Tag Archives: aging well

4 stretches to stay ahead of aging

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We all want to enjoy a healthy work-life balance and have more energy throughout the day. Regardless of your age, the habits of daily living become more important, whether you are in your 40s or 60s. The body, however, has an agenda of its own, and presents unforeseen challenges. You start to notice signs of arthritis; joint stiffness first thing in the morning, knee buckling, or clicking or popping sounds in your joints.

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis; it often emerges slowly and affects everyone differently. Stiffness for a short period of time after a long road trip, too much sitting, or limited reach are indicators of the condition. Women are more likely to develop it, and there is a genetic component to the disease. Osteoporosis used to be thought of as simple wear and tear of tissue. The Arthritis Foundation opines that it is now known as a degenerative disease of the entire joint, including bone, cartilage, ligaments, and the synovial fluid that lubricates the joint.

Though it is more common in individuals over 50, much younger people can also develop osteoarthritis (OA), usually the result of a joint injury, like a torn ACL, cartilage or bone fracture. After such an injury, it can develop within just a few years. Other factors that can contribute to osteoarthritis are overuse, using the same joint over and over in a sport or job, or excess weight. But the good news is that osteoarthritis isn’t a normal process of aging, and some people never even develop it. If you are willing to include daily habits, like getting plenty of exercise, and stretching, you can stay ahead of arthritis and pain.

There is no cure for osteoarthritis, and anti-inflammatory and pain medications can help manage pain. A nondrug therapy, like moving and regular exercise is an imperative part of your treatment plan.

One of the best ways to manage OA is through moving more and regular stretching. Stretching not only feels good, but it will help increase limited range of motion. Here are four essential stretches to energize the entire body and increase your mobility, no matter your age.

Spine Extension

Spine Extension

Photo courtesy Connie Aronson

• Place your hands firmly on your lower back, fingers pointed downward.

• Gently arch the upper back by lifting your ribs. 8 repetitions

Figure 4 Stretch on wall

Figure 4 Stretch on wall.

Photo courtesy Connie Aronson

Benefits: Releases tension in the hips and groin

• Place one foot on a wall, head resting on the floor or a pillow

• Cross one ankle over the opposite leg

• Feel the stretch in your outer hip and inner thigh

• Hold for 1 minute each side

Side-lying quad stretch

Side-lying quad stretch.

Photo Courtesy Connie Aronson

Benefits: Stretches the hip flexors and quadriceps

• Start on your side

• Using your hand or a strap, pull your heel up toward the buttocks

• As you bring the knee back, gently rotate the pelvis under

• Hold for 1 minute each side

Reclining Twist

Reclining Twist

Photo courtesy Connie Aronson

Benefits: Stretches, rotates and relieves tension around the belly, chest, shoulders, hips and spine.

• Start on your back with your legs bent, feet together

• Bring the knees towards your chest. Flatten your sacrum, and lower back, and settle the shoulder blades under so your back is comfortable

• As you exhale, take your legs to the right

• Let them descend toward the floor

• Experiment with moving the knee closer to your head, or your feet, or turn your head to gaze toward the left hand.

• Repeat on the other side. 3-4 repetitions

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru-4-stretches-to-stay-ahead-of-aging/article_9c5617ba-f4e8-11ed-ba58-a351f6d58462.html

The magic of muscle and bone mass and brain health

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Lifting weights is key to retaining lean muscle mass and keeping your weight down.
Photo-Metro Creative Connection

Hands down, the biggest reason people hire a personal trainer is that they want to be stronger and healthier. To achieve that goal, throughout a lifetime, it is essential that we maintain a vigorous level of physical activity to not only age well and be healthy, but also to keep our bones strong.

Lifting weights, or resistance training, is the key to retaining lean muscle mass and keeping your weight down. Around the time you turn 30, you start to lose as much as 3% to 5% of muscle mass per decade. The rate of decline of an inactive 80-year-old could be as much as 30%.

In fact, the American College of Sports Medicine and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommend two or more days per week of moderate-to high-intensity resistance training, using all major muscle groups. Use it or lose is correct, as keeping your muscles strong and flexible after 30 prevents scarpenia, a condition characterized by loss of skeletal muscle mass and function. Scarpenia is a natural part of aging, but muscle loss is largely accelerated by inactivity. For many, as we get older, we tend to move less.

The ACSM’s Physical Activity & Bone Health position stand is a recommendation that adults maintain a relatively high level of weight-bearing physical activity, with no upper age limit. Activities like plyometrics—jumping jacks, for example—and high-intensity resistance training are beneficial ways to increase bone mass, as well as to preserve skeletal integrity and improving balance to prevent falls. Kids that are involved in gymnastics and sports that involve jumping, like soccer and basketball, have a great strength advantage in later life, as their bone mass is maintained into adulthood, the report notes.

