Written by; Alan Vaughn & Melissa Petrichko
"We do not stop exercising because we grow old – we grow old because we stop exercising,"
– Dr. Kenneth Cooper
Daily exercise is a crucial component of overall health and wellness. Well-rounded structured exercise programs should include a combination of strength training to keep muscles, ligaments, and bones strong, cardiovascular training to keep the heart and lungs healthy, and stretching to maintain joint mobility and muscle flexibility. Aside from these intentional exercise practices, walking, standing, and sitting are perhaps the most consistent actions we do daily. When unaware, these simple acts of daily living can cause joints to become stiff and less mobile, causing specific muscles to become overly tight while forcing others to become weakened. This imbalanced muscle tension and stiffening of joints occur over time and lead to pain, discomfort, and eventually arthritis (painful inflammation and tenderness of the joints).
As we learned in last week's blog post, improving lifestyle habits can offset the typical age-related decline, which holds for exercise and movement habits. It may surprise you to know physical decay such as joint immobility, loss of muscle strength, improper body alignment, and the onset of arthritis can be delayed or avoided through intentional and consistent movement practices.
You can do a lot to slow down arthritis and physical decline by consistently moving joints and maintaining proper posture and walking alignment during everyday activities. It starts with an awareness of what your body is doing at any given moment of the day, being committed to moving more than sitting, and proactively maintaining joint health and function by keeping your muscles flexible and strong.
What is happening, that is causing the body to age physically?
Excessive sitting, standing, and walking without stretching may cause specific muscles to get overly tight, forcing opposing muscles to become weak and lax. The tug of war between the two creates an imbalanced pulling action on joints and our physical framework (skeleton). Unhealthy and imbalanced muscle tension at the joint causes them to lock up, lose their full range of motion, and physically deteriorate due to imbalanced wear and tear over time. This physical decay is a slow process that, when ignored in the early stages, while still just a whisper of occasional aches, becomes more pronounced and eventually starts screaming at you through chronic pain.
When looking at a client's posture, we can identify these improper muscle tension relationships and assess if too much pull is coming from the body's back, front, or side. Observing muscle tightness tells us which opposing muscles are weak as every part of our body has this tug and pull relationship. Long-term improper tension between the two can mean joint pain and movement dysfunction accompanied by chronic shoulder, neck, hip, knee, and back pain. The leading cause for these typical movement complaints is lifestyle habits, improper body mechanics (the way you walk, sit or stand), and lack of awareness.
What should you focus on to enjoy a fully functional body for as many years as possible?
Maintaining or potentially regaining full range of joint movement through specific mobilization practices starting with your feet and ankles, moving up your body to the hips and knee, to the spine, shoulders, wrists, hands, elbows, and let us not forget the neck. Regularly lubricating joints through movement are crucial to maintain full function in every joint throughout the body. Please do not ignore your joints but instead take care of them so they will take care of you. Maintaining healthy joint function is crucial in slowing down aging, enjoying a higher quality of life, and delaying care dependency.
Along with joint movement, healthy joints require the release of overly active and tight muscles generally caused by repetitive actions. Regular stretching will help you maintain appropriate muscle tension, correct posture, and a stable and long walking gait.
Typical overly tight problem areas include:
Shoulders and Neck – Tightness in the front of the upper body pulls the neck and shoulders forward and begins a slippery slope of a rounded upper back that puts stress on the traps (top of the shoulder) and back of the neck, where many carry stress.
Hip Flexors, Quads, and Hamstrings – Excessive sitting leads to overly active hip flexors (front of the hip), which pulls on the larger muscles of the upper thigh. Chronically tight quads and hamstring will eventually result in knee and back pain.
Low Back – Chronic tightness coming from the front of the upper and lower body puts a lot of stress on the lower back. The muscles in our body are all connected, and the tightness of one muscle will affect other muscles along the chain. In other words, tight calves and hamstrings will begin to affect the low back as all these muscles connect and pull on each other.
As you stretch the overly tight areas mentioned above, it is equally important to strengthen the opposing muscles that have become weak due to this constant pulling action. Strengthening specific weak muscles will improve the muscle length-tension relationship creating ideal muscle balance to protect joints.
Lack of strength or simply ignoring strength training as part of your regular exercise program can result in a loss of muscle mass and function over time. Weakened muscles will impede proper body alignment and posture, leading to a loss of balance while moving and an overall diminished quality of life.
Maintaining strength and stability means retaining your independence and delaying your need for care dependency.
It is imperative to be mindful of proper form and technique while working on strength training exercises, as poor exercise form can eventually create more problems in your future. Work with an experienced personal trainer or physical therapist to hold you accountable for performing strength exercises with proper form and technique. It is well worth the investment in your long-term physical function.
Typical weak muscles resulting from overly active and tight muscle pull are:
Glutes (butt) –Hip flexors become too dominant and inhibit proper glute function as hips lose mobility. The glutes (hip extensors) become extremely weak due to lack of engagement and constant pulling of muscles in front of the hip (flexors). Aside from this typical dysfunction, who wants a soft, flat, and flabby butt anyway?!? Not I.
Abdominals – The muscles that bend the spine forward (abs) become weak and lax from the constant pull of an overly tight low back. Abdominals and core muscles are crucial to overall strength and proper spinal alignment!
Knees –When ankles and hips lock up due to lack of mobility and excessive muscle tightness, the outer quadriceps and glutes become weak. This weakness harms the knee joint leading to knee pain and a possibility of limping, which throws off your regular gait. An improper walking pattern will eventually cause more problems and discomfort down the road. If you are experiencing single knee pain, have it looked at as soon as possible to avoid long-term limping and future issues through uneven wear and tear on other joints.
Upper Back –Excessive tightness in the neck, chest, and front of the shoulder results in weakness in the rhomboids (middle of the upper back), mid-low trapezius (mid-center of back), rotator cuff (connective muscles deep within the shoulder), rear deltoids (back of the shoulder), and abs. Lack of strength and mobility through the shoulder can drastically hamper the quality of upper body movement and ability to perform simple acts of daily living.
As you can see, taking care of the function and movement of your body is a crucial component to adding years to your life and life to your years. If you want to enjoy living an independent and optimal quality of life well into your later years, taking care of your joints through the maintenance of mobility and your muscles through stretching and strengthening to achieve proper muscle balance needs to become a daily practice in your lifestyle habits.
Because proper function and movement are vital to your health and wellness, Alan and I are working on a detailed instructional video course to be released early next year! This in-depth course will teach you how to care for the joints and muscles of your own body and help you live an active and independent life for many years to come. Although aging is inevitable, how well we age is up to us.
If you found this post beneficial and informative, please share it with your friends and family. Help us help the ones you love live happier, healthier, and purposeful lives!
Join us next Sunday when we address the topic of a healthy aging attitude.
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