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A systemic effect or limited to the exercised muscles?

Posted by TimBoyd on 26 May 2007 at 03:44 GMT

This is of great interest in designed an exercise regime to combat the effects of the aging process, as opposed to improving performance in certain lifts.
If there is a systemic effect, all-over anti-ageing gains are made by exercising the large muscle groups only. If the gains are only in the specific muscles exercised, a different program design is necessary, to exercise all significant muscles in the body.
Any thoughts?
Tim Boyd

RE: A systemic effect or limited to the exercised muscles?

tarnopol replied to TimBoyd on 27 May 2007 at 20:02 GMT

We only looked at the exercised muscle. The main effect and perhaps the only effect is there; however, others have shown that running can also increase neurons in the brain and increase the anti-oxidant defences in the brain. Consequently, there may be "distal" effects on brain, spinal cord and heart from weight training, but this will require animal experimentation.