Aging is an inevitable process, but the way we age can vary greatly depending on lifestyle, genetics, and environmental factors. One of the most crucial elements in promoting healthy aging is maintaining lean mass—particularly muscle and bone. As we age, our bodies naturally lose muscle mass and bone density, a process known as sarcopenia and osteoporosis, respectively. However, through proper nutrition, regular physical activity, and lifestyle adjustments, we can slow down these processes, preserve lean mass, and support a higher quality of life well into our later years.
When we hear the phrase “being lean”, we often associate it with being thin. However, in anatomical terms lean tissue refers to all tissue that is not fat, including muscle, bone, water, and our vital organs (heart, kidneys, liver, etc.). Of these, muscle mass plays a particularly significant role in overall health with age. Muscles are essential for many health reasons beyond movement and physical strength, though these are obviously very important as well. One thing we are very passionate about here at ChiroFitt is helping the people of our community to a more active and healthier quality of life. One of the most important ways that we can continue to maintain an active and healthy lifestyle is maintaining muscle mass as we age.
There are many health benefits to maintaining muscle mass throughout our lives. Resistance training is a vital component to maintaining muscle mass as it provides the proper stress to help maintain and build our muscle. To maintain and build muscle, we need to consistently provide a resistance or load to the tissue to provide the stimulus necessary for this biological process to occur. This becomes extremely important as we age as we lose three (3) to ten (10) percent of our lean mass for every decade after the age of 30!
Acceptable lean mass percentage varies by gender and age. It is important to note that some fat mass is absolutely essential for helping us to store energy, regulate hormones, insulate organs, and regulate cholesterol. However, excess fat mass can have significant health risks including increasing our risk for heart disease, diabetes, and cancer among others. For women, an acceptable range of lean mass is 69-75% (in other words, body fat of 25-31%), with a more optimal range being 76-79% lean mass (21-24% body fat). For men, an acceptable range of lean mass is 76-82% (18-24% body fat), with a more optimal range being 83-86% (14-17% body fat). As we age these numbers will increase slightly, as shown below:
Ideal Body Fat for Women by Age:
| Age | Percentage |
| 20-49 | 21-32% |
| 40-59 | 23-33% |
| 60-79 | 24-35% |
Ideal Body Fat for Men
| Age | Percentage |
| 20-49 | 8-19% |
| 40-59 | 11-21% |
| 60-79 | 13-24% |
The Importance of Maintaining Muscle Mass with Aging
As previously discussed, there are a number of physiological benefits to maintaining lean mass as we age, let’s review:
Blood Sugar Control
Maintaining healthy blood sugar levels is crucial for overall health, particularly in preventing and managing conditions like type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity. While diet and lifestyle are often the focus of blood sugar control, one key factor that sometimes receives less attention is lean mass. Muscle plays a significant role in regulating blood sugar levels and improving metabolic health.
Muscles are the primary sites for glucose uptake in response to insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar levels. In fact, the only two places in our body that are able to store glucose are our muscles and our liver. Glucose is the form of sugar that gets into our bloodstream from the breakdown of carbohydrates. Insulin facilitates the uptake of glucose into cells, particularly muscle cells, where it can be used for energy or stored as glycogen. The more muscle mass you have, the more glucose your body can store, which helps to keep blood sugar levels stable and prevents spikes. In other words, having more muscle increases the amount of blood sugar that we are able to store. This is very important as once our glucose stores in our muscles and liver are full, excess glucose will increase our blood sugar and will also get converted into and stored as fat, which can have significant health impacts, which we will discuss a little later.
In addition, increased muscle mass reduces our risk of insulin resistance (which is highly associated with type 2 diabetes) Insulin sensitivity refers to how effectively the body’s cells respond to insulin. Higher insulin sensitivity means that the body requires less insulin to lower blood sugar levels. Lean mass, particularly muscle, enhances insulin sensitivity because muscle cells have a high number of insulin receptors. This allows for more efficient glucose uptake and use. Conversely, a loss of muscle mass can lead to decreased insulin sensitivity, a condition known as insulin resistance, which is a key factor in the development of type 2 diabetes.
Resistance exercise can also help to reduce blood sugar in the short term while exercising as muscle cells are able to take up glucose without insulin when they contract during exercise. This can help to lower our relative blood sugar as we are able to utilize more blood sugar during resistance training.
As we can see there are many benefits to lowering our blood sugar through resistance training with maintaining and improving our muscle (lean) mass. Let’s move on to the next benefit of maintaining muscle mass, improving our basal metabolic rate.
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
Lean mass is a major determinant of your basal metabolic rate, which is the number of calories your body needs to maintain basic physiological functions at rest. Muscle tissue is metabolically active and requires more energy to maintain than fat tissue. By increasing your lean mass, you boost your BMR, which means you burn more calories even at rest. This higher energy expenditure helps to regulate body weight and reduce the risk of obesity, a significant risk factor for insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Maintaining lean body mass is one of the best ways for us to maintain a healthy body weight. The increase of BMR allows us to have a greater cushion for intaking calories reducing our potential for weight gain.
