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How Flexible Should You Be?

How Flexible Should You Be?

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Watching a dancer put her leg to her nose is an impressive sight, and many of us can perform similar feats when we’re children. But we begin to lose flexibility as we age if we do not make a conscious effort to remain limber. Inactivity causes muscles to shorten and stiffen, and muscle mass is lost with increasing years as well. However, maintaining flexibility as we get older is of great importance, since it allows us to retain our mobility and reduces the likelihood of aches, sprains and falls as we age.

Optimal flexibility means the ability of each of your joints to move fully through their natural range of motion. Simple activities such as walking or bending over to tie your shoes can become major difficulties if your flexibility is limited. Unfortunately, sitting for hours at a desk, as so many are forced to do on a daily basis, eventually leads to a reduction in flexibility as the muscles shorten and tighten.

There are a number of different tests used to measure flexibility, but the one test that has been used as a standard for years is the sit and reach test. It measures the flexibility of your hamstrings and lower back. The simple home version of the test requires only a step (or a small box) and a ruler.

Before the test, warm up for about 10 minutes with some light aerobic activity and do a few stretches. Then place the ruler on the step, letting the end of it extend out a few inches over your toes, and note where the edge of the step comes to on the ruler. Sit on the floor with your feet extended in front of you, flat against the bottom step (or box). With your arms extended straight out in front of you and one hand on top of the other, gradually bend forward from the hips, keeping your back straight. (Rounding the back will give you a false result). Measure where your fingertips come to on the ruler. They should ideally be able to reach at least as far as the front of the step. Any measurement past the edge of the step is a bonus. No matter how far you can reach on the first measurement, do the test periodically and try to improve your score every few weeks.

If you find that you are less flexible than you should be, some regular stretching exercises combined with visits to your chiropractor can help to restore flexibility and improve range of motion, helping to ensure that you remain limber into older age.

Rediscovering Exercise After Years of Being Inactive? Take the SMART Approach

Rediscovering Exercise After Years of Being Inactive? Take the SMART Approach

Senior cycling groupArtists who work with glass or metal know that you should not try to bend or shape the material while it remains cold and brittle. Glass will shatter. Metal will break or quickly show signs of fatigue and damage. Our bodies also need to be warmed up to change. They need the tender, loving care of an artist to reshape them. You are that artist. And sculpting your new body takes time, patience and persistence. And yes, it takes hard work.

You can’t expect your body to react well at the beginning if you ask it to do too much after years of inactivity. Using the following SMART approach to exercise will help you get back into an exercise routine and allow you to reach your goals:

Specific—It’s most effective set exercise goals that are well-defined rather than vague. Say you want to be a trim, 165 pounds of muscle and vibrant energy. This approach to defining your goal not only gives you a specific weight to shoot for, but also describes the feeling you want to go with it.

Measurable—This makes your goal even more concrete and will help you see the progress you’re making in an objective way. Not every approach to measurement uses numbers, but numerical criteria are usually the easiest to work with. This goes for measuring activity as well as measuring the results. For example, a 30-minute, brisk walk is measurable. If you’ve only walked 25 minutes, you know you’re not done. Keeping a journal helps you compare these details later.

Action-oriented—You have to put your dreams into action, and exercise is all about physical movement. But don’t let repetitive exercise become boring. Add different kinds of action. In fact, sports medicine doctors recommend varying the activity between stretching, light endurance, vigorous strength and other types of exercise. This helps to prevent heart attacks, sprains and other maladies from pushing too hard, too fast. It also helps to keep things more interesting.

Realistic—Never let anyone tell you that something cannot be done. By the same token, it never makes sense to ignore reality. If you are not realistic in your goals, you are setting yourself up for failure. Set a few attainable short-term goals when you are starting out in a new exercise program so you are more likely to stick with it as time goes on. It will help give you more confidence and you will be more motivated to set your goals a little higher each time.

Time-related—Set deadlines. This helps to keep you challenged so you keep moving forward. Naturally, any deadline needs to be realistic (see above). You should not expect to be running marathons in one month after a couple of decades of desk work, in-car commutes and armchair quarterbacking.

