Resistance Beyond Weights

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Resistance, Your Way

We’ve talked before about the importance of resistance training:

Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)

And we’ve even talked about how to make resistance training more effective:

HIIT, But Make It HIRT

(High Intensity Interval Training, but make it High Intensity Resistance Training)

Which resistance training exercises are best?

There are two reasonable correct answers here:

  1. The resistance training exercises that you will actually do (because it’s no good knowing the best exercise ever if you’re not going to do it because it is in some way offputting to you)
  2. The resistance training exercises that will prevent you from getting a broken bone in the event of some accident or incident

This latter is interesting, because when people think resistance training, the usually immediate go-to exercises are often things like the bench press, or the chest machine in the gym.

But ask yourself: how often do we hear about some friend or relative who in their old age has broken their humerus?

It can happen, for sure, but it’s not as often as breaking a hip, a tarsal (ankle bones), or a carpal (wrist bones).

So, how can we train to make those bones strong?

Strong bones grow under strong muscles

When archaeologists dig up a skeleton from a thousand years ago, one of the occupations that’s easy to recognize is an archer. Why?

An archer has an unusual frequent exercise: pushing with their left arm while pulling with their right arm. This will strengthen different muscles on each side, and thus, increase bone density in different places on each arm. The left first metacarpal and right first and second metacarpals and phalanges are also a giveaway.

This is because: one cannot grow strong muscles on weak bones (or else the muscles would just break the bones), so training muscles will force the body to strengthen the relevant bones.

So: if you want strong bones, train the muscles attached to those bones

This answers the question of “how am I supposed to exercise my hips” etc.

Weights, bodyweight, resistance bands

If you go to the gym, there’s a machine for everything, and a member of gym staff will be able to advise which of their machines will strengthen which muscles.

If you train with free weights at home:

  • Wrist curls (forearm supported and stationary, lifting a dumbbell in your hand, palm-upwards) will strengthen the wrist
  • The farmer’s walk (carrying a heavy weight in each hand) will also strengthen your wrist
    • A modified version of this involves holding the weight with just your fingertips, and then raising and lowering it by curling and uncurling your fingers)
  • Lateral leg raises (you will need ankle-weights for this) will strengthen your ankles and your hips, as will hip abductions (as in today’s featured video), especially with a weight attached.
  • Ankle raises (going up on your tip-toes and down again, repeat) while holding weights in your hands will strengthen your ankles

If you don’t like weights:

  • Press-ups will strengthen your wrists
    • Fingertip press-ups are even better: to do these, do your press-ups as normal, except that the only parts of your hands in contact with the ground are your fingertips
    • This same exercise can be done the other way around, by doing pull-ups
    • And that same “even better” works by doing pull-ups, but holding the bar only with one’s fingertips, and curling one’s fingers to raise oneself up
  • Lateral leg raises and hip abductions can be done with a resistance band instead of with weights. The great thing about these is that whereas weights are a fixed weight, resistance bands will always provide the right amount of resistance (because if it’s too easy, you just raise your leg further until it becomes difficult again, since the resistance offered is proportional to how much tension the band is under).

Remember, resistance training is still resistance training even if “all” you’re resisting is gravity!

If it fells like work, then it’s working

As for the rest of preparing to get older?

Check out:

Training Mobility Ready For Later Life

Take care!

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  • Big Think’s #1 Antidote To Aging

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Why This Video Is Important

    A lot of what we talk about here at 10almonds is focused on healthy aging. We want you – our lovely readers – to not only live for a long time, but also be healthy enough to enjoy that “long time”.

    We’ve talked about anything from Dr. Greger’s eight anti-aging interventions, to the specific benefits of resveratrol or metformin in combatting aging, to even reducing stress-induced aging.

    So, why is this video important? It goes beyond just talking about what we know about living longer, but also focuses on how we should live longer; there’s a big difference between living a long life but never leaving your house vs. living a long life beyond your front door.

    The Takeaways

    The core message that Big Think wants to convey is that our lifestyle is our best bet in slowing the aging process. Our bodies are adaptive systems, responding positively to healthy lifestyle choices. They focus on exercise: regular physical activity increases healthspan, consequently extending lifespan.

    A key takeaway is the difference between physical activity and exercise. While any movement counts as physical activity, exercise is a deliberate, health-focused activity. It benefits the brain by releasing growth factors that strengthen critical areas like the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.

