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Your muscles, if given some TLC, will work like a Trojan to keep you in tip-top shape (Getty)<\/p>\n
The article below is an excerpt from my newsletter: Well Enough with Harry Bullmore<\/a>. To get my latest thoughts on fitness and wellbeing pop your email address into the box above to get the newsletter direct to your inbox.<\/p>\n To start this week\u2019s newsletter<\/a>, a question: \u201cWould you buy something that promised to supercharge your fitness levels and preserve your health<\/a> for decades to come?\u201d<\/p>\n A follow-up question: \u201cWhat if I told you it\u2019s already in your possession?\u201d<\/p>\n That thing is muscle<\/a> \u2013 the medical marvel you don\u2019t have to pay for. It holds us upright and helps us move. It powers every breath and regulates blood sugar levels to protect against chronic disease. It even secretes anti-inflammatory myokines to make your body<\/a> a more enjoyable place to live.<\/p>\n All it needs is a little TLC every now and then, and it will work like a Trojan to keep you in tip-top shape. This week\u2019s newsletter<\/a> is all about giving your muscles<\/a> that care.<\/p>\n This week I spoke to Dr Michael LaMonte at the University of Buffalo, who recently led research<\/a> into the link between muscular strength<\/a> and mortality in more than 5,000 women aged 63 to 99 \u2013 a novelty in a field dominated by studies of younger, trained men.<\/p>\n The results, in layman\u2019s terms: strong muscles<\/a> equal a longer (and healthier) life. This relationship compounds as you grow older too.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen women go through menopause and lose their body<\/a>\u2019s own secretion of oestrogen, the loss of skeletal muscle<\/a> mass increases rapidly,\u201d says Dr LaMonte. \u201cWe typically see a change in their body composition, where they start losing muscle and holding fat in the belly area particularly. That\u2019s not healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n Both men and women also tend to become less active as they grow older, which can contribute to sarcopenia \u2013 the age-related loss of strength<\/a> and muscle. \u201cAnd when we can no longer get out of our chair and move around, we are in trouble,\u201d Dr LaMonte says.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t need to look or train like a bodybuilder to prevent this. But if you challenge the muscles across your body a couple of times a week, you can preserve \u2013 and even build \u2013 them.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re looking for an easy place to start, our recent features have you covered: from the science-backed exercise method that helps counter the effects of ageing<\/a>, to eight smart rules for strength training in midlife<\/a>, and an expert-approved, four-move weekly workout<\/a> designed to boost full-body strength, stabilise blood sugar and support bone density.<\/p>\n The other thing Dr LaMonte highlighted was the intelligence of muscle.<\/p>\n This tissue \u2013 and strength training in general \u2013 is often unfairly saddled with a meathead reputation: stupid, simple, brutish. I think that puts many people off.<\/p>\n But you only have to look at the athletic scholars of ancient Greece, or the exercise habits of other great thinkers through history, to see the symbiosis between mind and muscle.<\/p>\n Muscle is in constant conversation with other systems in the body, helping them run smoothly. It influences the heart, brain and other organs, lifting our mood and secreting signalling proteins called myokines with each contraction to combat inflammation. Healthy muscle does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to creating a happy mind and body.<\/p>\n Journalist and fervent surfer Bonnie Tsui<\/a>, author of the best-selling book Why We Swim, is another person to recognise this: \u201cSkeletal muscle is an endocrine tissue, responsible for making and releasing hormones which control the actions of other cells or organs in the body,\u201d she told me \u2013 further evidence that muscle is smart, and incredibly chatty too.<\/p>\n Which is why it frustrates me when people try to hoodwink it. We\u2019re fixated on \u201chacks\u201d and trends to improve our health<\/a>, when muscle has reliably responded to the same stimulus for years: semi-regular strength training sessions that challenge the body without exceeding our capabilities. Finding that sweet spot, just outside our comfort zone, is where muscular development lies.<\/p>\n
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