PT Personal Trainers

BODYBUILDING IN ELDERLY PEOPLE AND THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS FOR BALANCE

Aging is a natural and common process for any human being and, with it, there are functional and structural changes in the body that can have negative impacts on the mechanisms responsible for body balance, one of the most frequent problems in the elderly (Rossi et al., 2005) .
In order to delay these effects, it is necessary to strengthen the muscles responsible for movement, and balance is directly related to joint mobility and strength. In this line, based on a study by Edmila Pedro and Danielle Amorim, it was possible to verify that elderly people who do weight training are able to intervene positively in the decline of the mentioned physical valences.
The frequent falls that some elderly people suffer are justified by their inability to compensate for changes in systems related to balance, so it is essential that they resort to physical exercise in order to recover the quality of mobility. Events like this can have a great impact on autonomy, and, as a result of frequent loss of balance and falls, the elderly choose to protect themselves from the moments when it is necessary to walk or even get up, in order to avoid associated pain and suffering.
In this sense, a good quality of life requires functional independence, which will emerge as a direct result of the practice of physical activity. It is concluded, therefore, that age, often considered an impasse to the practice of exercise, should bring awareness of the need to combat physical declines proper to human development.

Duarte Encarnação