Top 5 Ways to Keep Your Knees Younger Longer

Top 5 Ways to Keep Your Knees Younger Longer

footballSome aches and pains are normal as we age, but there’s no reason why we should not try to keep them to a minimum. Knee health is important in keeping you mobile as you get older, and experts agree that the best way to keep them in good shape is (ideally) to avoid receiving a knee injury. Even old injuries to the knee that may have happened when you were in your 20s can come back to haunt you in your retirement years. You may not be able to go back in time and avoid the injury, but there are some things you can do to help keep your knees from being prone to injury. Following are the top 5 ways experts recommend to keep your knees younger longer.

Wear the proper shoes for your needs – If your feet are overpronated (roll to the inside) or supinated (roll to the outside), or if you have fallen arches, it can affect your knees. You can buy orthotic inserts for your shoes to help correct the problem and take the pressure off your knees. You should also avoid wearing high heels for long periods of time, as studies have shown that wearing them leads to an increased risk of knee osteoarthritis.

Don’t overdo it on the exercise – This can be a particular problem with “weekend warriors” who feel they must fit in as much exercise as possible over the weekend because they don’t have time during the week. This can contribute to an overloading of the muscles, tendons and ligaments of the knee that are not accustomed to regular exercise, leading to an injury or even micro-tears that may not show up immediately, but which increase over time.

Lose weight – Any high-impact activities are extra hard on the knees if you are overweight. If you are overweight, running and other sports that have great impact on the knees should be avoided until you have achieved a normal weight. Practice other forms of exercise in the meantime that take the pressure off the knee, such as swimming or cycling.

Increase strength and flexibility – Concentrate on stretching and strengthening the hamstrings, quadriceps, hip flexors and the vastus medialis oblique (VMO) muscles, as these provide the greatest support to the knees and ensure that the patella tracks properly. Women are especially prone to improper patellar tracking, which places more stress on the ligaments of the knee. This creates a popping or grinding sound when you bend the knee, often accompanied by pain. Yoga and pilates are good ways to keep the muscles, tendons and ligaments of the leg and knee strong and flexible.

Have regular chiropractic adjustments – If your spine or hips are misaligned, the stress your knees have to bear is much greater. Sacroiliac and lumbar misalignments can make one leg shorter than the other so your gait is not straight. A study of 18 people who had knee pain due to muscle tightness showed there was a significant improvement of the condition in all subjects after having a chiropractic adjustment to the sacroiliac joint. Regular chiropractic care can help keep excessive strain off your knees and increase range of motion.

“Exercise” Versus “Lifestyle Activity”: How Active Are You-Really?

“Exercise” Versus “Lifestyle Activity”: How Active Are You-Really?

canotIf you are like most people, working out just for the sake of working out does not really appeal (although there are many dedicated gym buffs who couldn’t live without their daily workouts!). We all know that it’s important to exercise regularly if we want to live a long and healthy life. However, if you find the idea of trotting along on a treadmill for 15 minutes and then spending half an hour of working out on Nautilus machines to be about as exciting as a trip to the dentist, then this article is for you!

Experts recommend that we get at least 150 minutes of exercise each week to stay in shape. But many people find taking this much exercise at once (or in three 50-minute stretches) too daunting. The good news is that a recent study conducted by researchers at Boston University that was published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that bouts of exercise lasting less than 10 minutes a couple of times daily, such as the kind you get when cleaning the house, were sufficient to meet your weekly exercise needs.

Over 2,000 participants were included in the study, more than half of whom were overweight. Motion detectors were attached to each of the subjects for eight days, and an average of half the participants met their weekly exercise quota of 150 minutes. The average participant met his or her quota with exercise that lasted less than 10 minutes at a time. The types of exercise ranged from moderate (heavy cleaning, walking briskly and sports such as golf and badminton) to vigorous (running, hiking, shoveling and farm work).

As long as the participants met their 150-minute per week quota, no matter the length of their exercise, they had lower body mass index, smaller waists, lower triglycerides and better cholesterol levels than those who did not meet the quota. Assistant professor at Boston University’s School of Medicine, Nicole Glazer, says “But this study really speaks to the idea that some activity is better than nothing. Parking a little bit farther away, getting off the bus one stop early-all of these little things can add up and are related to a healthier profile.”

