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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Discover About Immune System Health Over Fifty and Weight Training

By Scott Fisher

You may have recently noticed you are taking more sick days. You probably are contracting colds and the flu more easily these days than when you were younger. It also may be taking you longer to recover these days.

Actually, most people over 50 are likely to catch 2 to 4 more colds each year than women and men in between 20 and 40. Colds and the flu often escalate into sinusitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, or worse. More than 60% of the 36,000 annual flu related deaths are seniors. The inaccurate formulas, long waits, and shortages mean that you cannot always rely on a vaccine for protection.

If you do not want to become one of these statistics, it is important that you boost your immune system. Fitness over 50 is one of the best natural ways to improve your immune health. In fact, many fitness experts recommend bodybuilding as a method to improve your overall health and increase your immune system.

Bodybuilding increases your muscles which boosts your immune system in several ways. Muscles burn more calories than fat which prevents weight gain. Doctors have learned that people who are overweight commonly have poor immune health and get sick more frequently. Bodybuilding improves your entire cardiovascular system, strengthens your heart and lungs, and thickens blood vessel walls. This means your antibodies and nutrients travel easily throughout your body to fight infections, colds, flu, and other ailments. This means that you can better resist illnesses and recover more quickly.

Rest is an essential part of bodybuilding over 50 and boosting your immune system. There are opponents to bodybuilding who claim that it hurts your immune system. However, it is really overtraining that can hurt your immune system, as well as the rest of your body. Those who perform high intensity training in shorter cycles do not allow time for proper rest. They typically get sick more frequently and have longer healing times. This is because their short rest period forces the body to repair muscle and ignore the immune system.

Bodybuilders using low intensity training have the opposite experience and substantially decrease their number of sick days each year. This is because their training schedule allows for both muscle improvement and total body renewal, including your immune system. When you get older, you require more time for rest and renewal. It is ideal for you to have a longer training cycle that includes one day of rest to each day of training.

Your diet should also compliment your bodybuilding and increase your immune health. A diet rich in proteins and complex carbohydrates is a good choice. You also need to get plenty of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals in your diet or through supplements to boost your health during training.

No one can completely prevent ever catching a cold or flu. You can control how often you get sick and your recovery time. These illnesses can have serious repercussions for people over 50. If you want to stay well through the next cold and flu season then you need to focus on fitness now. - 17273

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