    The video encourages embracing physical activity in any form available to you, from gardening to walking. The goal isn’t to hit a specific number of steps but to stay active in a way that suits your lifestyle.

    Science may not solve death. Yet. But focusing on maintaining a healthy, functioning state for as long as possible is the real victory in the battle against aging. And, at the moment, exercise seems to be our best bet:

    How did you find that video? If you’ve discovered any great videos yourself that you’d like to share with fellow 10almonds readers, then please do email them to us!

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  • The Worry Trick – by Dr. David Carbonell

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Worry is a time-sink that rarely does us any good, and often does us harm. Many books have been written on how to fight anxiety… That’s not what this book’s about.

    Dr. David Carbonell, in contrast, encourages the reader to stop trying to avoid/resist anxiety, and instead, lean into it in a way that detoothes it.

    He offers various ways of doing this, from scheduling time to worry, to substituting “what if…” with “let’s pretend…”, and guides the reader through exercises to bring about a sort of worry-desensitization.

    The style throughout is very much pop-psychology and is very readable.

    If the book has a weak point, it’s that it tends to focus on worrying less about unlikely outcomes, rather than tackling worry that occurs relating to outcomes that are likely, or even known in advance. However, some of the techniques will work for such also! That’s when Dr. Carbonell draws from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

    Bottom line: if you would like to lose less time and energy to worrying, then this is a fine book for you.

    Click here to check out The Worry Trick, and repurpose your energy reserves!

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  • Widen the Window – by Dr. Elizabeth Stanley

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Firstly, about the title… That “window” that the author bids us “widen” is not a flowery metaphor, but rather, is referring to the window of exhibited resilience to stress/trauma; the “window” in question looks like an “inverted U” bell-curve on the graph.

    In other words: Dr. Stanley’s main premise here is that we respond best to moderate stress (i.e: in that window, the area under the curve!), but if there is too little or too much, we don’t do so well. The key, she argues, is widening that middle part (expanding the area under the curve) in which we perform optimally. That way, we can still function in a motivated fashion without extrinsic threats, and we also don’t collapse under the weight of overwhelm, either.

    The main strength of this book, however, lies in its practical exercises to accomplish that—and more.

    “And more”, because the subtitle also promised recovery from trauma, and the author delivers in that regard too. In this case, it’s about widening that same window, but this time to allow one’s parasympathetic nervous system to recognize that the traumatic event is behind us, and no longer a threat; we are safe now.

    Bottom line: if you would like to respond better to stress, and/or recover from trauma, this book is a very good tool.

    Click here to check out Widen the Window, and widen yours!

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Related Posts

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  • Frozen/Thawed/Refrozen Meat: How Much Is Safety, And How Much Is Taste?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    What You Can (And Can’t) Safely Do With Frozen Meat

    Yesterday, we asked you:

    ❝You have meat in the freezer. How long is it really safe to keep it?❞

    …and got a range of answers, mostly indicating to a) follow the instructions (a very safe general policy) and b) do not refreeze if thawed because that would be unsafe. Fewer respondents indicated that meat could be kept for much longer than guidelines say, or conversely, that it should only be kept for weeks or less.

    So, what does the science say?

    Meat can be kept indefinitely (for all intents and purposes) in a freezer; it just might get tougher: True or False?

    False, assuming we are talking about a normal household electrical freezer that bottoms out at about -18℃ / 0℉.

    Fun fact: cryobiologists cryopreserve tissue samples (so basically, meat) at -196℃ / -320℉, and down at those temperatures, the tissues will last a lot longer than you will (and, for all practical purposes: indefinitely). There are other complications with doing so (such as getting the sample through the glass transition point without cracking it during the vitrification process) but those are beyond the scope of this article.

    If you remember back to your physics or perhaps chemistry classes at school, you’ll know that molecules move more quickly at higher temperatures, and more slowly at lower ones, only approaching true stillness as they near absolute zero (-273℃ / -459℉ / 0K ← we’re not saying it’s ok, although it is; rather, that is zero kelvin; no degree sign is used with kelvins)

    That means that when food is frozen, the internal processes aren’t truly paused; it’s just slowed to a point of near imperceptibility.

    So, all the way up at the relatively warm temperatures of a household freezer, a lot of processes are still going on.

    What this means in practical terms: those guidelines saying “keep in the freezer for up to 4 months”, “keep in the freezer for up to 9 months”, “keep in the freezer for up to 12 months” etc are being honest with you.

