Have you invested in NVIDIA since its boom on the stock market? What about Meta? Google? Amazon? Or any ETFs if you want to play it on the safer side. Maybe you prefer index funds…or maybe bonds…
If you bought 1 NVIDIA stock in February of 2024, a year later in February 2025, you’d be up nearly 80%.
So you bought once, and a year on you’re still seeing rewards from it.
Why do I bring this up?
Well, this is also kind of like exercise.
A new study found that just 1 year of exercise protects your muscles and strength for up to 3 years afterwards in older adults.1
This study looked at 451 older adults at retirement age and split them into 3 groups:
The heavy resistance training group (HRT)
The moderate intensity training group (MIT)
The control group (CON)
The heavy resistance group trained 3x per week at a commercial gym doing a supervised, full body machine-based program. They lifted heavy at 7–85% 1RM doing 3 sets of 6-12 reps of each exercise.
The moderate intensity group also did 3 workouts per week but only 1 session was supervised at a clinic and then the 2 other sessions were done at home. This group mimicked the same exercises as the heavy resistance group, but performed them with bands and in the range of 50-60% 1RM at 3 sets of 10-18 reps.
The control group, on the other hand, weren’t given anything to follow but were just told to keep doing what they were doing in their everyday lives.
The Results
So what happened?
Well, after a year they had everyone stop exercising and go back to their normal, everyday lives. Then, they assessed how well their gains were maintained over the next 3 years.
Well, it turns out that people who were in the heavy resistance group saw not only the most
strength gains immediately after the exercise program finished, but their strength levels were still marginally higher than what they were before they started the program altogether!
The moderate intensity group saw an initial bump up in strength immediately after the year of training, but their strength levels dropped below baseline levels at the follow up 3 years later.
The control group generally saw a steady decline in strength over the course of the entire 4 years.
Lean body mass was also looked at, and while it wasn’t maintained as long as strength levels, the heavy resistance group preserved it better 3 years later than both the moderate intensity and control groups.
Visceral fat - the fat stored between your organs - was also recorded. The heavy resistance group saw the sharpest decline in visceral fat after the initial year. By the end of year 4, both the heavy resistance and moderate intensity groups were pretty much back to baseline levels of visceral fat, whereas the control group saw a steady rise throughout the years.
To summarize all of this, the heavy resistance group simply outperformed the other 2 groups when it came to maintaining strength and muscle mass.
This just highlights how higher intensity exercise is vital for muscle function preservation.
Muscle strength and muscle mass are heavily associated with a longer life and a better quality of life.2 The stronger you are, the better off you are in the long run. Which is why it is so important to build and maintain it, and the earlier you can do that, the better off you’ll be.
Remember, this paper in particular looked at people at retirement age. The participants’ average age was 71 years!
This just highlights how important it is to keep exercising even in older age - especially with weights.
You can still build muscle and strength no matter the age. Take a look at our last article on sarcopenia and how you can fight off age-related muscle loss here. (Psst, the answer to that may be the same one you’re reading about right now).
If you want to see better results in strength, lean mass, and visceral fat mass immediately following training, then following a protocol such as the heavy resistance group is your best bet.
And if you want to keep a lot of those benefits long term, then guess what, keep strength training at a high intensity. Even if you stop, you’ll still be better off years down the line than someone who never started. (Hopefully you never have to stop, though).
So remember, invest in yourself today - not just in the stock market. Pick up those weights. Get on the machines. Push yourself a bit. You’ll reap the rewards in due time.
Final Thoughts
Building muscle is for everyone, no matter how old you are.
It’s for everyone who wants to stay sharp. It’s for everyone who wants to be able to do their day to day chores. It’s for everyone who wants to live an independent life.
If you’re looking to take charge of your present and future health, get in touch with us today. We’ll help set you up with a program that aims to build muscle and strength so you can maintain your freedom, independence, and health.
Remember, your health is priceless. Get strong, stay strong.
References
Bloch-Ibenfeldt, M., Theil Gates, A., Karlog, K., Demnitz, N., Kjaer, M., & Boraxbekk, C. J. (2024). Heavy resistance training at retirement age induces 4-year lasting beneficial effects in muscle strength: a long-term follow-up of an RCT. BMJ open sport & exercise medicine, 10(2), e001899. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2024-001899
García-Hermoso, A., Cavero-Redondo, I., Ramírez-Vélez, R., Ruiz, J. R., Ortega, F. B., Lee, D. C., & Martínez-Vizcaíno, V. (2018). Muscular Strength as a Predictor of All-Cause Mortality in an Apparently Healthy Population: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Data From Approximately 2 Million Men and Women. Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation, 99(10), 2100–2113.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2018.01.008
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