Saturday, Jan 20, 2024 at 3:43 PM
January 21, 2024•10,617 words
Fitness Beyond Sixty: Aging Well with Exercise
Summary
At 93, Richard Morgan, a former baker and battery maker, is a world champion in indoor rowing and a case study in aging well. He started exercising regularly in his 70s, training mostly in his backyard shed. Despite starting late, he has achieved remarkable fitness, with the heart, muscles, and lungs comparable to someone half his age. His regimen includes daily 40-minute rowing, a mix of training intensities, weight training, and a high-protein diet. The study in the Journal of Applied Physiology highlights the potential for maintaining strength and fitness into advanced age, demonstrating the significant benefits of late-life exercise.
Suggestions
Health Suggestions for a 60-Year-Old Inspired by Richard Morgan's Example:
1. Start Regular Exercise: It's never too late to begin; Morgan started at 73. Aim for consistent, daily physical activity.
2. Balanced Workout Routine: Incorporate a mix of cardio (like rowing, walking, or cycling) and strength training, adjusting intensity to your fitness level.
3. Gradual Progression: Begin with low-intensity workouts, gradually increasing duration and intensity as fitness improves.
4. Emphasize Cardiovascular Health: Engage in exercises that elevate heart rate, improving heart and lung function.
5. Strength Training: Include weight-bearing exercises 2-3 times a week to maintain muscle mass and bone density.
6. High-Protein Diet: Ensure adequate protein intake to support muscle health and overall nutrition.
7. Consistency is Key: Aim for around 30-40 minutes of exercise daily, mixing easy, moderate, and intense sessions.
8. Listen to Your Body: Pay attention to any physical limitations or medical conditions, and adjust your exercise routine accordingly.
9. Seek Medical Advice: Before starting any new exercise regimen, consult with a healthcare professional, especially if you have existing health conditions.
10. Stay Motivated: Set achievable goals, track progress, and remember the psychological benefits of staying active, like improved mood and cognitive function.
Workout Routine Inspired by Richard Morgan's Regimen for a 60-Year-Old:
Weekly Schedule:
Monday, Wednesday, Friday (Cardio and Strength Training):
- Cardio: 20-30 minutes of indoor rowing or a similar aerobic activity (e.g., brisk walking, cycling). Start at a comfortable pace, gradually increasing intensity.
- Strength Training: After cardio, perform 2-3 sets of lunges and curls using adjustable dumbbells or resistance bands. Repeat each move until muscle fatigue.
Tuesday, Thursday (Moderate Cardio):
- Moderate Cardio: 30-40 minutes of a moderate-intensity activity like swimming, elliptical training, or a steady rowing session. The effort should be challenging but sustainable.
Saturday (High-Intensity Interval Training - HIIT):
- HIIT Session: Include a 20-minute session comprising short bursts of high-intensity exercise (like fast rowing or sprinting) for 1-2 minutes, followed by 2-3 minutes of low-intensity recovery.
Sunday (Active Recovery):
- Light Activity: Engage in light activities like walking, gentle stretching, or yoga. This aids in muscle recovery and flexibility.
Daily Routine Components:
Warm-Up (5-10 minutes): Start each session with a warm-up to increase heart rate and prepare muscles. This could include light jogging, dynamic stretching, or easy rowing.
Cool Down and Stretch (10 minutes): End each workout with a cool-down period. Slow down your exercise pace and finish with static stretching to improve flexibility and reduce muscle soreness.
Nutrition Tips:
- High-Protein Diet: Incorporate lean protein sources like chicken, fish, beans, and legumes in your diet to support muscle repair and growth.
- Hydration: Stay well-hydrated, especially around workout times.
- Balanced Meals: Include a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats.
Three Meal Suggestions:
Breakfast: Protein-Packed Omelette
- Ingredients: Eggs, spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, and low-fat cheese.
- Preparation: Whisk eggs and pour into a heated non-stick pan. Add spinach, sliced mushrooms, and diced tomatoes. Cook until set and sprinkle with low-fat cheese before folding.
- Benefits: Eggs provide high-quality protein and essential nutrients, while vegetables add fiber and vitamins.
Lunch: Grilled Chicken Salad
- Ingredients: Grilled chicken breast, mixed greens, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, and a vinaigrette dressing.
- Preparation: Grill chicken and slice. Toss with mixed greens, halved cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumber, and diced avocado. Drizzle with a light vinaigrette.
- Benefits: Chicken is a lean protein source; greens and vegetables offer vitamins and fiber; avocado provides healthy fats.
Dinner: Salmon with Quinoa and Steamed Vegetables
- Ingredients: Salmon fillet, quinoa, broccoli, carrots, and lemon.
- Preparation: Bake the salmon fillet with a squeeze of lemon. Cook quinoa as per instructions. Steam broccoli and carrots.
- Benefits: Salmon is rich in omega-3 fatty acids and protein; quinoa is a complete protein grain; vegetables are nutrient-dense and low in calories.
These meals are balanced with protein for muscle maintenance, carbohydrates for energy, and plenty of vegetables for essential vitamins and minerals. They align with the high-protein, nutritious diet that supports an active lifestyle as exemplified by Morgan.
