Building muscle on a regular basis during our lifetime is absolutely vital to our long term fitness goals. As you get older, you will lose muscle and strength if you are inactive. Loss of muscle and strength is called sarcopenia. This term also refers to the decreased quality of muscle tissue often seen in older adults. Strength exercises can partly restore muscles and strength, often very quickly.

In one study, nursing home residents 80 years and older progressed from using walkers to using canes after doing simple muscle-building exercises for 10 weeks. Strength exercises, like weight lifting or push-ups, build your muscles and may make you more independent by giving you more strength to do things on your own.

Strength exercises also increase your metabolism, which helps keep your weight and blood sugar in check. Even very small changes in muscle size can make a big difference in strength, especially in people who already have lost a lot of muscle. An increase in muscle that's not even visible to the eye can be all it takes to improve your ability to do things like get up from a chair or climb stairs.

Your muscles are active even when you are sleeping. Their cells are still doing the routine activities they need to do to stay alive. This work is called metabolism, and it uses up calories. That can help keep your weight in check, even when you are asleep!

How Muscles Work

What makes your muscles look bigger when you flex them - when you "make a muscle" with your biceps, for example?

Muscle cells contain long strands of protein lying next to each other. Your brain signals your nerves to stimulate muscles when you direct them to move. A chemical reaction in your muscles follows, causing the long strands of protein to slide toward and over each other, shortening the length of your muscle cells. When you "make a muscle" and you see your muscle bunch up and bulge, you are actually watching it shorten as the protein strands slide over each other.

When you do challenging muscle-building exercises on a regular basis, the bundles of protein strands inside your muscle cells grow bigger.

Increasing strength and endurance make it easier to climb stairs and carry groceries. Improving balance helps prevent falls. Being more flexible may speed recovery from injuries. If you make exercise a regular part of your daily routine, it will have a positive impact on your quality of life as you get older.

A really important thing to remember when doing strength exercises is that you want to take the weight the full range of motion. Meaning, if you're working the biceps, you want the arm to be straight without stressing the joint, and then bring the arm through a full range. So we want to go through a full range of motion and not stress the joints in order to work the muscles.

You should exercise a particular muscle by the third day. So some people like to exercise, say, the upper body for half an hour one day and the lower body another day. So as an example, if you were to exercise your biceps on Monday then you should exercise them again by Thursday.

Powerful tips for muscle building safely:

Do strength exercises for all your major muscle groups at least twice a week, but not for the same muscle group on any 2 days in a row.

Gradually increasing the amount of weight you use is the most important part of strength exercise.

Start with a low amount of weight (or no weight) and increase it gradually.

When you are ready to progress, first increase the number of times you do the exercise, then increase the weight at a later session.

Do exercises 8 to 15 times; rest a minute and repeat it 8 to 15 more times.

Take 3 seconds to lift and 3 seconds to lower weights. Never jerk weights into position. If you can't lift a weight more than 8 times, it's too heavy; if you can lift it more than 15 times, it's too light.

Don't hold your breath while straining.

These exercises may make you sore at first, but they should never cause pain. Stretch after strength exercises.

In summary, you are never too old or out of shape to begin a simple muscle building fitness program. You owe this to yourself, your family and to serve as a positive role model for others. In our sedentary lifestyles that have crept into our culture, it is vital we take action now.

Get up from this article. Walk around the block. Talk to your friends about starting a fitness plan. Small steps at first will result in big payoffs as you get older. Now, what are you waiting for? You can do it!