Preservation of Mobility and Independence
As we age, maintaining muscle mass becomes increasingly important for preserving mobility and independence. Muscle strength is directly correlated with the ability to perform daily activities, such as walking, climbing stairs, and carrying groceries. A reduction in muscle mass can lead to frailty, increasing the risk of falls and fractures, which are major causes of disability among older adults. The combination of the ability for maintaining muscle mass as we age improving our ability to be safer with daily activities of walking, climbing, and carrying along with maintaining bone health is a huge benefit as we age as it significantly reduces our potential for falls and fractures, which can be a true-life saver!
Bone Health
Lean mass is also vital for bone health. Muscles exert force on bones during physical activity, which stimulates bone formation and helps maintain bone density. Weight-bearing exercises, such as walking, running, and resistance training, are particularly effective at promoting bone health. By preserving muscle mass, we also help protect against osteoporosis, a condition defined by the loss of bone mineral density that increases our risk to fractures. In fact, resistance training is the best-known therapy to help in the prevention of osteoporosis.
Cognitive Function
Emerging research suggests a link between muscle mass and cognitive function. Regular physical activity, especially exercises that build muscle, has been shown to enhance brain health by improving blood flow, reducing inflammation, and promoting the release of growth factors that support neural health. Additionally, muscle mass may have a protective effect against neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.
As we can see there are significant benefits to maintaining lean mass as we age. This one factor can significantly lower our risk to many potential health complications including diabetes, osteoporosis, hip fractures, and can improve our mental health and lower our risk factor to conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. Given all of the benefits of maintaining lean mass there may not be a more important factor to maintaining our health, quality of life, and longevity with aging.
So, let’s discuss some of the strategies important to preserving, maintaining, and improving lean mass with age.
Strategies to Preserve, Maintain, and Improve Lean Mass
Resistance Training
As we have discussed throughout this post, resistance training is the most important factor in maintaining and improving lean mass as we age. Engaging in regular resistance training, such as weight training is one of the most effective ways to maintain and build muscle mass. These exercises should target all major muscle groups and be performed at least two to three times a week. It is always important to have a proper assessment completed prior to beginning any resistance training program to determine safety to beginning this type of program.
Resistance training itself has been shown to have significant health benefits in addition to building muscle. Resistance training helps lower our risk to type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, heart disease, depression, and anxiety.
An evaluation should include how well you can move and control your motion along with understanding a proper amount of resistance to begin a weight training program. If you have never worked with resistance training or have a limited knowledge of weight training, it is also strongly recommended that you consider working with a knowledge professional such as a fitness trainer or strength coach.
Adequate Protein Intake
Protein is essential for muscle repair and growth. As we age, our bodies require more protein to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. In fact, beyond the age of 40 protein is our primary stimulus for muscle protein synthesis. This results from the anabolic (muscle building) effects from hormones (testosterone in men, and estrogen and testosterone in women) decreasing with age.
Older adults should aim to consume a minimum of 1.0 to 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day (with more optimal amounts being closer to .8 to 1 gram per pound of bodyweight). In addition to focusing on these amounts as general rules for total daily protein intake, we should also consume 30 to 50 grams of protein per meal to help with building lean mass. It is also important that we focus on proteins that are complete. Protein is broken down and utilized by our body as amino acids. There are 20 amino acids that are utilized by our body to help with performing bodily functions. In addition to helping to build muscle, amino acids from protein are also responsible for repairing other body tissues, such as our organs and other connective tissues (skin, ligaments, tendons, etc.), assisting with hormone production, providing an energy source (though carbohydrates and fat are our preferred energy sources), and boosting our immune system. Of the 20 amino acids that we use, 9 of these are essential meaning that we must get them from foods. The other 11 amino acids are non-essential meaning that our body has the ability to process them without food. Research shows that the essential amino acid, leucine, is the most important of all the amino acids to facilitate muscle protein synthesis. However, it is important that we do not isolate amino acids in our diet and consume foods that are complete sources of protein.
The best sources of protein come from animal sources as they are more complete forms of protein that contain the complete amino acid profile. However, there are great sources of protein that are plant-based, however we typically need to consume more of these forms of protein to receive adequate amounts and we need to understand how to complement proteins when consuming only plant-based forms to ensure that we are receiving adequate amounts of all of the essential amino acids. Our best option is to try and focus on high-quality protein sources like lean meats, fish, eggs, dairy, legumes, and plant-based proteins.
Nutritional Balance
In addition to protein, a balanced diet rich in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants is crucial for maintaining lean mass. Calcium and vitamin D are particularly important for bone health, while omega-3 fatty acids have anti-inflammatory properties that can support muscle maintenance.
Adequate Rest and Recovery
Muscle growth and repair occur during rest, making adequate sleep and recovery time essential for maintaining lean mass. Chronic stress and inadequate sleep can lead to hormonal imbalances that promote muscle loss and increase the risk of insulin resistance. Prioritizing rest and managing stress through techniques like meditation, yoga, or deep breathing can support both lean mass and blood sugar regulation.
So now that we have reviewed many of the factors that can positively influence maintaining and improving lean mass, let’s discuss some of the factors that can have potential negative effects on our ability to maintain muscle mass or even further accelerate muscle loss as we age.
