Do you feel like you are losing muscle? Here are the steps to restore it and increase its strength | Lifestyle

The gradual loss of muscle strength has become a problem troubling the world. Muscles are essential for good health, and their weakness causes health problems, the most important of which is the increased risk of falls and fractures. Especially for two categories of people:

• People who grow old without an active and nutritious lifestyle.
• Those who follow weight loss systems that rely on medications, because of the side effects they cause, including a noticeable decrease in muscle mass, and because those who take them reduce the amount of food and protein, which is an essential element for maintaining muscle strength. According to the American “Time” magazine.

Therefore, it is important to know how to evaluate the health of our muscles, and how to strengthen them. Below are expert tips for maintaining muscles.

How do you know you are losing muscle?

In addition to the usual tests to evaluate your muscles, ranging from gait and grip strength tests, to medical examinations; Guillem Gonzalez Lomas, a professor of orthopedic surgery at New York University, tells TIME that there are warning signs that you can notice yourself, such as:

• Decreased ability to do everyday activities, such as carrying bags, opening jars, or climbing stairs.
• Decrease the number of push-ups that you can do, after you have become accustomed to doing them regularly.
• Difficulty getting up from a seat that is low or close to the floor. (According to Lomas, if it takes you more than 15 seconds to get up and sit down in a chair 5 times, you have poor muscle strength.)

But Dr. Lomas emphasizes that “these changes may not necessarily mean a significant loss in muscle mass, but they are early indicators of the need to pay attention to the health and strength of your muscles, which are necessary to maintain vitality.”

The best ways to maintain your muscles

According to Dr. Lomas, muscle building is based on 3 main paths:

• Strength and weight lifting exercises, which involve repeatedly straining the body’s muscles.
• Follow a healthy diet that primarily includes protein, along with fresh fruits and vegetables.
• Take protein and vitamin D supplements, especially for the elderly, in addition to amino acid supplements and omega-3 fatty acids. When needed.

Strength exercises and weightlifting are a sure recipe for strengthening your muscles

According to the Mayo Clinic website, muscle mass naturally decreases with age, meaning that “if you don’t use your muscles, you will lose them,” and the percentage of fat in your body will increase over time, if you do not take any action to compensate for the muscle you lose.

According to Dr. Malika Marshall, a specialist in internal medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School; “Men tend to lose between 3% and 5% of their muscle mass every decade, after the age of thirty, and testosterone, which is responsible for building muscle, gradually decreases after the age of forty.”

This is mostly due to two reasons, according to Time magazine:

• Lack of physical activity and lack of use of muscles, which leads to contraction of their fibers, and then their atrophy or shrinkage.
• Decrease in the amount of protein reaching the muscles.

But the good news – as Dr. Malika says – is that you have the ability to slow down this natural decline, and even reverse it, by “lifting weights, with heavy weights, frequently, and for a sufficient period.”

Lifting weights is “the best way to maintain and even increase muscle mass,” which you may have lost with age. Strength training also “helps you maintain and build muscle mass at any age,” according to the Mayo Clinic.

9 tips to benefit from lifting weights in building your muscles

To benefit from weight lifting to maintain your muscles as you age, Dr. Mallika recommends the following nine strategies:

• Hire a certified personal trainer to teach you the correct postures and techniques. If you cannot, you can follow a certified trainer who provides virtual exercises online. Then start practicing on your own after mastering the basics.
• Try switching between free weights such as dumbbells, barbells, and kettlebells, and using machines.
• Be sure to focus specifically on your front and back quadriceps, glutes, and calf muscles; Because of its importance for many daily movements, such as bending, squatting, and climbing stairs.
• The ideal routine for increasing muscle mass is 8 repetitions of each exercise in 3 sets, with increasing weights, so that the last repetitions pose a challenge.
• If you cannot lift the weight at least 8 times, use a lighter weight; But when you can do 8 reps easily, increase the weight. Muscles only grow with constantly increasing resistance.
• The best tempo for a weightlifting exercise is a 7-second pace (3 seconds to lift the weight, 1 second to pause, and 3 seconds to lower the weight).
• It is preferable to practice weight lifting exercises at least twice a week, as two days of full-body exercises can bring about noticeable changes in muscle strength. You often feel results after 4 to 6 weeks of regular training.
• Make sure to leave at least 48 hours between exercise sessions for muscle rest. You can also perform upper body exercises one day and lower body exercises the next day.
• To achieve the muscle strength you want and need, continue to challenge yourself by increasing the intensity of your exercises as you get stronger.

Eating more protein helps build muscle

Dr. Mallika explains that evidence suggests that “a combination of higher protein intake and resistance exercise can build muscle mass in older people as well.”

Regarding the sufficient amount of protein, Dr. Malika says, “An adult, sedentary person, needs only 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day.”

But if you want to build muscle, “your daily protein goal should not be less than 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight, meaning that a man who weighs 79 kilograms and practices resistance exercises should aim to eat about 95 grams of protein daily.”

Good sources to meet your protein needs

Good sources of protein, which Dr. Mallika recommends to help achieve your targeted daily needs, include:

• 85 grams of lean chicken, providing 24 grams of protein.
• 225 grams of plain Greek yogurt, providing 23 grams of protein.
• One cup of cooked lentils provides 18 grams of protein.
• 85 grams of salmon, providing 17 grams of protein.
• Two eggs, providing 13 grams of protein.
• 28 grams of peanuts, providing 7 grams of protein.

To enhance your body’s ability to build muscle, Dr. Malika recommends “dividing the amount of protein you eat into your daily meals equally, taking into account eating between 20 to 40 grams of this daily amount, within an hour after exercise, to help restore muscles.”

Dr. Malika adds, “One of the easiest ways to meet your daily protein needs is to add one or two scoops of whey protein powder or plant protein to fruit juice, yogurt, or a cup of water.”