Therapeutic Exercise
They will help keep your weight under control, improve your balance and range of motion, strengthen your bones, protect your joints, prevent bladder control problems, and even ward off memory loss (which one day catches up with us all). Here are 6 ways to support your movement practice.
No matter your age or fitness level, these activities can support you to stay in shape, whilst lowering your risk of disease.
1. Swimming
You might call swimming the perfect workout. The buoyancy of the water supports your body and takes the strain off of painful joints so you can move them more fluidly. “Swimming is good for individuals with arthritis because it’s less weight-bearing,” explains Dr. I-Min Lee, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Research has found that swimming can also improve your mental state and put you in a better mood. Water aerobics is another option as these classes help you burn calories and tone up your muscles.
2. High Intensity Training
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) describes any workout that alternates between intense bursts of activity and fixed periods of less-intense activity or even complete rest.
For example, a good starter workout is running as fast as you can for 1 minute and then walking for 2 minutes. Repeat that 3-minute interval five times for a 15-minute, fat-burning workout. It sounds too simple to be effective, yet science suggests the workout is greatly worthwhile.
3. Tai Chi
This Chinese martial art that combines movement and relaxation is good for both body and mind. In fact, it has been called “meditation in motion.” Tai Chi is made up of a series of graceful movements, one transitioning smoothly into the next. Because the classes are offered at various levels, Tai Chi is accessible, and valuable, for people of all ages and fitness levels. “It’s particularly good for older people because balance is an important component of fitness, and balance is something we lose as we get older,” Dr. Lee says. Take a class to help you get started and learn the proper form. You can find Tai Chi programs at your local YMCA, health club, community center, or senior center.
4. Walking
Walking is simple, yet powerful. It can help you to stay trim; improve cholesterol levels; strengthen bones; keep blood pressure in check; lift your mood; and lower your risk of a number of diseases, for example, diabetes and heart disease. Several studies have shown that walking and other physical activities can even improve memory and resist age-related memory loss. All you need is a well-fitting and supportive pair of shoes. Start off by walking for about 10 to15 minutes at a time. Over time, you can start to walk farther and faster, until you are walking for 30 to 60 minutes on most days of the week.
5. Kegel exercises
These exercises will not help you look better, but they will do something just as important: strengthen the pelvic floor muscles that support the bladder. Strong pelvic floor muscles can go a long way toward preventing incontinence. While many women are familiar with Kegels, these exercises can benefit men too.
To do a Kegel exercise correctly, squeeze the muscles you would use to prevent yourself from passing urine or gas. Hold the contraction for two or three seconds, then release. Make sure to completely relax your pelvic floor muscles after the contraction. Repeat 10 times. Try to do this set of contractions four to five times a day.
Many of the things we do for fun (and even work) count as exercise. Raking the yard counts as physical activity. So does ballroom dancing and playing with your children or grandchildren. If you are doing some form of aerobic exercise for at least 30 minutes a day, and you include two days of strength training a week, you can consider yourself an “active” person.
6. Rebounding exercises
This is the NUMBER ONE exercise of choice for DBM. Rebounding is the best exercise for the lymphatic system. Rebounding creates an increased G-force resistance (gravitational load) and positively stresses every cell in your body.
As a result, it strengthens your entire musculoskeletal system including your bones, muscles, connective tissue, and even organs. And it promotes lymphatic circulation by stimulating the millions of one-way valves in your lymphatic system. In addition, rebounding is very low impact and allows you to do jumping and aerobic exercises for much longer intervals than you could on solid ground without tiring out or creating harmful oxidative and adrenal stress.
All in all, you can all manage to keep healthy and happy. You need to own your body’s fitness and health. It is really about moving. Just keep moving, a moving person is a healthy one. Sometimes I shake myself to get my body to wake up and reboot. Nemo said it perfectly, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming!”
Happy person, Healthy person, Better life!