For years, researchers have studied the effects of exercise from practicing sports or visiting the gym. However, according to Glazer, “This idea of lifestyle activity is one that is under-measured in research studies.” Activities such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator, using a push mower instead of a riding mower, etc. can add up to a significant amount of energy expenditure. Experts still stress that it’s important to also get in some traditional forms of exercise and not merely replace it with lifestyle activity. Still, any exercise is useful.

 
“The levels of sedentary behavior in this country are alarming. So the concern that someone’s going to stop exercising and instead just get off the bus a stop earlier, that’s not my concern,” Glazer says. “The real concern is, is this a stepping-stone? Is this the way we can get inactive people to do any sort of activity? People will come up with any excuse to not exercise. I don’t need to worry about my giving them one. They’ll be able to think of something.”

Building Eye-Hand Coordination

Building Eye-Hand Coordination

couple volleyball playersWe first begin to learn eye-hand coordination (sometimes also called hand-eye coordination) when we are infants, with the greatest amount of development occurring during childhood. But it is never too late to improve eye-hand coordination skills. It is important to maintain this function as we age, since it is central to so many of our daily tasks, such as driving or chopping vegetables.

According to a study published in the journal Communication Research, playing video games for as little as 20 minutes can improve your eye-hand coordination. Researchers found that college students who played video games for 20 minutes using a special controller demonstrated nearly twice the accuracy in shooting at a real target as the students who did not play the video game first.

Improved eye-hand coordination can help when fast reaction times are needed, such as when driving a car or playing with children. It can increase productivity at work and is useful for leisure activities as well, such as reading music and computer gaming. Following are a few activities that you can practice that will allow you to improve your eye-hand coordination.

Play video games – Either online or using a console like a Wii, playing video games that require a sensitive touch and precise timing has been shown to improve accuracy skills.
Do some coloring – Grab some markers or crayons and a coloring book and color away. Our hands are beginning to lose their fine motor coordination abilities now that more and more of us use a keyboard to write. Coloring will help to preserve those fine motor skills.

Play a racquet sport – Any sport involving a racquet and ball will help to improve your eye-hand coordination, in addition to it being a great aerobic workout! You have to react quickly to your opponent’s moves and quickly judge where they will hit the ball.

Take up juggling – Start juggling two balls from hand to hand, then gradually introduce a third (and even a fourth if you can manage it). It will improve both coordination and focus.

Do a jigsaw puzzle – Useful for improving both eye-hand coordination and reasoning, a jigsaw puzzle is a fun way to hone these skills, particularly if it is a 3D puzzle.
Play catch – A great activity that can help improve both your and your child’s hand-eye accuracy, a simple game of catch using a tennis ball or other type of small ball is a great way of sharpening your skills while spending time with your kids.

Create something – Doing crafts such as model building and knitting can be creative ways of improving your eye-hand coordination, and you’ll have something to show for it to boot!

Top 10 Stretches for All-Around Flexibility

Top 10 Stretches for All-Around Flexibility

stretching-collage-200-300Stretching is important to maintaining flexibility. If you study animals such as cats and dogs, you will notice that they stretch on a frequent basis to keep their muscles supple and limber. Stretching helps to maintain a good range of motion and can help prevent you from muscle injuries such as sprains and strains. Following are our top 10 stretches for all-around flexibility.

1. Knee-to-chest stretch – While lying on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor, bring one knee up to your chest and hold it there with your hands. Repeat with the other leg. This stretches the muscles in your lower back, relieving tension.

2. Piriformis stretch – Again, lying on your back with knees bent and feet flat on the floor, bring your outer left ankle to rest on your right knee. Then slowly pull the right knee in toward the chest with your hands clasped behind your lower right thigh. Repeat with the other leg. This stretches the outer thigh and buttock muscles.

3. Hamstring stretch – Lying on your back with your legs stretched out in front of you, lift one leg off the floor while holding the back of your thigh with clasped hands, keeping the leg slightly bent at the knee. Pull until your leg is at a 90° angle with your body. Repeat on other side.

