I have noticed that the years tick by regardless of what anyone does. That means we are all getting a year older every year. And every year has an effect on our body. But how much of an effect and what we do about it I am sure is up to us. I don’t know if you are feeling the same, but I actually don’t like any decline of my body or mind. In fact man had striven for eternal youth for a long time. So this is about my mental musings about the fact that I am getting older and how I can stave it off as long as possible.
There is heaps of information out about the things that change in our bodies with the years advancing. Some of those are loss of muscle mass, loss of strength and balance, loss of power and explosiveness. Also everything gets tighter or weaker. As a result mobility suffers. This manifests itself in changing posture-the stoop or the hunch back are classic examples of that. But in my mind I really wonder if that has to be so. I am probably talking a little arrogantly since I have been working more or less consistently on myself to minimise those effects, and I am quite capable of doing lots of things the average person of my age would struggle to do. If we look at balance, I am noticing with a lot of older clients I have trained over the years that balance is something that needs to be trained for or practiced on a regular basis or it will diminish. Balance comes into play in activities like carrying something while stepping up, walking over uneven ground or even turning fast to look at something or changing direction. I challenge myself constantly with playfully balancing on the curb while going for a walk, stepping up onto a chair and staying on one leg just to get something out of my high cupboards or even while in the shower, shaving a leg (that is standing on the other one without support). Individually these steps might seem too insignificant to matter, but done often and over time the difference is very noticeable. Another point that kept jumping out at me as I am reading different articles on training, health and related subjects is the fact that as we age we lose the spring. I thought I would put that to the test on myself. I tested how far I and how high I could jump, not in the same jump but in separate jumps, one for height and one for distance. I was pleasantly surprised in both instances. I jumped more than my height in distance and up into my highest chair-2 feet take off. Now I don’t know if this is extra great, but I challenge anyone 54 years old or older to try that. Training someone today, I challenged her to take off on two feet and jump onto a15cm platform, not a hard thing to do, one would think. It was surprisingly hard for this person, and it took a few attempts to get to the point where a true two-foot take off was even happening. This is a classic case of not using and almost having lost it. If you are in the same boat and shocked at not being able to do that, perhaps it is time to re-evaluate where you put your focus with regards to health, training and fitness in general.