Age Ain’t Nuthin’ But a Number … Right???

My friend Mariah works closely with senior population through her work with AARP. We recently had a brief discussion on the topic of again and physical activity. I think Mariah knew what my opinion was going to be before we even got into the discussion.

My short response was this:

“If there are 80 year olds running marathons and 30 year olds complaining of chronic pain, then is our ‘age’ really the issue?”

I like to say, some people grow up and some people just grow old! As it relates to physical activity and aging, the key point to remember is that the physical deficits we begin to realize in our 20′s and 30′s are essentially the same deficits we will experince in our 60′s, 70′s, and 80′s. The biggest difference is if we didn’t begin to correct these issues earlier in life, the work to correct them later may require a little more patience.

If a person has never been instructed on where to begin, I always recommend the following:

1. Work to improve balance
2. Improve flexibility of the front of the hips (hip flexors)
3. Improve flexibilty of the back of the hips (buttocks region)

Our seniors should work with a qualified physical therapist, personal trainer or doctor to begin improving these ares of concern.

I will post videos to demonstrate some of these exercises in a future blog post.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 12:45 am and is filed under AARP, seniors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Age Ain’t Nuthin’ But a Number … Right???”

1. Mariah Burton Nelson says:

   February 13, 2010 at 6:20 pm

   Hi Dr. Bill,

   Ok, specific strength training and balance exercises sound good, and you know I do everything you tell me to! Truly, I have such faith in your approach, and you have already helped me so much. At 53, I am still flexible (hyper-mobile in some joints, apparently) but also have a general sense of stiffness that I didn’t have when I was younger. My friends in their 70s and 80s talk about being particularly stiff in the morning. Do older people “naturally” get stiffer, and if so, what can be done about it?
2. Dr. William Booker says:

   February 23, 2010 at 9:57 am

   I’m happy to know that I’m not the only person who sometimes gets stiff in the morning. Now, I could bore you complicated statistics about arthritis and fibromyalgia, but don’t we already have enough to complain about? All you really need to know are the common causes of morning stiffness and what you can do to tackle it.

   For most, the basic causes of morning stiffness are:

   1. Lack of physical activity
   2. Being overweight
   3. Having a poor diet
   4. Not sleeping properly
   5. Sleeping in cold and/or damp environments.

   So here are my 6 tips to alleviating morning stiffness:

   1. Take a good multivitamin and supplement with Omega 3 Fatty Acid.

   2. Eat a healthier diet and reduce simple carbohydrates (sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white flour) especially later in the day.

   3. Get regular exercise. A simple step is to buy a pedometer, and count your steps with the goal of getting 10,000 steps a day.

   4. Drink lots of GOOD water. Purified and filtered waters are often better than tap water.

   5. Take a hot shower and follow that with some gentle knee bends or squats. (Be sure to hold onto something for balance.) This simple exercise uses almost 90% of the muscles in your body.

   6. Secure your windows and doors to prevent drafts and try a space heater or use extra blankets to reduce cold and dampness.

   Feel free to contact me for more tips and suggestions.