Factors That Can Increase the Loss of Lean Mass
Obviously given the factors above any lack of these factors can result in a negative effect on maintaining muscle mass, such as lack of resistance training, inadequate protein intake, and inadequate rest and recovery. In addition, there are other factors that can negatively effect and increase the potential loss of lean mass, including:
Insufficient Caloric Intake
Even with adequate protein, if overall caloric intake is too low, the body may break down muscle tissue for energy, especially during periods of weight loss or restrictive dieting. Maintaining a balanced caloric intake that supports both daily activities and muscle maintenance is crucial. A well-rounded diet ensures that the body has enough energy to preserve lean mass while meeting other metabolic needs.
This is one of the main potential concerns for many of the current weight loss drugs on the market, known as GLP-1 inhibitors (aka Semaglutide). These drugs restrict hunger signals and diminish appetite along with slowing down gastric motility (movement of our stomach and intestinal tract). As a result, these medications are effective at helping patients lose weight as a result of patient’s eating less and restricting calories. This often results in insufficient caloric intake, which forces the body to have to break down muscle tissue and lose muscle mass to help maintain adequate levels of amino acids for bodily function. In other words, the body will literally digest itself for nutrition and in doing so we surrender and lose muscle mass. It is extremely important that if you or someone you know is on these medications, that they are maintaining adequate protein intake while taking these medications to help reduce this effect.
Overconsumption of Carbohydrates and Sugar
In stating this point, I want to make clear that carbohydrates are not the “bad” guy. We absolutely need carbohydrates for many purposes, especially for energy and to maintain proper metabolism. However, the standard American diet (SAD) lends itself to excess carbohydrate intake due to the consumption of highly processed foods including cakes, cookies, chips, ice cream, bread, pasta; just to name a few. Again, these foods are not “bad” and should be enjoyed on occasion, birthdays would not be the same without blowing your candles out and enjoying some cake (and perhaps a little ice cream to go with the cake). However, we tend to make these foods a staple of our everyday diet, which can have detrimental effects, especially on our body composition.
As we previously discussed, the only tissues in our body that store glucose (which is the storage form of carbohydrates, similar to the relationship of amino acids to protein) are the muscles and the liver. On average, we have the ability to store approximately 400g of glucose between the muscles and the liver (glucose is actually converted into and stored as glycogen in the muscles and the liver).
Consuming excess carbohydrates on a more consistent basis can have detrimental consequences to our muscle tissue as excess carbohydrates can be converted into and stored as fat. This form of fat (which is converted from excess carbohydrates) is stored throughout our body, which increases our overall percentage of fat mass. In addition, one of the primary areas where this fat is stored is in our muscle cells, resulting in infiltration of fatty tissue into our muscle cells, which reduces are overall lean mass and decreases the overall function and contractility of our muscles, which can lead to loss of muscle strength and weakness.
Chronic Stress
Chronic stress elevates cortisol levels, a hormone that, in excess, can lead to muscle breakdown and impede muscle recovery. Prolonged high-stress levels can therefore negatively impact muscle mass. Effective stress management techniques, such as exercise, mindfulness, adequate sleep, and relaxation practices, can help mitigate the detrimental effects of stress on lean muscle.
Inadequate Hydration
Water plays a crucial role in muscle function and recovery. Dehydration can impair muscle performance, recovery, and overall health. Ensuring adequate hydration supports optimal muscle function and helps prevent cramping and fatigue, which can indirectly affect the ability to maintain lean mass.
Nutrient Deficiencies
Deficiencies in essential vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin D, calcium, and magnesium, can affect muscle function and recovery. These nutrients are vital for maintaining muscle strength and overall health. A balanced diet rich in diverse nutrients can help prevent deficiencies and support lean mass maintenance.
Overtraining
While regular exercise is beneficial, excessive training without adequate recovery can lead to overtraining syndrome. This condition can result in fatigue, decreased performance, and muscle loss. Balancing workout intensity with proper rest and recovery is crucial for maintaining lean muscle mass and overall well-being. Yes, just like anything else we can overconsume exercise, which can cause a net loss of muscle tissue. However, this is far rarer than lack of exercise. Performing resistance-based training 2-4 days a week can be very effective in helping to maintain and build lean muscle mass.
Conclusion
Maintaining lean muscle mass requires a comprehensive approach that addresses exercise, diet, stress management, and overall lifestyle. By understanding and mitigating the factors that positively and negatively impact muscle retention, individuals can better support their muscle health and overall well-being. Prioritizing adequate nutrition, regular exercise, and effective stress and sleep management can help in achieving and sustaining optimal lean muscle mass.
Given all the benefits of maintaining lean mass, it can be argued that there may be no single factor more important to our overall well-being as we age. Maintaining and/or improving our muscle mass is truly a key to our longevity and our fountain of youth!
If you are interested learning more about how we can help you maintain and improve your lean mass, sign up for our No Stress Fitness Strategy Session or our First Step Nutritional Coaching Strategy Session for a no-obligation way to learn more about how we may be able to help.
…Till Next Time!
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