How many times has someone said to you ‘ah these aches and pains are just a part of getting old.’? Why is that? Why do we assume that getting old comes with the loss of the ability to do the things we want or need to do?
It doesn’t have to be that way. Look at Asian cultures, for example. Asian people into their senior years can squat down to the ground with no effort at all. They practice martial arts that require a high level of fitness and flexibility into their 80s and beyond. The difference? They have a daily movement practice.
They say ‘move it or lose it’ and ‘they’ would be right. If you don’t use your muscles they get smaller. Similarly if we don’t move our joints they get stiff. If we don’t challenge the range of motion of our joints our bodies and brains just say ‘well we don’t need that anymore’ and you lose access to those areas.
Making an effort to move daily is a natural human thing. We were meant to move around A LOT and carry, push, pull, and rotate objects all day. Our lives are now full of modern conveniences that mean we don’t have to challenge our muscles and skeletons on a daily basis. We even have devices that can turn music and lights on and off just through voice commands. We’re becoming more and more disconnected with our bodies.
As a dance teacher and movement therapist I see this every day. It’s great that people are taking up dance to keep themselves active and challenging movements that they don’t normally do. But I also see that many people have become ‘chair-shaped’. And then, as they get older, they lose more and more of their range of motion. But they don’t have to.
Case in point are my own parents. They have both always been very active people. Running, biking, skiing, dancing and gardening. My mom loves to cook from scratch and spends a lot of time standing up. In their late 60s and mid 70s they are still both very active. My dad does Gran Fondos, my mom goes to her fitness class 6 days a week. They are both very active in their senior years. BUT they have both lost range of motion in some areas. My dad has had plantar fasciitis for at least 5 years and my mom is prone to straining her psoas.
The more mobile we are into our later years, the longer we can put off being in a care facility where other people will have to help you move around. As soon as we lose our mobility we start having to have others take care of us. The longer we can put off the inevitable the more quality of life we can retain.
So the moral of the story is, move it, move often and try moving in new ways. Your future self will thank you.
Aging is a brain defect only.