Making Movement a Daily Thing
Movements for the elderly or less mobile
Body tune ups for Active Owls
We are Older, Wiser and Living Stronger for a reason, and that reason is that we do something most days to make our body healthier. Now if you are not yet an Active Owl, don’t despair! The following is all you need to do to create more physical health and wellness for yourself. Commit to doing something everyday. Do as much or as little as you like. The most important thing is to just do something everyday. The habit is the true secret to success, so I don’t care at all whether you can do 20 minutes or 1 minute of the following movements, and neither will your body. Your body will be so happy you did something, that you will immediately feel a reward of wellbeing flood your body. Honest.
Go from this
To THIS!!
first thing in the morning, before or after a glass of water.
Cat/cow spinal stretch
Thread the needle
Plank ( hands or elbows)
Rolling twist
Superman
Rolling twist
Crab lift and release
Seated forward bend
Start with 3 repetitions (or 3 breaths) and work your way gradually over weeks and months to 10 of each. It won’t take long. Here is a video showing you the movements. It is on the floor and shortly I’ll attach a routine for those needing a chair and to stand. In the meantime, do check out my youtube page. I have many videos that are aimed for the less mobile person. (remember, only less mobile for now. You just wait!)
What next?
Now that you have spent a few minutes waking the body up, activating the nervous system, especially those of the spine, moving the blood and lymphatic flow, I want to give you some other options you can use to make it more specific to your needs.
You will almost definitely have sore and tight areas in your body. Maybe some old injuries or just pain that has snuck up to you and become a resident in your muscles and joints.
With the following I’d preference you to warming the body up as above and THEN adding one of the following series after. Add it whenever you like during the day. The next day, try a different one.
Always do a quick body scan during a deep breath before you start the exercises and then finish with a deep breath and another inner scan and note the differences you are feeling.
Each focus below has stretches and mobility for each area and then a strength section. All you need is some elastic bands that are light, medium and heavy resistance.
Only do the exercises that cause no pain. Aches can be ok if its stimulating an underactive area.
Consult your health professional if you are not sure. Contact me too, I can help in person and online. Use the bands as necessary to make something more challenging but don’t overdo it, that will make things worse.
Shoulder focus
Shoulder circles with stick
Twist with stick
Neck stretch looking front on and then angle upwards
With stick, elbows together and high. Hands wide
With roller, pressure under arms and on shoulder head
Pec minor stretch
Shoulder Strength
Rotator cuff against wall
Angled raises
Elbow wall press
Band around hand and wall walks with elbows. Hands remain parallel and wide.
All fours shoulder shrugs
Hip focus (this helps your back)
(try to squeeze bottom while doing. Use the bottom squeeze to open the knees and hips further)
Hip circles
Hip open hold
Lunge wide knees hold
Leg swings side
Sumo lunge hold
Windmills
Hip Strength
Standing leg pulses front, side and behind
Seated clams
Standing clams
Side walks with band
Lateral lunges
Single toe touch and up
Hip hikes on step
Core focus
Side plank
Superman
Calf/ Ankle/ Foot focus
Calf stretch
Achilles stretch
Ankle circles
Toe spread
Standing toe spread
Calf/ Ankle Foot Strength
Calf raises (feet neutral, wide and pigeon)
March wide and centre
Tap toes front, to sides and behind (standing leg bent)
Towel scrunches with feet
I hope you’ve gotten some ideas of how to start building your new stronger and more mobile body. Its easy to become overwhelmed if you are not used to it so just start with one or two moves and build only as you feel keen to. ANY movement and exercise is going to work and make you feel better.
I’m always reaffirming it but contact me for help.
I’ll happily reply.
If it requires extra time to answer, I’ll recommend a short consult via email (or Skype if you wish) to give me some personal details and I can write you up some specific exercises, and even include a video if necessary. My fees are very reasonable and I’ll always try to work in with you.
Have a wonderful day!
Vashti x
Posture Perfect
Who here has tight shoulders?
Maybe headaches?
..... Backpain?
.............. Just plain tired?
(Who doesn't)
Now ...
FREEZE!
…….yep just hold still, don’t move for a moment. I want you to cast your mind around your body and notice where your head is relative to your neck. From there, note where your back is, shoulders forward?, spine shape maybe curled, tummy out (ooops bet it went in just then!).
So take note of these areas and lets move one.
Whether you are reading this, sitting or standing, position you are currently in is one you would be revisiting dozens and dozens of times during the day. Day in day out, month, year in and out. This is your natural, go to, learned position. Our body tis such an amazing machine that it will accept being pout in any position pretty much and try to work with that. Even if the spine is being compressed in an awkward way that stops the fluids passing through well. Even if we are hunched over and putting pressure on the internal organs that isn’t best for them to work perfectly in keeping the body alive and thriving. If stressed, and the above causes stress, the body will just focus on survival and sacrifice what it needs to to ensure that. Its pretty impressive really, but unfortunately we can cause the body angst in its normal functions and not even realise we are.
Posture affects everything:
Digestion (the organs are not squashed in a hunched seated position and are able to freely move the food through the digestion pathways)
Deeper breathing ( as the diaphragm is not squashed in)
Blood and oxygen circulation and most of us are less than optimal with it. Fortunately its a simple thing to adjust, and it all starts with the head. Place that in the right position and it will start straightening the entire body immediately.
Less wear and tear (=pain) on the muscles, ligaments and joints, when pressure is paced on them in a sub-optimal position. This doesn't just mean weight lifting poorly, this means carrying shopping, picking up kids, gardening, housework. All those things place weight strain on the body, which is fine when the body is in alignment.
