Review of Strength Training Over 50 Fitness Program

People are living longer than ever before, and the single most important aspect of quality living after age 50 entails maintaining optimal health. Strength training exercises are an important part of every comprehensive health equation, and Strength Training for Seniors focuses on the health needs of men and women over-fifty. Its opening chapters specify separate preparatory exercises for lower body and upper body strengthening, then proceed to instruct in the following foundational exercises—


For lower body strength: the basic squat, squats with a stability ball, one-legged squats, the wide plié or goddess pose, the door squat, and the cross-over stretch

For upper body strength: wall or counter push-ups, knee push-ups, straight-legged push-ups, and the supine chest stretch

Chapters that follow focus on putting it all together, with exercises for the gluteals, the hamstrings, the quadriceps, the adductors, and the abductors, as well as the calves, shins, chest, upper back, biceps, triceps, lower back, and abdominals. The book’s concluding describe recommended cooling-down routines, and then discuss special concerns that include regimens for osteoarthritis sufferers, as well as modification of exercise plans to suit the extremely unfit or for those of advanced old age. Detailed illustrations and diagrams accompany all exercise procedures.

Study Shows Postivie Benefits for Breast Cancer Survivors by Lifting Weight

A new study published shows that weight lifting can benefit breast cancer survivors in many different ways.




In fact, the study found that lifting weights under supervision may lower women’s chances of developing lymphedema, according to results that will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Lymphedema is a painful and potentially debilitating swelling of the limbs that occurs when lymph fluid cannot drain from lymph nodes as it does in healthy people.



Breast cancer survivors are often told to avoid lifting children, heavy bags or substantial weight with the arm on the side of their body from which armpit-area lymph nodes were removed. Doctors feared any stress to the arm could trigger lymphedema.



But Katheryn H. Schmitz, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and other researchers wondered if this advice left women with weakened arms and, ironically, at greater risk for lymphedema when they were not able to avoid lifting a weight.



Schmitz and colleagues followed 154 female cancer patients who had at least two lymph nodes removed in the past five years. Half of the women were randomly chosen to participate in a 13-week supervised weight-lifting program. The other half were not enrolled in the exercise program.



A year later, 11 percent of the women in the weight-lifting group developed lymphedema, compared with 17 percent of the women in the no-exercise group.



Lifting weights, under the watch of a trained supervisor, can lower breast cancer patients risk of lymphedema.