As men age, they begin to exhibit the signs and symptoms of all kinds of “older” male afflictions.
These range from the relatively benign – such as hair loss – to weight gain, lower feelings of psychological well-being and painful and debilitating conditions such as gout or prostate problems.
Fortunately, there are many natural remedies available that can help to counteract many of the symptoms of ageing.
The problem is that there is an enormous amount of information on the Internet with unreliable and downright false information about these products, usually with the sole purpose of trying to convince you to purchase a specific product.
However, websites and blogs like Analyze That actually analyzes the different products and provides unbiased, trustworthy information.
However, while many of the remedies analysed on the site are extremely useful, imagine how brilliant it would be if you could actually slow down the aging process – and so delay the need for these products and remedies for as long as possible.
Well, you can.
How Exercise Slows Aging
There is a lot of research that clearly indicates that exercise – the right kind of exercise – can slow some of the common problems of aging, including hormonal changes that come with ‘andropause’ (the male equivalent of menopause).
As men approach middle age (from about 45 years), the amount of testosterone available to body tissues declines. There are also decreases in the concentrations of anabolic and androgenic hormones in the blood.
Aerobic or Resistance Exercise?
A solution is for men to do more resistance training. This is only an effective tool for increasing strength; it can also be used to offset the effects of aging by enhancing nitrogen retention and whole body muscle protein metabolism in older men.
In fact, strength training specifically has been shown to stimulate greater amounts of testosterone levels when compared to aerobic training.
However, this does not mean that older men should not do aerobic exercise. While prolonged moderate exercise has been shown to have negative or no effect on testosterone levels, it is still important for its general health and cardiovascular benefits.
Exercise specialists recommend that if a man wants to incorporate aerobic exercise while trying to boost testosterone levels, he should have short intense bouts of cardio with rest intervals.
The resistance training workouts should not be longer than an hour as this may spike the cortisol levels, further decreasing testosterone.
Best Type Of Resistance Training
The hormonal response to resistance exercise is dependent on many factors such as fitness level, genetic predisposition and other variables such as nutrition intake, training experience and diurnal variations. All these factors potentially play significant roles affecting the endocrine responses.
It is therefore often necessary to change around your exercise selection and order; intensity, volume, duration, frequency, and rest intervals to achieve the desired results.
Although the majority of resistance training studies have failed to reveal a change in resting baseline testosterone levels following strength training in older men, all the research has reported a larger release of testosterone following acute bouts of heavy resistance training.
Exercise programmes targeting high volume, moderate to high-intensity exercise with short rest intervals (less than 90 seconds) that stress large muscle groups (deadlifts, squats, cleans) seem to produce the largest acute hormonal elevations compared to the lower volume, higher intensity with longer rest durations (2-3minutes).
Exercising of the large muscle groups should also be performed prior to smaller muscle groups.
Studies have shown that training the legs has a bigger effect on your testosterone. Therefore, a machine exercise utilizing large muscle groups should be used instead of a quad extension which isolates a muscle. In addition, large multi-joint movements and full-body workouts are more effective than doing isolated exercises such as a bicep curl.
Use resistance bands initially to build up muscle endurance.
Once a solid foundation has been created, heavier weights (with shorter rest periods) can be used for the stimulation of the larger muscle groups.
Exercises such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, lunges, and shoulder presses, produce substantial elevations in testosterone and should form the basis of strength training.
Keep the cardio moderate to control body fat which increases with age by keeping sessions short with high intensity; for example 2-3 times a week, brisk interval walks or cycle with a fast and slow tempo.
However, keep sessions short - no longer than 30 minutes if testosterone maintenance is your goal.