Erin O'Hara: Naturopath and wellness expert on maintaining muscle mass as we age

New research has found strength training may be the key to living a longer, healthier life.

Strength training can benefit anyone and help people fight off the impacts of sarcopenia - and the associated health issues. 

Naturopath and wellness expert Erin O'Hara unveils her recommended strength training techniques for people of all ages. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Aaron O'Hara Natropath joins me now in our wellness segment.
Good morning, Good morning. You're talking about something which actually
I'm really passionate about strength training and how that we
can build a healthier body regardless of what age we're at.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Absolutely, and I think people quite often think strength building
of people who want to kind of get into bodybuilding,
but actually strength training is for anyone. And it's interesting
with muscle mass and strength. Actually steading increases from birth,
and we actually peak at our strength around thirty five,
between thirty and thirty five, and then from thirty five

(00:50):
on winds.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
This is the same for women and men.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
It is sort of similar, and then it starts to
gradually decline, and we see most decline from sort of
sixty onwards. However, it's not all like lose it or
use it or lose it. Actually we can do a
lot forward keeping our strength, and it's not that we
will just naturally decline and we'll get weaker and weaker.

(01:13):
If we actually do move our bodies and do some
strength training. It has such a positive effect on creating
a healthier body, so we don't lose as much muscle
mass as we age, and it can cycopenia is a
really common thing. So cycopenia is when we lose muscle mass,
strength and function as we age, and that actually increases

(01:36):
your risks and things like falls, fractures, hospitalization, and actually
independence as we age. So it's really important that we
don't just allow ourselves to get weaker and weaker as
we age because it will affect your quality of life.
And so studies show that actually thirty percent of adults
over the age of seventy will have a decline in

(01:58):
their strength that will affect their walking ability, getting up
out of a chair and just simple tasks like that
and walking upstairs. So if we do things to keep
our strength, it will definitely improve our quality of life
and our life extension as well.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
And it's something that you can do erin at any stage.
If you think to yourself, oh, I'm sixty five or seventeen,
I've never lifted a weight in your life, you can
go to the pantry and get a couple of tins
of food and start doing exercises with those like it's
something that we can all actually pack up and do
at any point in time. You don't necessarily even need
to go to a gym.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Absolutely, and it's never too late to start, and you
actually can start really simply. There was a really interesting
study done on people just using simple weight bearing exercise
twice a week, so not excessive, and they showed a
massive improvement in a little ten week window. So even
if you keep it simple, don't have to kind of

(02:53):
go to the gym and do weights every single day,
but do something that is something you're going to be
able to achieve. And it could be something that is
simple as doing things at home, which might be things
like squats, some press ups, getting up and down out
of a chair, simple task up and down that's really
like a scoat but sitting down at the bottom, or

(03:15):
maybe getting yourself some resistance bands which are kind of
like rubber bands, and then you can progressively increase the
strength of the rubber band to increase your strength and
your physical body. And that was another interesting part is
as we're building up our strength, we actually need to
also progressively bring in heavier weights and that will keep

(03:37):
building our strength if we just keep doing the same
routine or actually just plaateau. So we want to be
continually increasing that resistance and that will help to keep
our strength, keep our muscle mass, and that's going to
be so beneficial as we age, keeping our bodies super
healthy so we can do all the things that we
love to do and keep a nice, strong, healthy body.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
And nutrition is going to play a part in this absolutely.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
And I think that as we age sometimes we think
that we don't need as much food or we don't
need as much protein, but actually it's the reverse. As
we age, we need more protein. So actually somebody who's
in their late sixties actually needs more protein than somebody
who's maybe, like you know, mid twenties, because you need
that protein to help with muscle repair. If you're doing

(04:27):
all the strength training and not getting the right nutrition in,
you're not going to get the right recovery for rebuilding
and rebonding those muscle repairs of the fibers, and then
you won't get the same strength. So making sure you're
getting protein at each meal, and it doesn't mean you
need to live on protein shakes, but instead you can
just eat more protein rich food, which could be eggs,

(04:49):
could be meat. Meat is super high in protein, whether
it's meat, fish, chicken, sardines, you know, anything that has
that high protein food as well as your plant based proteins,
which might be beans, lentils, in amami, beans, bringing those
in to your food and bring it in at each
meal and that'll help you maybe get enough across the

(05:11):
day through just dividing it into each meal and also
just working into what your weight is. I'd usually based
on a minimum for protein of one gram of protein
per one kilo of body weight, but actually more you
could even go up to two grams of protein per
kilo of body weight, and that'll make sure you're getting
enough protein and to actually help support that repair.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Thank you so much, erin this is something I'm quite
passionate about. We've done a couple of episodes in this
on the Little Things. Doctor Stacy Simms did a fantastic
podcast with us and our first series absolutely worth listening to,
and personal trainer Kyra Seller will talk you through how
you can kick into this and start this at home.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio,