Rico
COSTA RICA EXTRA (Elite Daily) — If you’re afraid of growing old and sickly, you better start lacing up those sneakers.
It turns out elderly men and women who run for 30 minutes, three times per week only use about as much energy walking as a 20-something.
In contrast, older people who exclusively walked for exercise showed energy expenditure most commonly seen in their sedentary peers.
A team made up of researchers from both the University of Colorado Boulder and Humboldt State University observed the fitness patterns of 30 adults, averaging age 69, tracking oxygen intake and carbon dioxide production.
They tracked treadmill workouts for a total of six months and were surprised to see older runners exercising as efficiently as young athletes.
Owen Beck, one of the study’s coworkers, says the results have massive implications for how we understand both aging and fitness.
He added in a press release,
It was surprising to find that older adults who regularly run for exercise are better walkers than older adults who regularly walk for exercise.
The take-home message of the study is that consistently running for exercise seems to slow down the aging process and allows older individuals to move more easily, improving their independence and quality of life.
Rodger Kram, another of the study’s authors, believes the discovery may be due to fact that people who exercise regularly with a certain degree of intensity have more mitochondria, which create energy to power the muscles.
Going forward, he hopes to research his theory more closely.
