Martica Heaner, Meet Jeannine Stein

Yesterday, I wrote an extended post about MSN.com exercise “expert” Martica Heaner…and how she punted on a reader question on whether an “older body” could get “lean and hard.”  She used the question as a springboard to discuss the effects of exercise on aging (good), but utterly failed to seriously address the reader’s actual concern.  So I filled in the blanks for her.

Lo and behold, I encountered a virtually identical, “fitness Q & A” scenario on a visit to the LA Times this morning. 

Occasionally we get letters from readers asking for fitness advice. A 60-year-old man recently wrote:

“I keep to a stringent exercise regimen, with weight training every other day and aerobics on a treadmill every day. I also eat well, keeping my weight close to what it was when I was 18. However, whatever I do and regardless of how hard I work out, I am unable to tighten the skin in the midsection (for six-pack abs). Can you tell me if this is just age, or if there is something else I can do?”

The words may be different, but it’s the same basic concern…in each case, the questioner was an older person who exercised and ate right, but wasn’t entirely happy with his/her body, and wanted to know what – if anything – they could do to improve how they looked.

So what’s the difference between the two articles?  It’s that – unlike Heaner – the author of the LAT piece, Jeannine Stein, actually addressed the question and provided a substantive and useful answer.

Let’s dispense with the bad news first — the stuff you can’t do much about. Some of that sagging may be loss of skin elasticity due to the normal aging process, the same process that makes our faces wrinkle. Loose skin can also be chalked up to genes, and if that’s the case, please feel free to blame your parents. But blame yourself if you’ve spent copious time in the sun, since that can prematurely age skin, making it head south.

Now for the things you can change.

We spoke with Pete McCall, an exercise physiologist with the San Diego-based American Council on Exercise, who suggests examining diet first.

This reader said that he eats well, but how that diet breaks down is important. He should include some good fats in that diet, because they contribute to skin health, fueling production of collagen, a protein found in the connective tissue that helps keeps the skin smooth, taut and wrinkle-free. Good sources of polyunsaturated and mono-unsaturated fats are avocados, nuts, seeds and olive oil.

As for workouts, McCall says those may need some tweaking as well. The same strength-training workouts week in and week out may not be taxing the musculoskeletal system and thus may not be building new muscle. That’s especially important as we age, because starting around age 40, men lose about 1% of their muscle mass a year.

“Doing more intense weights and explosive training will help the body create more testosterone, which produces muscle growth,” McCall says. “That could help fill out the skin and create that tightness. If you’re just lifting the same weight every time, you’re not stimulating any muscle development.”