If your New Year’s resolutions include exercising more, an Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientist has three words of advice.
“Give yourself grace,” said Zach Hettinger, Ph.D., a muscle biologist in OMRF’s Aging and Metabolism Research Program. “The main reason so many people give up on their fitness plan is that they set unrealistic expectations for themselves and feel deflated when they don’t fully meet them.”
Almost without fail, when Americans are polled about their New Year’s resolutions, starting a workout routine is the top response, followed closely by eating a healthier diet and saving more money.
However, those good intentions typically don’t last. Forbes Health asked 1,000 Americans in October 2023 about the resolutions they’d made 10 months earlier. The average “give-up” date: April 22.
That may help explain this statistic from a 2020 survey by another research firm: 59% of adults under age 35 said they’d made a resolution, compared to 19% of those 55 and over. Perhaps the latter group has simply grown weary of failing at previous resolutions.
And yet, older adults are precisely who Hettinger encourages to stay committed to exercise. His lab studies the cumulative effects of a sedentary lifestyle on skeletal muscle.
Molecular function within our muscle and organs responds differently to exercise for each person, especially as we age. Better understanding those differences is the main point of a five-year OMRF study involving older people, said Sue Bodine, Ph.D., one of two OMRF scientists helping oversee the study.
“If we can determine why someone isn’t responding to a particular exercise protocol, perhaps we can tailor it to meet their specific needs,” Bodine said.
The study seeks healthy people age 60 and over who currently exercise less than twice a week. Participation requires a 22-week commitment to rigorous, thrice-weekly workouts in OMRF’s fitness center. It includes a free personal trainer, regular metabolic blood panels and tests to determine changes in body composition, muscle mass, cardiovascular stamina and cognitive ability.
Learn more about it at omrf.org/ExerciseStudy.
Above all, Hettinger stressed, it’s important to set realistic goals — and then be prepared to cut ourselves some slack when life inevitably interferes with those plans.
“We all stumble,” he said. “What matters is that we dust ourselves off and keep going when that happens.”
