You may have recently noticed you are taking more sick days. You probably are contracting colds and the flu more easily these days than when you were younger. It also may be taking you longer to recover these days.

Actually, most people over 50 are likely to catch 2 to 4 more colds each year than women and men in between 20 and 40. Colds and the flu often escalate into sinusitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, or worse. More than 60% of the 36,000 annual flu related deaths are seniors. The inaccurate formulas, long waits, and shortages mean that you cannot always rely on a vaccine for protection.

If you do not want to become one of these statistics, it is important that you boost your immune system. Fitness over 50 is one of the best natural ways to improve your immune health. In fact, many fitness experts recommend bodybuilding as a method to improve your overall health and increase your immune system.

Bodybuilding increases muscle mass which promotes immune health in many ways. Muscle burns more calories than fat and helps prevent weight gain. Doctors have found that overweight people have poor immune health and get sick more frequently. Bodybuilding boosts your circulation, which strengthens your heart and lungs. It also thickens blood vessels. This means that it is easier for antibodies and nutrients to travel through your body to fight colds, flu, infections, and other ailments. This means that you are able to resist illness and can recover more quickly.

You must get adequate rest to support bodybuilding over 50 and improve your immune system. Opponents of bodybuilding will claim that it can lower your immune system. Actually, overtraining is what risks your immune health and the health of your total body. If you perform a high intensity training program with a short cycle time, you are not giving your body adequate rest. You will be more likely to get sick with a longer recovery. This is because a short cycle forces the body to focus on muscle building and ignore the immune system.

However, bodybuilders using low intensity training often dramatically reduce their number of sick days annually. Typically this is because their training cycle has adequate time for improvements and total body renewal, including your immune system. As you age, you will need more time for rest and renewal. Therefore, you might want to start with a training cycle that includes one day of rest to each day of training.

Your diet should also compliment your bodybuilding and increase your immune health. A diet rich in proteins and complex carbohydrates is a good choice. You also need to get plenty of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals in your diet or through supplements to boost your health during training.

No one can completely prevent ever catching a cold or flu. You can control how often you get sick and your recovery time. These illnesses can have serious repercussions for people over 50. If you want to stay well through the next cold and flu season then you need to focus on fitness now.

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