Good fitness is important at any age, but for sure with natural aging it is increasingly difficult to achieve good results and develop muscles. That is why it is increasingly important to understand how to tone the body at 50.
During adolescence, every physical activity seems simpler and more immediate, at 25 you are at the peak of your athletic potential and in the following decades you are still able to maintain a good training pace. Then what nature dictates happens.
The body shows signs of fatigue and tiredness. But is this really the reason? Is the fault of one's life cycle or does the loss of muscle tone, with relative increase in fat mass, also concern habits? How to tone the body at 50? Let's find out together by first analyzing the reasons for the related problems.
What causes loss of muscle tone?
Why do we lose muscle mass and gain weight after a certain age? The motivations are different and can also change a lot based on the genetics of the individual. In any case, there are some common points that we can find.
Sarcopenia
The main cause is a process called sarcopenia, which is the physiological loss of muscle mass and strength due to aging.
It is an inevitable and physiological process that begins to manifest itself after the age of 40 and becomes pressing at 60. The symptoms include a sense of weakness and the progressive abandonment of physical abilities and there is no cure. But there are methods to slow down and mitigate the effects: exercise, diet, healthy daily habits.
Hydration
Often one of the causes that contribute to losing mass and wondering how to tone muscles at 50 is precisely dehydration. You have to drink a lot to keep your muscle structure unchanged (and more generally to feel good).
Injuries
The older you get, the greater your tendency to get injured. As a result there is a risk of spending several months, if not years, in a state of sedentary lifestyle. This can lead to a loss of muscle tone which, at 50, becomes difficult to recover.
Lifestyle
Secondly, there are reasons that concern lifestyle: we stay at home, we move less, we become couch potatoes. A little out of necessity, the daily commitments do not leave great freedom and a little out of laziness or lack of motivation. Commitment is missing.
But as time goes by, toning up a flabby body at 50 becomes increasingly difficult. Especially if we add other bad habits to the sedentary lifestyle such as a qualitatively poor sleep and a wrong diet, perhaps rich in salt or fat.
Whether it is hypo or hypercaloric, the problem is clear: sometimes, after a certain age, you eat badly. And this leads to feeling the need to tone up the body quickly at 50 years old.
How to tone your body at 50
Training to develop muscle so as to tone it at its best, even with an exercise program to be done at home, means focusing on specific exercises.
It is necessary to follow a line based on a constant commitment over time, incisive enough to bring results but adequate to the needs and possibilities. Especially if in addition to firming and toning you want to develop muscles at 50. The meeting point?
Overdoing it means aiming for injuries that are also difficult to recover from, on the other hand not trying hard enough means reaping few results. Which only come if other factors are combined: good nutrition, hydration, rest, no smoking and alcohol.
Exercises to tone your arms and chest
One of the body's weak points as you get older: bat-winged (or chicken-winged) arms. The flabby skin and droopy muscle cause that unsightly effect at the height of the triceps. What are the exercises to firm up the arms?
If you want to isolate the arm muscles, you can get some dumbbells, even with a light weight, to perform two basic exercises: overhead extensions for the triceps and curls for the biceps.
The first one must be performed with precision and little weight, with the second one you can dare to gain a few extra kilos. In any case, you must aim for a precise execution and not spoiled by the desire to add a few extra kilos: better little weight and clean execution.
But we also need to work on the entire structure of the arm and shoulder, so it can be helpful to start with dips that have your feet on the floor and your hands on a chair.
By lowering the pelvis downwards and raising the body with the strength of the triceps and deltoid we firm this area in a coordinated and effective way. The elbow comes to form an angle of 90 degrees, rise slowly and continue with a maximum of 10 repetitions for three sets. Then there is the possibility of focusing attention on push-ups.
This exercise is perfect for firming the pectorals and is one of the basic activities for developing body strength. You can work with different widths: a medium position acts on the pecs and arms but also shoulders while if you clasp your hands focus on the triceps. If this exercise is too heavy you can rest your knees on the ground.
Exercises to firm your abs and legs
The core, the central part of the body, must always be present in your functional training plan at 50 years old. You can definitely activate your legs with:
- Squat
- Lateral lunges
- Front lunges
- Deadlifts
These exercises can also be done without equipment except for the deadlift which requires a minimum amount of weight to allow the exercise to activate the muscles of the legs and the core of the body. These exercises can be accompanied with a good set of abdominal exercises such as crunches and planks.
Is this enough to tone your body at 50?
No, of course you also need a particularly careful diet. For this reason, the basic advice is always the same: be followed by a nutritionist and a personal trainer to organize the work in order to avoid physical and nutritional problems.
Also remembering that there are several food supplements that allow you to make your diet more effective like products for protein pancakes and for facilitate drainage.
Image credits:
Woman on a bicycle. Image by Pexels from Pixabay
