It's Never Too Late for Older Adults to Build Muscle, Study Finds

A study in Frontiers in Physiology by the University of Birmingham in Britain found older adults with little past exercise training can still build muscle through resistance exercises, reports Safety and Health Magazine . The researchers compared eight "untrained older male" participants between 60 and 80 to seven "male master endurance athletes" in the same age range who trained more than twice annually for at least the previous 20 years. Both cohorts performed weight training using an exercise machine, and were given isotope tracers to characterize protein growth, in addition to undergoing muscle biopsies 48 hours before and after training. Surprisingly, "both groups had an equal capacity to build muscle in response to exercise," according to the university. "Our study clearly shows that it doesn't matter if you haven't been a regular exerciser throughout your life, you can still derive benefit from exercise whenever you start," said Birmingham's Leigh Breen. "Obviously a long-term commitment to good health and exercise is the best approach to achieve whole-body health, but even starting later on in life will help delay age-related frailty and muscle weakness."