as you age. Don't worry about bulging muscles -- our bodybuilding MFPers make it pretty plain they work pretty hard in a targeting way to achieve that.

But keep in mind even though MFP makes it so you have to input Strength or Cardiovascular, a lot of exercises are a combination of both. For instance, a yoga workout may be more strength than cardiovascular, even though it is listed in the cardio workout database.

There are a lot of exercises that can be done at home with little to no equipment. Yoga, for instance. Or tai chi. There are plenty of workout DVDs, workouts on YouTube, and even Amazon streaming.

My personal favorite is Classical Stretch which I DVR from my local PBS station. It's particularly good for anti-aging: strength, posture, flexibility, and things other workouts tend to neglect like feet. It's not "for old people" either and is great for all exercise levels.

Gardening can be a great strength exercise! Ditto with yardwork.

TejahBee

Strength exercise helps with bone strength and density, a very important thing for women over 40.

Xymheia

Strength training helps keep your bones and muscles strong. Many people lose bone mass, muscle mass and consequently strength as they age and especially for women this leads to increased risk of falling and injuring themselves, poor posture and other problems. By doing strength training you can slow this down significantly and if done well, reverse it (i.e. increase strength). I think gardening counts to maintain your strength, but progressively increasing intensity/difficulty is more effective at improving strength. The stronger you can get yourself to be now, the less likely you are to suffer from lack of strength in the future. Also, most people, both men and women, don't really bulk up to unnatural looking levels without extreme measures.

You don't need much if any equipment, there are many exercises you can do with your bodyweight, such as pushups, bodyweight squats, yoga, Pilates mat exercises, etc., those making use of items you may have lying/standing around (table 'pull ups', lifting filled jerrycans, etc.), and those with minimal equipment, like a kettlebell or exercise band.

rybo

There is always a benefit to doing strength exercises. Regardless of age. You aren't going to get bulging muscles, having more strength as you age is crucial to being active and independent for as long as you possibly can. There are tons of at home bodyweight exercises that you can do.

Wolfger

If strength training automatically gave you bulging muscles, I think you'd see a lot more bulging muscles walking around... That level of muscle takes an extreme effort. If you don't want bulging muscles, you'll never get them by mistake. The answer to "strength training?" is always yes. Being stronger makes life easier and makes weight loss easier.

Unknown

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BusyRaeNOTBusty

As a 58 year old woman on a deficit you will NOT get bulging muscles, but you will maintain more bone density as you get old which is SUPER important (think old ladies with broken hips). A simple 2-3 day full body weight routine would be great.

middlehaitch

As stated above by many, doing something that provides progressive overload over time to the muscles is important for muscle retention and bone density as we age. This is especially true for post menopausal women due to the change in hormone levels.

I am 63 now but started when I was 54 never having exercised. To begin with things like aqua fit and Pilates were enough to show improvement.
I then moved on to the 2 routines that I am posting below, nerdfitness and HasFit. Then to heavy lifting and I don't look muscular at all, much to my chagrin, but I am stronger and have a better physique than I did when I was 40.

Both these routines need little or no equipment, if you don't have dumbbells use household objects, and you can start them at your fitness level and work toward completing as written, then modifying for further overload.
Modify moves where needed, (ie: push-ups against a wall, counter, chair, step, and finally floor) and sub in step ups, high knees, or walking in place, for jumping jacks to ease stress on knees.

As far as your diet goes, make sure you are getting enough protein. It use to be thought an older person didn't need as much protein as someone young as they weren't as active. This led to muscle atrophy and a decrease in bone density.

Try to get about .6-8g per lbs of your ideal bodyweight (mid BMI). Research is also showing as we age we utilize protein better when we ingest it in larger portions, 20-35g servings rather than smaller servings during the day.

As a post menopausal woman you would benifit. Other short and long term from doing some sort of resistance/strength training.