The main concept of resistance training is to produce changes that result in various strength adaptations. The 80-year-old mentioned? One set of arm curls, to overload his or her biceps, can result in strength gains in the arm muscles lasting as long as a month! While my job as a trainer is to set up great programs for individuals, consider ways you can start to train, if you haven’t already, with a simple home setup, including weights, elastic bands, medicine balls, or a TRX.

Remember when?

There is good reason to stick with your routine. Physical activity is a powerful intervention to reduce anxiety and depression during a pandemic. Those of us who stayed or became active during pandemic lockdowns were less likely to experience subjective memory decline. A recent study in Preventative Medicine looked at the effect of physical activity on subjective memory decline before and during social distancing. One in three participants experienced feelings of memory decline when socially distanced, however the active participants did not.

Muscles knock back inflammation

Besides brain health, regular exercise promotes a healthy immune system. Muscles that you use doing squats, arm curls or running down a trail have an innate ability to reduce inflammation. Lately, scientists studied lab-grown engineered human muscles to examine the role of a pro-inflammatory molecule, interferon gamma, which breaks down muscle. Typically, chronic inflammatory diseases break down muscle. The lead author of the study, Zhaowei Chen, a postdoctoral researcher in biomedical engineering, found that when exercising, the muscle cells themselves are a powerful shield and can directly counter interferon gamma, the pro-inflammatory molecule, as well as protecting other tissues and cells.

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_b2d26462-11af-11ec-b04a-23ef35ce0778.html

Stretch to stay on top of your summer game

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We all want to enjoy summer to the max, and that means more time outside, doing the activities and sports that warm sunshine offers. But each sport has specific demands on your body. A stretch routine after a ride, golf game or hike can make a difference in staying up to the task, especially as you age. Flexibility can decrease as much as 50 percent in some joint areas. The good news is that this loss of motion can be minimized with a regular stretching and range-of-motion routine.

For decades, coaches have thought that pre-exercise stretching was important for their athletes, and would prevent injury or muscle soreness. However, copious research on the topic of flexibility challenges that old belief. It is thought that due to an alteration in joint connective-tissue compliance, stretching before workouts may lead to greater joint instability.

What the research shows is that stretching will help you achieve positive long-term performance outcomes when done at times other than before performance. A warmup that increases blood flow, like arm circles, or leg swings, to get a mild sweat beforehand, is a better injury prevention component.

Your post-game stretches have to be specific to target the muscles that have been stressed or overused or have a reduced range of motion. Here are some tips to ensure that you end a great day outside energized, happy and loose.

Cycling: Stretch after you get off the bike

The quads and hips are big players in cycling, used powerfully and repetitively, and stretching afterward helps combat tightness. Cycling is different from other sports in that force is primarily produced as the muscles are shortening. In cycling, the pedal stroke doesn’t use the full range of motion of the hip, knee or ankle. Running, on the other hand, bends your knees as you raise your thigh, but straightens and extends your leg to push off the ground.

Cyclists also spend a lot of time bent over in the riding position, which puts the hip flexors in a shortened position. Short, tight hip flexors add to achy hips and backs. Tight hip flexors, particularly the deep-seated psoas, can pull forward and down on the lumbar spine. When that happens, you lose an important lower back curve. No wonder your back can hurt after a long ride. Aim for post-ride hip, low-back and chest stretches. You can view those at vimeo.com/343122017.

Golfing: Get loose

Flexibility is imperative to improving your golf swing. Without flexibility, you won’t have the range of motion to unlock any of the power you already have, or are working on. Picture a golfer, at the final moment of follow-through from a fairway shot. That person is, for the most part, opened and stretched in a fluid spiral line of energy. That takes optimal range of motion in joints or groups of joints.

In just one round of golf, you end up swinging a golf club up to 300 times, including practice swings, and at speeds upward of 90 mph. That’s a lot of stress on your muscles, tendons and joints! A pre-game 5- to 10-minute warmup provides essential preparation for your game. Walking around a practice tee, leg swings or arm circles are ways to loosen up for your game. A good warm-up increases blood flow to working tissue as well as velocity of nerve impulses to muscles. It should be relatively easy, inducing a mild sweat. Stretching is recommended after your game. Click on this link for a golf-specific flexibility routine: vimeo.com/343122336.

Connie Aronson is an ACSM-certified exercise physiologist at the YMCA in Ketchum. Learn more at www.conniearonson.com.https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_6eacb7c8-9377-11e9-9a99-5301d856d0cc.html