Fighting The 'Middle-Aged Spread'

Resistance Training Shown To Be Most Benefical

From Jon Benson And Fit Over 40

Just look at the women in Fit Over 40 and you’ll see zero signs of what’s known as “the middle-aged spread” — intra-abdominal fat that causes the lower belly pooch and the stomach and hips to spread outward. Most people assume these women eat like sparrows, or do tons of cardio work. None eat like sparrows — and most do cardio work, although few do none at all.

The one thing every man and women in Fit Over 40 does is resistance training. This can be weight training or in-home resistance training. Anything that you can do to increase the workload over time on the muscular system and increase muscle mass qualifies as resistance training.

Women who lift weights twice a week can prevent or at least slow the middle-aged spread. This was presented by researchers at the American Heart Association’s 46th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention. A study of 164 overweight and obese (BMI 25-35) Minnesota women 24 to 44 years old found that strength training with weights dramatically reduced the increase in abdominal fat in premenopausal participants.

Women in a two-year weight-training program decreased body fat percentage by 3.7 percent, while body fat percentage remained stable in the controls. The strength training reduced intra-abdominal fat, which is more closely associated with heart disease and metabolic disturbances. More specifically, the women who did strength training experienced a 7 percent increase in intra-abdominal fat compared to a 21 percent increase in intra-abdominal fat among controls, a difference of 15 percentage points.

“On average, women in the middle years of their lives gain one to two pounds a year and most of this is assumed to be fat,” said study lead author Kathryn H. Schmitz, Ph.D., assistant professor, Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “This study shows that strength training can prevent increases in body fat percentage and attenuate increases in the fat depot most closely associated with heart disease. While an annual weight gain of one to two pounds doesn’t sound like much, over 10 to 20 years the gain is significant.”

Now, here’s the really good part — combine real nutrition (not a “diet”) with weights, cardio and a renewed mindset, and these gains are exponentially increased. Examples are seen throughout Fit Over 40.

One more thing: resistance training does far more than build muscle…it saves lives. Why? Because intra-abdominal body fat is a top three risk factor in heart disease.

Jon Benson
Creator/Co-Author of Fit Over 40: Role Models For Excellence At Any Age

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