Gymnastics for the Elderly: Which Exercises?

- and more precisely which exercises could be considered "most important" for the elderly.

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This is a bodily and mental physiological decline that actually begins in early adulthood. Obviously, it is impossible to understand how each of us is really predisposed to aging. Although in Italy a limit of 65 years has been set for the beginning of the so-called third age, several people show an advance or a delay more or less significant.

To estimate the aging process, which can however proceed in a different way between tissues, organs and functions, it is certainly necessary to consider the current age, but also the previous condition. For clarity, it is useless to take as a reference the loss of vision if the subject in question has had this problem since childhood. The same is true for cognitive functions, such as memory, or for the expression of muscle strength, or for some uncomfortable osteo-articular conditions.

Of course, it is undeniable that a significant decline in physical performance, which usually occurs due to immobility and an unbalanced diet, will also be followed faster by a mental decline and vice versa. So, to "age well" you need to keep your body as well trained as your mind.

of the elderly person has a lower ability to proteasynthesis which, in the long term, penalizes trophism; this substantially determines a worsening loss of strength, which affects the overall functionality of the organism - since moving little, also worsens the density bone, breathing and blood circulation. We emphasize once again that motor activity also has a significant impact on cognitive potential; research shows that more active seniors are also mentally more lucid and self-sufficient;

Second, the unbalanced diet. A "diet lacking in essential amino acids (AAE), contained in the high biological value proteins (VB) of eggs, milk and derivatives, meat and fish, does not support muscle proteosynthesis. Not only that: also a lack of total calories it worsens the maintenance of muscle trophism. This is because in the absence of carbohydrates and fats, the body tends to consume amino acids.

Note: the use of amino acids by the body for energy purposes takes place on several fronts. The so-called neoglucogenetics are converted by the liver into glucose, with the aim of stabilizing the glycaemia. The muscle is instead capable of directly using the branched-chain ones (BCAA), without having to make use of the hepatic process of neoglucogenesis (mentioned above).