It’s not uncommon to find men and women of retirement age frequenting health clubs these days. I give a lot of credit to these folks – lengthening their health by lengthening their strides. But unfortunately, for so many elderly men and women, their ability to exercise precedes them due to bad knees, arthritic joints, sore backs and many other painful side effects that accompany the aging process. Can anything be done to avoid such scenarios? While aging can’t be avoided, researchers say a combination of light resistance training and nutritional supplementing helps older people maintain their active lifestyle.

Of course, this finding isn’t exactly revelatory – it’s what natural health professionals and the health world in general have been advocating for many years now. But many mistakenly believe that to get any benefit out of exercise, one needs to exercise to exhaustion; no pain, no gain, as it were. Exercising to exhaustion has its place among some people – professional bodybuilders, for instance – but those 65 years of age and older, light resistance as opposed to heavy resistance training is considered the best bet for maximum health benefit.

To uncover what methods work best in prolonging older people’s ability to remain active, researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University studied 60 men and women, all 65 years of age or older and active. They then split the two groups, and each group underwent a 12-week routine of heavy-resistance training twice a week or light-resistance training once a week. In addition, some of the participants from each group consumed carbohydrate and protein supplements before and after their workout routines.

What the researchers found was that while both groups added lean muscle tissue, those who both supplemented and trained with low-resistance exercise fared best in overall health statistics. The researchers’ findings were presented in greater detail at the British Association’s Festival of Science on September 11th.

“Though we still need to assess precisely what level of exercise gives the best results, we believe we’ve shown that regular low resistance exercise complemented by the right nutritional supplements could boost the well being of the U.K.’s aging population,” said the study’s lead researcher, Dr. Gladys Pearson.

Again, this is not rocket science, but it does underscore what nutritionists and personal trainers have long been advocating: that to get the best bang for your buck, (1) it’s better to practice better form than to max out too heavily with weights (i.e. low-resistance) and (2) that proper nutrition before and after exercise is essential if one wants to take full advantage of their hard earned weight training efforts. And as this study indicates, older people are no exception to this maxim. The muscles are primed for nutrition immediately following exercise, and it’s important to fuel those muscles with the carbohydrates and protein supplements provide so they can build back up after being broken down.

There are many great organic supplements from which to choose. Remember, just because you’re not training to be the next Mr. Olympia doesn’t mean you don’t have to supplement. Supplementing is an important part of any exerciser’s diet…particularly if one wants to maintain their activity levels later in life.