Keeping that aging body in good shape

I’ve never felt the need for exercise, as my active life seemed sufficient. Now, at nearly 70, the body is giving way in small ways.
So I’m doing upper body stretches to limber up the cranky back muscles. Saw a video today that challenged me to balance on one foot. Right foot on the ground is easier than left foot. I’ll be adding that to my daily practice.

What do you do to stay tuned up?

I walk 2-5 miles 3-4 days per week. However, I teach 1/2 day on Mon & Wed and already have 8,000 steps in by 12:30, so I often skip walking on those days. I find that if I go a day without walking, my hips, knees, and lower back hurts when I go to bed. I have noticed that my hands & fingers are getting weak! My son gave me a squeezy thing and some 5 pound weights. I'm also almost 70 and am active but am beginning to feel some aging effects. My mother is 90 and she still walks without a cane or walker although I have noticed in this past year she is becoming frail. I did have my bone density checked and I'm 95% everywhere except my left wrist and forearm--which I never use because I'm right-handed. I also can a lot (82 pints of green beans this weekend) and I haul them all downstairs to the basement for storage. I can only carry 5 cans in my basket so I also get exercise climbing stairs. Tomatoes (sauce, sweet & sour sauce, and salsa) this week and corn next. This is about half of them

I'm almost 80 and have been watching my body parts get weaker for the past decade. It's not fun. I've always hiked quite a lot, but it's becoming more and more difficult. So, I've increased my focus on wildlife photography to give myself the motivation to get out and move my body. The equipment is heavy and there's a lot of walking usually involved. I'm hoping that'll slow down my inevitable deterioration.

I too have slipped a daily walk into my routine. It stretches those muscles that get night tight and moves the achy joints, especially the hips.
It also gives me the opportunity to meet my neighbors, especially the gardeners.
One guy over the hill was mowing his front green yesterday. With a special mower, because yes, he has turned his front lawn into a putting green.

Just now though, I’m soaking my feet in warmed cider vinegar. It helps loosen those tissues that cause pain such as plantars warts.

I'm almost seventy and I don't do any specific exercise, but just walking around our very hilly twelve acres for routine reasons is quite invigorating. There's always some task to be done on a rural plot - repairing fences, paths, roads, water pipes, etc - and this week we've started building a guest cottage. Although I have workers to do the hard labour, which I can't do any more like I used to, I don't sit idle and I do what I can physically. Also driving my two ancient Land Rovers mostly off road is physically challenging - there's no power steering or automatic gear shifting, the clutch and brake pedals are hard and heavy, and the suspension leaves a lot to be desired. Rains appear to be coming after a two year drought and that leads to new physical challenges when the cars get stuck in the mud.

>1 2wonderY:

There is at least one study (for which I do not have a citation) showing that balancing on one foot for thirty seconds or so is excellent stimulation for the brain apart from whatever benefits it provides in core strength.

In my adult ballet class, we are regularly reminded of this by the teacher. I started ballet when I was sixty-ish about fifteen years ago, after my ballroom dance partner could no longer manage. Ballet is excellent mental and low-impact physical exercise (and is unpartnered). It's a wonderful discipline for any body, especially the aging one — as long as you can accept that you'll never achieve anything approaching correctness.

Pilates in a properly equipped studio complements ballet perfectly. I do that for an hour each week.

Before breakfast most days I also spend 45 minutes or so stretching. Before the pandemic I walked for an hour or so during the afternoon, weather permitting. One of the ways that the past three bizarre years have changed me is that I rarely have the motivation to do that now. I hope that may change.

I used to do yoga 3-4 times per week. After some back problems I had to stop. Then came Covid. I have just started again recently — once a week in class — and hope to be doing more at home too. My doctor for my back doesn't like it, but I told him this is not Vinyasa and it is for my mental health too. Walking more than 1 mile is difficult right now. I hope that will get better but I am not sure. And I will be 67 in a month.

I am interested in the difference between pilates and yoga.

I’m auditing a class at the local college each term, usually in the agriculture department. This term it’s a forestry class and we are going to the forest! We hiked a trail yesterday at The Pinnacles. Rapid pace and rough trail. I was able to keep to the middle of the pack for the most part. Some parts of my body were shocked at my behavior; but a couple of aspirin mostly covered the soreness.

There’s an athletic lady my age who has invited me hiking there several times before, but I’ve been doing big gardening projects and never accepted. I see now I should be going.
Though still sore this morning, i feel good. And the exercise brings the blood pressure down.

ETA: it’s odd how Instagram has been offering me exercise suggestion videos

>7 krazy4katz: I'm a couple of years older than you with a ton of arthritis in my back. My back troubles started when I was about 35 or 40, and, for years, I did Pilates which strengthens the core muscles (back, abdominals, quadriceps, gluteal muscles) as opposed to yoga which is more for flexibility. I find that good workouts incorporate both pilates and yoga.

I try to walk 2.5 miles 2 or 3 times a week (not in succession), but standing and walking too much inflames the arthritis. Gravity is not my friend! But I do manage to get in some leg and arm exercises in on the other days. I haven't done much pilates and yoga any more because bending in the middle really aggravates the back as well.

So if you have a weak core, definitely try Pilates, but only do the exercises that don't aggravate your back. Pilates can help if your back is not supported by your abdominals and other core muscles.

>9 vwinsloe: Oh, I know what you're talking about! I have had to replace both of my hips. The doctor kept telling me to exercise more, but the pain was too much just to walk to the end of my block, return, and climb the stairs back up to my third floor apartment. X-rays showed I was in the final stage (bone-on-bone) of osteoarthritis. Ironically, it was an attempt at yoga that took what was an occasional irritant to a full-blown nightmare. But, I have a friend who has practiced yoga fairly consistently for many years and swears that it keeps her back pain at bay.

At the University of Minnesota booth at the State Fair, one of the tests was how strong are your hands. I did fine and my daughter said it is because I crochet. My son gave me his treadmill but (sad to say) I am not using it daily as I should. The You Tube free channel has lots of senior exercise such as yoga and chair exercises.
I am 85 and need to walk more.

>10 TempleCat: I had my right hip replaced when I was 53. I was suffering from such terrible back pain from herniated disks that the doctors attributed all of my pain to nerve pain from my back. But surprise!, I finally got them to take a hip xray after I still had pain in my hip after radiofrequency ablation of the nerves in my back, and there was no cartilage left in my hip.

Backs are tricky, and I really think that the type and amount of exercise really depends on exactly what and where your back troubles are. I do some yoga and find that there are several postures that I have to skip because bending over is not compatible with spinal stenosis- at least at the level where mine is.