Less depression and fatigue. Not only does good posture take away a huge amount of pain you may think is just normal everyday aches you suffer through but it also gives a psychological benefit. Positive, happy people stand straighter, sadder ones slump. Sit or stand straight, breathe deeply and see how you feel. Good huh!? In fact just that simple change is one of the recommendations made for people who are depressed to help alleviate their mood. It works.
You can cope with pain better. This study showed that a good posture helps cope with pain. So chin up when you are feel physical or emotional pain. It also showed that if we coddle and dominate people too much it reinforces a submissive "curled in" posture which did not help the recipient deal with their issues better, it made it worse for them. So uncurl and stand tall with a deep breath.
More energy. Because you are in a better position the body doesn't have to work as hard to support you with your everyday movements. The result is less fatigue and more energy.
You look better. You really do :-)
Do you have any weights?
Pick up a 5 kilo weight (11lbs)
Thats how much your head weighs on average. Thats how much weight this slender rod called our spine, has to hold. You can understand why the spine is curved can’t you, as a curved structure holds weight easier than a straight one. So we want curves in the spine, but not over done 🙂
Now not only is it 5 kg’s when sat directly on top, but when we lean the head forward, the angle of the lean markedly increases the load, it can from your neck feeling 5 kgs of weight to a huge 25kg (60lbs).
Wow….
https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2014/11/this-is-what-looking-down-at-your-mobile-phone-does-to-your-spine/
Remember the old, book on the head and ruler down your back to sit and stand tall? Not so silly really….
Case Study
Have a look at my photos below. A bit amateurish but I think you can see, first with the straightened one, How the head is stacked on top of the neck, which stacks on the tailbone and the line continues down (ideally pretty straight), to my feet. Now Its still not perfect. I had hoped to show you the perfect posture but I can see my mid back is not activated properly as my shoulders are slightly forward and palms are not forward facing.
I'm still working out how to edit photos!
Now have a look at my other posture, here I feel relaxed and pretty normal, but look at how bent I am. Head is forward, the yellow lines show the angles, turtle neck is starting, shoulders forward, chest caved, belly sticking out, hands are in a forward position with the palms facing back and my back is swayed naturally, and now even more so. I was impressed that my legs were fairly well stacked under, but what you can’t see is my knees are compensating naturally by becoming more knocked. The body responds to being put in this posture daily by tightening areas and weakening others from our neck, back, hips, thighs, calves and feet
A recipe for chronic pain if I ever saw one!
Just standing straight is terrific, BUT your muscles have had to compensate for so long they don’t know what to do anymore. They need to be reminded and retrained, stretch the over tightened muscles and strengthen the postural lax ones, otherwise you have nothing solid holding you in a better position, just sheer willpower.... until you are distracted, ....... oh look, a facebook message……..
…..hmmm mmm...
…..ooops…….where was I?
A recent study of adults aged 60-89 showed poor posture correlated closely with poor balance and falls....
“This research shows, though, that posture does in fact seem to hold great significance in terms of healthy living especially for geriatrics. Increased thoracic kyphosis leads to numerous problems including a higher risk for falls.”
... and that ....
... posture correction strategies worked to stop it!
A study first, in 2016, showed a direct link to the effect poor posture had on decreased cognitive function in older adults (50-89). They found that a forward head and neck lean was associated with decreased verbal memory function and high BMI with low ‘get up and go’ was associated with poor movement and visual coordination.
“Upright posture and mobility were associated with different cognitive processes, suggesting different underlying neural mechanisms. These results provide the first evidence for a link between postural alignment and cognitive functioning in healthy older adults.”
The American Posture Institute (theres actually and institute for it!) lists the following consequences of poor posture:
- Decreased Life Span (up to 14 years).
- Headaches.
- Chronic Fatigue.
- Neck & Back Pain.
- Increased blood pressure.
- Digestive Problems.
- Problems Sleeping.
- Circulatory Problems.
- Respiratory Issues.
- Increase in Falls.
- Vertigo/dizziness.
- Attention/concentration problems.
- Muscle fatigue.
- Decrease in overall health.
- Spinal degeneration.
- Arthritis.
- Herniated discs.
- Sciatica.
- Knee and ankle problems.
- Carpal Tunnel.
- Plantar fasciitis.
- and a partridge in a pear tree
Takeaways
Try Dancing
Recently the Queensland Union Technology and Queensland Ballet did a study showing, amongst a variety of benefits that dancing greatly benefited posture. Have a look at the study here.
Incorporate Yoga and Pilates
Add yoga AND pilates moves in your everyday routine. Your body needs the strength and flexibility it will gain from these types of exercises, plus you get fantastic body awareness from any exercise.
Lift Weights
OK I'm biased but weight lifting will lock in your new posture so well and works beautifully with yoga, dancing, pilates, anything. Just please have your form checked. No point doing the weights with poor form, thats a disaster!
At Home
- Pull your chin in, not up (triple chin at least)
- Shoulders are lowered and tensed around the shoulder blades
- Chest gently elevated
- Belly button pulls into spine with the pelvic floor tightened
- Bottom is tucked under after the above
- Feel the hips open, this widens the knees
- Place each foot under the corresponding hip bone
- Take a deep breath through the abdomen
- Check yourself in the mirror
OR
Have a look at the couple of videos I have linked below, they give a few examples of what to look at and try. If you have a trainer, get them to have a look and they can advise you exactly what you need to do to align properly.
If all else fails.....
grab a thick book, pop it on your head and walk around for a while.
Is my pony tail helping me?