Falls are Your Worst Enemy

4 Ways to Prevent Falls and Injuries 

1. Increase Balance and Stability Work

2. Recommended Bodyweight Exercises

3. Shorter Walks

4. Sports and Aerobic Movements

1. Increase Balance and Stability Work

While any type of activity helps to keep you stable and balanced, specific exercises like chair yoga, tai chi, and resistance training can improve your sense of proprioception (your position relative to things around you) to prevent falls. Doing single leg exercises will improve stability in ankle joints. Even sitting to standing exercises will help develop muscle memory in case of slips. Stretching will also improve mobility over time.

2. Recommended Bodyweight Exercises

• Squats: to work glutes, hamstrings, and quadriceps and develop leg muscles
• Calf raises: to improve the lower body and ankle stability/mobility
• Sitting to standing: to improve balance
• Single Leg Stands: to improve balance and stability
• Head Rotations: to improve coordination and neck mobility
• Stretches: to improve flexibility 

Incoporating the above movements daily will help prevent falls and risk of serious injury. As we age, we begin to lose our balance and coordination. It's very important to not only keep your brain sharp, but also work on our physical capabilities. If you can stand on one leg with your eyes closed without losing balance, that's another great way to intensity single leg stability.

3. Stacking Shorter Walks

As we get older, we may get tired from walking quicker. However, heel-to-toe movements are fantastic to help prevent falls.

The recommendation is 7,000-10,000 steps a day for people over 50.

4,500-7,000 steps is the recommendation for people over 61.

To do this realistically, we can break up several shorter walks and stack them. Doing a half hour walk in the morning and evening while remaining active the rest of the day can easily help us reach our goals. Start small with a couple of 15-20 minute walks until you build up your stamina. 

4. Sports and Aerobic Movements

We recommend low impact activities for seniors to help them maintain their joint health without pain and prevent falls. Swimming, water aerobics, light resistance training with bands or dumbbells are all great to help us slow down the breakdown of muscle mass as we age. Pickleball is another great way to stay in shape! 

Using unstable methods to improve balance can also help. Wobble boards, bosu balls and using a step can help us reduce sway in our movements by working the stabilizing muscles.

Biking can keep our hips and knees better lubricated without impact.

We want to aim for 150 minutes a week of regular cardio exercise with 2-3 days a week focused on resistance and strength training. This is a recommendation from the World Health Organization to reduce physical decline in adults over 65.

Personal Training to Prevent Falls

The reason why so many older adults choose Rage Fitness Personal Training Studio for healthy aging is because we know what your body needs to maintain and build muscle mass that you could be losing. Our goal in retirement should be investing in our physical health since that's the one thing we can get more out of. Time is something we can never get back, but physical health increases our quality of life while we are in the golden years. Preventing falls is one of the most important things we need to build towards to maintain our independence.

Our coaches work with adults over 65 who are dealing with health issues like diabetes, hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis, rehabbing old injuries, and people who want to reduce their weight. Everyone deserves to live their best life and that won't happen until you decide to make a sustainable change. As we age, it also takes longer for good habits to take hold and results to show up. But quicker turnaround times are noted for improved energy, strength, and balance immediately after you start working out with a coach.

We offer nutrition coaching, small group training and 1:1 training to help older individuals incorporate sustainable resistance and strength training into their lives.  Please call/text us at 1-825-945-7733, or fill out the online contact form today!