Article
For lessons on how to age well, we could do worse than turn to Richard Morgan.
At 93, the Irishman is a four-time world champion in indoor rowing, with the aerobic engine of a healthy 30- or 40-year-old and the body-fat percentage of a whippet. He’s also the subject of a new case study, published last month in the Journal of Applied Physiology, that looked at his training, diet and physiology.
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Its results suggest that, in many ways, he’s an exemplar of fit, healthy aging — a nonagenarian with the heart, muscles and lungs of someone less than half his age. But in other ways, he’s ordinary: a onetime baker and battery maker with creaky knees who didn’t take up regular exercise until he was in his 70s and who still trains mostly in his backyard shed.
Even though his fitness routine began later in life, he has now rowed the equivalent of almost 10 times around the globe and has won four world championships. So what, the researchers wondered, did his late-life exercise do for his aging body?
Lessons on aging from active older people
“We need to look at very active older people if we want to understand aging,” said Bas Van Hooren, a doctoral researcher at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and one of the study’s authors.
Many questions remain unanswered about the biology of aging, and whether the physical slowing and declines in muscle mass that typically occur as we grow older are normal and inevitable or perhaps due, at least in part, to a lack of exercise.
If some people stay strong and fit deep into their golden years, the implication is that many of the rest of us might be able to as well, he said.
Helpfully, his colleague Lorcan Daly, an assistant lecturer in exercise science at the Technological University of the Shannon in Ireland, was quite familiar with an example of successful aging. His grandfather is Morgan, the 2022 indoor-rowing world champion in the lightweight, 90-to-94 age group.
What made Morgan especially interesting to the researchers was that he hadn’t begun sports or exercise training until he was 73. Retired and somewhat at loose ends then, he’d attended a rowing practice with one of his other grandsons, a competitive collegiate rower. The coach invited him to use one of the machines.
“He never looked back,” Daly said.
Highest heart rate on record
They invited Morgan, who was 92 at the time, to the physiology lab at the University of Limerick in Ireland to learn more, measuring his height, weight and body composition and gathering details about his diet. They also checked his metabolism and heart and lung function.
They then asked him to get on a rowing machine and race a simulated 2,000-meter time trial while they monitored his heart, lungs and muscles.
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“It was one of the most inspiring days I’ve ever spent in the lab,” said Philip Jakeman, a professor of healthy aging, physical performance and nutrition at the University of Limerick and the study’s senior author.
Morgan proved to be a nonagenarian powerhouse, his sinewy 165 pounds composed of about 80 percent muscle and barely 15 percent fat, a body composition that would be considered healthy for a man decades younger.
During the time trial, his heart rate peaked at 153 beats per minute, well above the expected maximum heart rate for his age and among the highest peaks ever recorded for someone in their 90s, the researchers believe, signaling a very strong heart.
His heart rate also headed toward this peak very quickly, meaning his heart was able to rapidly supply his working muscles with oxygen and fuel. These “oxygen uptake kinetics,” a key indicator of cardiovascular health, proved comparable to those of a typical, healthy 30- or 40-year-old, Daly said.
Exercising 40 minutes a day
Perhaps most impressive, he developed this fitness with a simple, relatively abbreviated exercise routine, the researchers noted.
Consistency: Every week, he rows about 30 kilometers (about 18.5 miles), averaging around 40 minutes a day.
A mix of easy, moderate and intense training: About 70 percent of these workouts are easy, with Morgan hardly laboring. Another 20 percent are at a difficult but tolerable pace, and the final 10 at an all-out, barely sustainable intensity.
Weight training: Two or three times a week, he also weight-trains, using adjustable dumbbells to complete about three sets of lunges and curls, repeating each move until his muscles are too tired to continue.
A high-protein diet: He eats plenty of protein, his daily consumption regularly exceeding the usual dietary recommendation of about 60 grams of protein for someone of his weight.
How exercise changes how we age
“This is an interesting case study that sheds light on our understanding of exercise adaptation across the life span,” said Scott Trappe, director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State University in Indiana. He has studied many older athletes but was not involved in the new study.
“We are still learning about starting a late-life exercise program,” he added, “but the evidence is pretty clear that the human body maintains the ability to adapt to exercise at any age.”
In fact, Morgan’s fitness and physical power at 93 suggest that “we don’t have to lose” large amounts of muscle and aerobic capacity as we grow older, Jakeman said. Exercise could help us build and maintain a strong, capable body, whatever our age, he said.
Of course, Morgan probably had some genetic advantages, the scientists point out. Rowing prowess seems to run in the family.
And his race performances in recent years have been slower than they were 15, 10 or even five years ago. Exercise won’t erase the effects of aging. But it may slow our bodies’ losses, Morgan’s example seems to tell us. It may flatten the decline.
It also offers other, less-corporeal rewards. “There is a certain pleasure in achieving a world championship,” Morgan told me through his grandson, with almost comic self-effacement.
“I started from nowhere,” he said, “and I suddenly realized there was a lot of pleasure in doing this.”