Fitness tips for seniors. Be be injury averse when it comes to exercise. Be gentle on your body and don’t risk getting hurt
Many of you know that medicine balls are used for workout exercises. I personally have seen them used most commonly for doing stretching movements and for abdominal exercises like crunches. I’ve even read that fitness balls are used in physical therapy for a variety of specialized exercises to strengthen core body muscles and the spine. Overall they are supposed to be safe.
Fitness Balls
I actually use the fitness ball sometimes to do little stretches. Some times when I am standing and stretching my wide legs apart (as you do for the forward splits) I lean on the ball for support to make sure I don’t fall or strain myself. However one time I tried to stretch my back on it in a quasi back bend and I almost fell off to the side. I saw two other people almost fall off it when they were doing abdominal sit ups. It is one of those things that you have to be very aware of your balance. I had one in my home at one point but my children turned it into a toy and nearly fell off it a few times too until it finally popped and broke. I really like med balls but I am compelled to point out that you need to be careful with them (as with everything).
Sports Injury
When it comes to getting older, everything and anything can become a potential danger. You can get hurt playing sports, or you can get hurt just walking around. You can trip and fall down stairs. You can stumble in a dark movie theater. You can wrench your back turning a pilot light on. You can roll and fall off a medicine ball. Most everything is a potential health hazard. Just be careful because you can’t be in the best physical shape if you are injured. I have a friend who took a trip to Hawaii and slept in a discount hotel in a substandard bed for a few nights. The mere act of sleeping in that bed messed up her back permanently!
Among all the dangers at the gym, try not to be the one slipping on wet floors, tripping on the walking treadmill, or … falling off the medicine ball. I am not kidding when I tell you that I have seen women get taken to the hospital from the gym after falling while walking on the treadmill. The treadmill keeps going and if you are walking on it at too fast a pace or get distracted you can stumble and that fall on the treadmill is not a good one. I have seen several people get hurt on it at the gym. I myself have lost my balance on it once or twice. If you are out of shape and in the gym, there is a potential to strain yourself so take any workout very easy. Ease into it slowly and make sure your body agrees with what you are doing. I also notice that after working out if you take a sauna, jacuzzi or hot shower you can get very dizzy and so remember to always stand up slowly as a fall from fainting can really injure you too.
I’ve noticed that every where I go, women of say 50 or older, are not in the best physical shape. Real life is no magazine, that’s for sure. I talk to women about back injuries, neck injuries, feet that hurt and other ailments they have. I hate to admit this but often times women with body aches and pains are pretty out of shape, and sometimes over weight as well. I guess it would be the chicken and the egg situation, where you wonder if they are out of shape because their back backs, etc don’t allow them to exercise, or whether the lack of exercise lets their body get vulnerable to the injuries and ailments that they have.
Once you have any kind of health compromise with your body, you have to be incredibly more careful. It is always best to simply avoid stress and injury, do low impact exercise, and not get hurt at all. I am not a fan of high impact extreme sports like running, helicopter skiing, etc. But women (and men) tend to get ailments as they get older not just from exercise, but from merely existing. When I talk to people about how an injury happened, it is often very simple run of the mill accidents. Tripping, falling, or wrenching their back/neck from an awkward position. Once you have one of these random injuries, it is actually rather hard to get rid of them. Your neck, back and legs, once wrenched are hard to get back to brand new condition. So, first of all, try to avoid injuries at all costs. Secondly, if you have some ailments make sure not to aggravate it and only do low impact exercise that your body tolerates well.
I have a close friend who struggles with weight and at one point she got onto a pretty good run of exercising moderately at the gym on her way home from work. During that time period, she complained way less about her feet and back hurting her as she was dropping weight and gaining muscle from working out. Needless to say her good streak at the gym got derailed when life’s circumstances got in the way. Hopefully she will go back onto the program. Everyone has periods of time where they can’t work out because busy schedules and the holidays get in the way. But I have noticed that if you have the right exercise program going for yourself, you should notice your physical ailments getting better, not worse. If you are getting hurt exercising then obviously you are overdoing it and need to back down to something safe.