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Did you know that you could slow down aging by doing simple exercise? The ideal anti-aging exercises should address to 10 areas in your health. These exercises will help keep you fit, healthy and looking young without overtaxing your body.

1. Metabolic Rate

As you age, your metabolic rate slows down. This metabolic rate is responsible for how our body processes nutrients including fats and calories. The higher the rate, the more efficient we can burn fat and metabolize calories. A regular routine such as walking 20 minutes a day will dramatically boost your metabolism and burn extra fat in the body.

2. Muscle Mass

In addition to metabolic rate as you age you also lose muscle. Muscles are often associated with youth and vitality. The older you are, the more muscle you try to keep. You can achieve this by exercising with weights. Repeat each weight exercise 10 to 20 times. You only need to work each body part once a week to see significant difference.

If you want to build up muscle faster, your diet should include more proteins such as those found in lean red meat. It increases production of growth hormones, which prompt your body to make more muscle and testosterone.

3. Bone Density

A natural aging process is the loss of bone density. Simple weight-bearing exercise such as stair stepping, mountain hiking, and weight training can help to retain bone mass and reduce the risk of osteoporosis.

4. Growth Factor

If you are like many people, you may have experienced doing a normal activity such as climbing a couple flights of stair to find that you are out of shape and that your legs ache.

Your body may be reacting to a need of more muscle mass. These muscles are built by growth hormones that are released in the body from exercise. As you exercise, your heart is pumping more blood to distributing these growth hormones. That is what is called a growth factor. It is the potential for building muscle mass in the body through regular exercise. In order to keep a high growth factor, you should include exercises that are short and intense.

5. Lung Volume

Exercises that require you to use your lungs at their full capacity are recommended in your regular exercise regimen. That does not mean long intense cardiovascular workouts. These type exercises can actually burn off your needed muscle.

Pushing your car for 10 feet distance is actually a good workout for your lungs. Breathing exercises such as the Chinese breathing exercise Qigong is extremely good for your lungs. It boosts your lung's capacity to absorb oxygen, which also improves blood circulation and oxygenates tissues to help build muscle and bone.

6. Fat Gain

Never do long cardiovascular workouts to burn fat. It does help to increase metabolism and burn extra fat. Too much can have the affect of burning off muscle you are trying to build. Try to balance your workout with strength promoting exercises with shorter cardiovascular exercises.

7. Strength

Training for strength is different from training for muscle mass. For strength, you exercise for shorter duration, and usually do not do more than five repetitions. For muscle mass, you do a lesser weight with more repetitions.

8. Flexibility

Regular stretching exercises will keep your body limber as you age. Yoga and some other martial arts often teach excellent stretching exercises. Do flexibility exercises every morning and evening to keep your joints flexibly and healthy.

9. Heart Fitness

10 to 20 minutes of strenuous cardiovascular exercise can build up your cardiac reserve capacity. Cycling, swimming, and stair stepping are much better cardiovascular exercises than jogging. However, you need to start slow and build up your endurance and stamina.

10. Neuromuscular Coordination

Always exercise to improve the connection of your brain with your body. This usually deteriorates as you age. Exercises such as martial arts, and Yoga help to reduce this tendency.