MOVING FOR LIFE?

I LOVE this reference, “healthy biological ageing is about maximising function during growth and development, and maintaining function and delaying decline for as long as possible.” (1). 

For the purposes of this blog, let’s replace the word ageing with mobility and let’s think about delaying decline for as long as possible. Now we’re thinking!

Do you ever feel twinges in your back or knees? The odd hip click that snaps as you stand up or walk down the stairs? Shoulders aren’t moving as they should and feeling sore? 

This doesn’t have to be an acceptance of getting older. Since you’re on my blog, and as an aside we’re not going to accept age as a reason because we’re combatting age and increasing health here, it could simply be that your natural mobility has reduced. 

Why? Reasons for this tend to include lack of movement, sitting down for long periods of time, injury and not doing proper rehab, low physical activity, obesity and impaired strength and balance and some chronic diseases. The great news is that we can improve and change lots of these reasons and why wouldn’t you?! 😃

I used to be someone that could pop out for a 10 mile run and not stretch afterwards and ‘get away’ with it. I was fit and didn’t get stiff so why stretch? I accepted that I just wasn’t flexible, I couldn’t touch my toes, get a deep squat that everyone else could and I thought that was just me. How wrong I was! 

Fast forward a few years and after four babies I start to get sore knees when I walk downhill. Running does’t seem comfortable anymore as my back is twinging. I don’t want to pick my baby up and would rather my husband did the heavy duty stuff. 

I went to a womens health physio and worked on my pelvic floor thinking it was because everything was weak after having a very heavy baby and carrying him for an extra month! My babies seem to like to cook extra long compared to the average! It was weak but that still didn’t help the twinges and I needed to figure out what the problem was. Lucky for me, as a Personal Trainer I love and specialise in doing this for others but I’m rubbish at doing it for myself! 

I started doing some yoga with the children (trying to bring more movement and calm to their world!) and realised how stiff I was. They were there in their downward dogs and my back wouldn’t move. I couldn’t fold forwards and touch my toes or touch my back knee to the floor in a lunge. Everything resisted and felt weak, tight and wrong. 

I decided to do some of Deliciously Ella’s yoga workouts on her app. It’s great as you can chose the length and what sort of workout you want. I didn’t like the slower moves as I’m impatient and, coming from someone who doesn’t like stretching as it’s boring, having to breathe 8 deep breaths whilst holding a forward fold wasn’t going to work for me! I started to explore more fluid stretching techniques and stumbled across animal flow. 

With this in mind, I developed PSF. Power Stretch Flex. A combination of yoga, animal flow and mobility movements. Designed for everyone; older, younger, postnatal, athlete – to move in every direction and keep mobility as it should be, fluid and pain-free. 

I worked on this once or twice a week and found my niggles started to reduce. My mobility was increasing, I could touch my toes (I couldn’t do this as a kid either and blamed it on being tall!), and most importantly my back didn’t hurt. I could throw the children and hay bales around and not worry about it! Life without pain is so much easier and I know you must all feel this too. 

I have finally started to run again. As a competitive runner, this used to be a major personal head space for me so it’s lovely to feel I can do it again as and when I need to, normally after a child, sheep or horse that’s heading rapidly in the wrong direction but also a random 10km to become happy mummy when the world has become all consuming! 

Enough about me though. What I’m trying to say and show is that mobility and flexibility IS important. My Dad (utter legend at 82 years) said to me years ago when describing how he felt about his ageing, broken body (he once got sat on by a shire horse and fell through a barn roof five years ago), “Annabel, if you don’t use it, you lose it.” It’s so true. We were talking about a friend of his that had bought an electric chair that tipped him out of it to stand up (there must be a proper name for them?!) and now it meant his friend couldn’t get out of a normal chair as his muscles weren’t working. The same with stair lifts, cars, electric scooters. There are a place for them of course, but if you can use your body, DO SO before it’s too late and you can’t. 

You can keep yourself younger for longer. Age doesn’t have to be a factor. It’s how you look after, respect and treat your body and mind that is important. 

Stay healthy my friends and thank you for reading! 

Reference: 

1. Cooper R, Sayers A, Kuh D, Hardy R. A life course approach to physical capability. In Kuh, D, Cooper R, Hardy R, Richards M, Ben-Shlomo Y, eds. A life Course Approach to Healthy Ageing. Oxford , UK: Oxford University Press; 2014: 16-31.