Cheers, h.
Nerdfitness a. Odyweight routine
https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/beginner-body-weight-workout-burn-fat-build-muscle/

HasFit a dumbbell routine for beginners
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U0bhE67HuDY

brb_2013

Yes yes yes

I lift because of a few reasons, all I've learned here or via experience:
- lifting weights while losing fat preserves the muscle you already have. Muscle burns calories at rest and the more you can save the more calories you burn= better fat loss.
- even if you're not gaining muscle mass, you can absolutely get stronger and in my line of work the kids keep getting bigger so I need to keep growing stronger
- women lose bone density as we age and my grandma is a poor example of how to age. She basically stopped moving at retirement and is now having surgery after surgery on her back, knees, hips, etc. I love all the women in my life, and she is helping me learn now how to take care of myself so I can be stronger in my older years.

Basically even a small amount of strength training is better than none cardio will train your heart and lungs which is a fabulous thing for your body but personally I see the best most consistent weight loss results when I'm also strength training regularly. I do squats, (negative)push-ups, and lunges at work with just body weight (lately I add a toddler to it) and I swear weeks I don't do it, I don't see losses. It's not a lot and I can always add more but even just a short routine that you call your minimum is better than cardio alone.

Rusty740

Weightlifting is your best friend. It is all kinds of good for you. Start now and you'll never regret it. Don't worry about getting budging muscles, your body will fight against it.

deputy_randolph

I ate in a calorie surplus, lifted heavy...and put on 10lbs (of mostly muscle) in a year. I still don't have bulging muscles...and I was literally trying to have bulging muscles.

estherdragonbat

I hadn't really thought much about strength training before checking out the forums here. I'm still getting into it. You asked about cost in your OP. Right now I'm converting part of my basement into a low-rate gym with (apart from one exception I've had for years), pretty inexpensive equipment (all prices in Canadian dollars and I admit I didn't shop around. I know that the fitness tubes can be had for cheaper; possibly other stuff too):

1) A fitness glider. It's mostly for cardio, but it does work the major muscle groups, too. Mine doesn't let you adjust resistance, so it's not great for building muscle, but for strengthening what you've got? It's not bad. Mine was a gift, but I think they retail for between $150 and $200.

2) A book on strength training for women. There are a lot of good ones on the market. I went with this one: https://www.dk.com/ca/9781465415806-strength-training-exercises-for-women/ because I was in a smallish bookstore, didn't have a lot of selections (not necessarily a bad thing; if I'd had 30 titles to choose from, I probably would have dithered and debated and put them all back on the shelf. 3 titles? Much easier.), liked the pictures and found that there's a variety of exercises and easy instructions. (About $22)

3) Resistance tubes. They look like skipping ropes, but they're stretchier. I started with light resistance, and I'm finding that moderate isn't requiring the same effort now, so I'll probably get heavy this week. If you go with them, make sure you get the door attachment; you'll be able to do more with them. (2@$20 and you can find for cheaper. Door attachment@$6)

4) Dumbbells. THIS is where I found out that the resistance tubes were really working, instead of... I dunno, just getting looser and stretchier quickly. Discovering that I can do bicep curls with a 10-lb weight, when I used to struggle with a 5-pound dumbbell? Great. I do need to get some lighter weights for the muscles I haven't been focused on. (2 @$10)

5) A mat. For floor work. Also, a bolster pillow for some of the neck stretches. ($20 for mat. I had the pillow already)

6) A stability ball ($15 on special)

7) Resistance bands ($12 for a set of 3)

8) A soccer ball. Some of the warmup exercises in the book involve holding a ball when you do it. They recommend 7". The soccer ball is a little bigger, but I didn't know that at the time. ($8)

That's my strength gym so far. I think when I total the cost (remembering that the glider was a gift), it's cost me about $145 CDN. And it's worth it. My muscles are far from bulging. My legs have some definition; I'm a walker and as the fat has reduced, the muscle is a bit easier to spot. My arms are pretty flabby yet; I'm still about 70 lbs overweight. But I like the way I feel and I like realizing that I am stronger, even if the muscles aren't visible.