    More or less, anyway! They’ll usually underestimate a little to be on the safe side—but so should you.

    Bad things start happening within weeks at most: True or False?

    False, for all practical purposes. Again, assuming a normal and properly-working household freezer as described above.

    (True, technically but misleadingly: the bad things never stopped; they just slowed down to a near imperceptible pace—again, as described above)

    By “bad” here we should clarify we mean “dangerous”. One subscriber wrote:

    ❝Meat starts losing color and flavor after being in the freezer for too long. I keep meat in the freezer for about 2 months at the most❞

    …and as a matter of taste, that’s fair enough!

    It is unsafe to refreeze meat that has been thawed: True or False?

    False! Assuming it has otherwise been kept chilled, just the same as for fresh meat.

    Food poisoning comes from bacteria, and there is nothing about the meat previously having been frozen that will make it now have more bacteria.

    That means, for example…

    • if it was thawed (but chilled) for a period of time, treat it like you would any other meat that has been chilled for that period of time (so probably: use it or freeze it, unless it’s been more than a few days)
    • if it was thawed (and at room temperature) for a period of time, treat it like you would any other meat that has been at room temperature for that period of time (so probably: throw it out, unless the period of time is very small indeed)

    The USDA gives for 2 hours max at room temperature before considering it unsalvageable, by the way.

    However! Whenever you freeze meat (or almost anything with cells, really), ice crystals will form in and between cells. How much ice crystallization occurs depends on several variables, with how much water there is present in the food is usually the biggest factor (remember that animal cells are—just like us—mostly water).

    Those ice crystals will damage the cell walls, causing the food to lose structural integrity. When you thaw it out, the ice crystals will disappear but the damage will be left behind (this is what “freezer burn” is).

    So if your food seems a little “squishy” after having been frozen and thawed, that’s why. It’s not rotten; it’s just been stabbed countless times on a microscopic level.

    The more times you freeze and thaw and refreeze food, the more this will happen. Your food will degrade in structural integrity each time, but the safety of it won’t have changed meaningfully.

    Want to know more?

    Further reading:

    You can thaw and refreeze meat: five food safety myths busted

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

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    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Aging Backwards – by Miranda Esmonde-White

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    In this book, there’s an upside and a downside to the author’s professional background:

    • Upside: Miranda Esmonde-White is a ballet-dancer-turned-physical-trainer, and it shows
    • Downside: Miranda Esmonde-White is not a scientist, and it shows

    She cites a lot of science, but she either does not understand it or else intentionally misrepresents it. We will assume the former. But as one example, she claims:

    “for every minute you exercise, you lengthen your life by 7 minutes”

    …which cheat code to immortality is absolutely not backed-up by the paper she cites for it. The paper, like most papers, was much more measured in its proclamations; “there was an association” and “with these conditions”, etc.

    Nevertheless, while she misunderstands lots of science along the way, her actual advice is good and sound. Her workout programs really will help people to become younger by various (important, life-changing!) metrics of biological age, mostly pertaining to mobility.

    And yes, this is a workout-based approach; we won’t read much about diet and other lifestyle factors here.

    Bottom line: it has its flaws, but nevertheless delivers on its premise of helping the reader to become biologically younger through exercises, mostly mobility drills.

    Click here to check out Aging Backwards, and age backwards!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • Sunflower Seeds vs Pumpkin Seeds – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing sunflower seeds to pumpkin seeds, we picked the pumpkin seeds.

    Why?

    Both seeds have a good spread of vitamins and minerals, but pumpkin seeds have more. Sunflower seeds come out on top for copper and manganese, but everything else that’s present in either of them (in the category of vitamins and minerals, anyway), pumpkin seeds have more.

    There is one other thing that sunflower seeds have more of than pumpkin seeds, and that’s fat. The fat is mostly of healthy varieties, so it’s not a negative factor, but it does mean that if you’re eating a calorie-controlled diet, you’ll get more bang for your buck (i.e. better micronutrient-to-calorie ratio) if you pick pumpkin seeds.

    If you’re not concerned about fat/calories, and/or you actively want to consume more of those, then sunflower seeds are still a fine choice.

    When it comes down to it, a diverse diet is best, so enjoying both might be the best option of all.

    Want to get some?

    We don’t sell them, but here for your convenience are example products on Amazon:

    Sunflower Seeds | Pumpkin Seeds

    Enjoy!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

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