Few of us escape this discovery: the older we get, the weaker our muscles seem to be. Long-time agebuzz readers will remember that sarcopenia (the progressive loss of skeletal muscle) can leave you frail and dependent, and at greater risk for falls and other life-limiting conditions. So the key is to maintain or even enhance your strength and muscle mass through strength training and resistance training, which involves moving your limbs against resistance, often provided by free weights, machines or resistance bands. In fact, a new statement from the National Strength and Conditioning Association makes this clear: resistance training is vital to maintaining and improving the health and longevity of older adults. For more insights, stretch that band and take a look here.

As writer John Bianchi describes in a recent piece in Medium, while it’s not inevitable that you become weaker or frail as you get older, there’s no getting around the biology that you lose muscle mass for each decade after age 30, so that by the time you hit 70 you may have already lost 25% of your muscle mass unless you work to prevent that. A self-described couch potato until age 57, Bianchi describes his own revitalization once he committed to a strength-training routine. So grab a free weight and read more here.

And the evidence continues to mount that it’s not just physical strength that improves with strength and resistance training, but your heart and mind may benefit as well. A recent Iowa State University study found that weight lifting for as little as one hour per week could reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke by over 40%. And beyond your heart, your brain may benefit as well. A recent study of rats profiled in The New York Times found that the brains of rats showed signs of renewal once they had been put through a weight-training regimen. While the study was only of rat brains, researcher Taylor Kelty stated, “resistance training appears to be neuroprotective.” So boost your brain, pump up your muscles and read more here.