4. Side stretch – Standing with feet shoulder-width apart, stretch your left arm over your head and slowly bend over to the right until you feel the stretch in your left side that should extend from your left hip all the way to your wrist. Repeat on the other side. This improves mobility in your rib cage and improves overall flexibility.

5. Overhead triceps stretch – Raise both arms above your head with elbows bent and hands just touching your upper back. With your left hand, pull your right elbow back until you feel the stretch in the back of your right arm. Repeat on the other side.

6. Chest and biceps stretch – Standing next to a wall, raise your bent arm to shoulder height and place your forearm flat against the wall. Slowly turn your body away from the wall while keeping your forearm stationary, until you feel the stretch in your chest and upper arm. Repeat on the other side.

7. Calf stretch – Standing about two feet from a wall, place your hands against the wall and extend one leg back, putting your heel flat on the floor and bending your other leg. Repeat with other leg.

8. Quadriceps stretch – While standing, bend one leg back at the knee, then grab and hold your ankle, with your foot pulled as close to the back of the thigh as possible. You can grasp a chair or use the wall for balance, if necessary.

9. Hip stretch – Making sure that your knee is adequately cushioned, go down on one knee, with your other leg in front of you bent at a 90° angle. Push slightly forward with your hips, which stretches the hip flexors. Be sure to keep the forward knee above your ankle.

10. Lateral stretch – While grasping a pole or other secure stationary object with both hands at about waist height, bend your knees and lean back until your weight is supported by your arms. This will stretch your upper back and shoulders.
For best results, these stretches should be performed when your body is warm. If you just want to stretch without having exercised first, experts suggest that you at least warm up for 10 or 15 minutes first to avoid the risk of injury. Hold each stretch for 30 to 60 seconds. Ease in and out of stretches slowly and breathe normally throughout your stretching routine. Be sure not to bounce as you stretch, as it can cause small tears to your muscles.

Better Workouts in Less Time

Better Workouts in Less Time

Woman Lifting Weights in GymAlmost everyone is pressed for time these days, and squeezing a workout into your day is often not easy to do. However, it is possible to learn some ways of exercising more efficiently so you get a better workout in less time. Following are a few tips on getting the most out of your workouts.

Exercise both your upper and lower body at the same time – This allows you to not only save time, but also burn more calories. Use hand-held weights and pump your arms hard while running and walking, or use a rowing machine that causes you to give both upper and lower body a good workout.

Do high-intensity interval training – Researchers at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, found that shorter but more intense workouts were far more effective than longer workouts of lower intensity. Professor Martin Gibala was the lead author of a two-week study that analyzed the workouts of healthy middle-aged men who performed six sessions of high-intensity interval training for 20 minutes each. Each session consisted of 10 intervals at 90 percent intensity lasting one minute each, with a minute of rest between each interval. The results matched or were better than those from participants who practiced traditional aerobic exercise for longer lengths of time.

Gibala says, “The participants showed dramatic improvement in their exercise capacity. Before, maybe they could ride a bike pretty intensely for 25 minutes. After those two weeks, they could ride it for 50 minutes.” Some exercises that lend themselves well to this type of training are the elliptical machine, rowing machine, bicycling and sprinting. Do one minute of intense exercise at 90 percent of your capacity for one minute, then rest for one minute. Repeat this sequence ten times for a 20-minute workout and you’re done!

Vary your workouts – Studies have shown that the body becomes more efficient at a particular type of exercise if it is done repeatedly, so if you want to burn more calories, vary the exercises you do. Physical trainer Dino Novak says, “When the body is doing a set rhythm, it expends less energy than when it’s forced into multiple movements.” He advises, “For example, instead of just going for a run, do sprints — and then stop, start, turn, twist. Add motion and movement into your activity and you’ll literally keep your body expending the maximum energy.”

 
Listen to fast music – According to the results of a study performed by scientists at the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences, subjects who listened to fast music while working out pedaled an exercise bicycle faster and achieved a faster heart rate than when they listened to slow music. So crank up the tunes!