ToIt’s hard to believe that we have left behind such a challenging year, but now our focus is on going forward.
If you’re like many, you’ve made some resolutions for 2021, and among the most common promises to ourselves is to get fit.
With vaccinations for COVID-19 already underway and a more hopeful end in sight for all of the restrictions that the pandemic brought, you may be particularly motivated this year to get back to playing your favourite sports or interacting with your grandchildren.
While walking is a great form of exercise, offering many benefits including improving vascular health, burning calories and boosting moods, it’s not enough.
If you want to keep your bones and muscles strong, you must add resistance, or strength training, to your mix.
Resistance Chair system a powerful tool for all exercise needs
And I want to share with you why the Resistance Chair exercise system is a powerful tool to help you achieve not only your strength-training goals but also improves your cardiovascular health, balance and flexibility!
The process of aging causes a degenerative condition called sarcopenia which, quite simply, is the loss of muscle mass.
After the age of 35, most adults begin to lose 8% to 10% of their muscle mass each decade. By the age of 55, most people have lost up to 20 %, or a fifth, of their muscle mass.
The process quickens after that. After the age of 50, adults lose up to 13% of muscle mass each decade. By the time they hit 90, they have about half of the muscle mass they had at 50.
Strength training can stop loss of muscle mass from aging
Frightening statistics? Well, here’s the good news: You can slow, stop and even reverse the loss of muscle mass and strength associated with aging if you add strength training, otherwise known as resistance training, to your exercise routine.
Stronger muscles make daily tasks, such as climbing stairs, carrying groceries, hoisting grandchildren and playing sports, much easier. Your muscles and joints are also much more protected from injury and stress, and you are less likely to have pain.
All physical activity is beneficial but only resistance training produces a chemical reaction that signals the body to produce bone marrow that is deposited on your bones to make bones and joints stronger.
That’s why strength training is recommended by doctors and health care professionals for the prevention and treatment of osteopenia and osteoporosis.
The many benefits of resistance training
Resistance training not only creates stronger muscles, bones and joints but it also:
- bolsters fat metabolism (good for helping you lose weight)
- tones muscles
- balances blood sugar
- improves aerobic capacity
- enhances balance
- increases energy levels and stamina
- promotes quality sleep
- reduces or better manages chronic diseases
- and is considered to be anti-aging
In short, resistance training makes you look and feel younger and better!
While you can use weights or even just your own body to do resistance training, the Resistance Chair system is an all-in-one piece of equipment that offers an excellent way to strength-train your arms, legs, abdominal and back muscles.
It features resistance cables of varying strengths with which you can do a variety of strength-training exercises from a safe, seated position.
The smooth motion of the resistance cables moving inside the pulleys attached to the chair puts much less stress on your joints than other weights and, with the cables attached to the chair, reduce the possibilities of hurting yourself.
The system comes with a wall chart and a workout DVD that outline the many ways you can use the chair for strength training.
So as you make your vows to yourself for the year, remember to add resistance training to your exercise routine– just for the health of it!