New Study: Women & Exercise – Slow Down!
Who could forget all those power-surge videos of Jane Fonda – and all her successors – each one urging us to move quickly – and often – to stay in shape.
Now, comes a remarkably different strategy – one that endorses slow movement as possibly the best form of exercise.
Although the trend towards what is called “Slow Motion “ exercise is not brand new, there is new research linking it’s benefits to women over 45 – showing it may, in fact, be the antidote to what happens to the body just before – and right after – menopause.
In research just presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Experimental Biology in Marseille, France, experts from the University of Salzburg compared two types of resistance training movements in women aged 45 to 55.
The second type is a relative new method of resistance training called “SuperSlow” . It’s based on the same principals as regular resistance training, but involves much slower movements and fewer repetitions of each exercise.
In other words it’s like traditional workouts, but in slow motion.
The study involved women age 45 to 55 who agreed to regularly perform either type of exercise, under supervised guidance, for a period of 12 weeks. To measure the effects of the workouts thigh muscle biopsies were taken at the start and the end of the 12-week period. The biopsies looked for changes in ratios of muscle mass to fatty tissue, plus blood supply to the muscle itself.
The end result: While both forms of exercise helped women increase their muscle mass, much to the researchers surprise, the “slow mo” version worked best.
“ Contrary to expectations, the SuperSlow method appears to have the greatest effect,” says lead study author Dr. Alexandra Sanger.
Experts theorize that the success of slow motion exercise may be linked to the idea that moving slower simply helps focus greater concentration on muscle contraction, which in turn means higher quality movement and ultimately, increased strength.
Or think of it this way: Spend a nice leisurely afternoon shopping and you’re bound to find just what you need. Rip through that mall and buy too quickly and, well, we all have a closet full of those mistakes!
Sanger says she is hopeful that this new research will help broaden the understanding of how different muscles respond to movement – particularly in women – and ultimately will lead to the development of an exercise regimen with optimal results for women over 45.
This is important, since previous research has shown that the loss of muscle strength in women first becomes apparent around age 45. It is this age-related deterioration, say experts, which eventually leads to more clumsiness in the senior years, (in or out of this seasons new stilettos!) which in turn increases the risk of falls and bone breaks.
Researchers are hopeful that locking in on an effective – and useable- strategy for keeping women’s muscles strong could help delay the onset of that muscle deterioration and keep us younger longer! And who doesn’t want that?
Moreover, previous research has shown that resistance training can also help increase bone mass, which can also reduce the risk of breaks – and keep us walking taller and straighter, and definitely looking thinner and younger as time goes on. Do you know anybody who doesn’t want that?
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Great article. I have been teaching my form of slow training called Slow Burn for over 15 years. We get fantastic results for our clients. My new book Strong Kids Healthy Kids will pair Slow Burn training with healthy eating to defeat adolescent obesity. The more we can do to improve people’s lives the better.
“Who could forget all those power-surge videos of Jane Fonda – and all her successors – each one urging us to move quickly – and often – to stay in shape”.
Jane had her hip replaced at age 67. Perhaps her genetics made that inevidable, but I think all that pounding hastened the day that the hip “procedure” became necessary.