Seniors: Maximizing comfort to prevent injury
Many older people who exercise must sometimes work out against a background of minor aches and pains.
How do you know when you should push ahead and when you should pull back or even skip exercise until you feel better?
The question you must ask yourself is whether the discomfort you are feeling is normal for you or if it is unusually severe pain. Unusually severe pain is a signal to change or halt your exercise and check out the situation with your doctor. It should not be confused with the normal muscle soreness that can come after doing a new exercise or doing an old exercise at much greater intensity.
Regardless of your age, the prevention of exercise injury is easier, cheaper, and better than the cure. What are the best ways to maximize comfort and prevent an exercise injury?
• Choose your own best time of day to exercise. For many older people, later is better. A lot of the participants in my 6:45 p.m. arthritis plus water exercise class feel that early evening is,their best time to work out. By that time they have had a full day to movenaround and loosen up their body.
• Warm up first and increase exerciseintensity slowly. Think of your exercise session as a smooth progression toward your desired peak of intensity.
• Train for flexibility as well as for strength and cardiovascular benefit.
The benefits of flexibility training will accumulate, so you should keep it in your routine even if it feels like you are making little progress.
• Never continue exercising into significant pain. If an exercise that you do creates significant pain, wait for another day, another week, or another month before you try that exercise again.
• Choose a new form of exercise if your present one frequently leads to pain. I have been seeing television ads for an over-the-counter pain killer medication. In these ads older people are shown playing sports that put severe stress on their joints and connective tissue. They then take the advertised medicine to relieve the resulting pain. What these people really need to do is change their form of exercise to one that puts less strain on their joints. Pain medications have potentially dangerous side effects which become more serious when they are taken in greater amounts or for a longer period of time.
• Stretch out at the end of your exercise session. Again, think of your exercise session as a smooth progression, in which you start with gentle movement, progress to maximum intensity, and end with gentle movement.
Whatever else you do, you must learn to pay attention to your body. That basic skill, plus the advice presented here, will go a long way toward preventing athletic injury.
Al LeBlanc teaches water exercise for the Delta-Waverly Activities program and does water based personal training at Aquatic Sports, Ltd. in Mason. Contact him at 517.655.6454, or send e-mail to fitnessal@broadstripe.net.
Previous Post: Only Five Percent of U.S. Hospitals Make the Grade
Next Post: FDA Approves Implant Device for OCD Treatment
Excellent article. I particularly appreciate the recommendation to “change [their] form of exercise” to avoid putting strain on joints. Well said!
Well written! Learning to listen to your body and not push yourself to the point of pain is a great skill to acquire. I’m glad you emphasized stretching. So many people skip it and don’t realize the benefits they can gain from stretching.
Excellent article. I do water exercise daily and when you do something that causing you pain, you think that is part of the work out until you find out it is an injury. I now continue to work out but listen to my body as Al has stated.
Thanks..
This is a great article. Good advice for people of all ages!
Al’s article has made some very valid points. As a licensed physical therapist and certified Pilates instructor, modification of an exercise program is crucial if you find pain persists or is worsened with any particular exercise. If pain occurs during your program, notifiy the instructor to see if you are in good alignment or using poor technique. Give it another try and if pain persists, eliminate that move from your routine. Movement is crucial with arthritis so don’t give up too soon–there is always a way to modify and get the most out of your movement.
Great article AL !