Strength Training for Seniors #2

As a senior citizen, I find it frustrating that most articles on exercise that I read in magazines are directed towards young people. While I acknowledge that exercise is very important for young people, it is also necessary for seniors who want to stay mobile and independent. The average young person, rearing children, keeping house (these days that applies to men as well as women) and working at a job is bound to get more exercise than the average senior citizen.

Of course not all this exercise can be considered strength training, which is very important from a health viewpoint. Strength training is very important in retaining bone and muscle strength, which in turn determines many other factors in staying healthy. Strong muscles in the legs can take stress off knee and hip joints. Strong leg and back muscles can help protect the spine, as can proper lifting techniques.

Ideally, a person should build muscle strength when they are young and keep working on it throughout their lives. Once one reaches his/her senior years and suddenly takes a vital interest in exercise, it's a whole different situation from when he/she was young. Exercises recommended for young people, if not performed properly, can cause tremendous pain and even injury in a person who has not been accustomed to them, regardless of age.

Speaking from experience, I can say that once one lets herself get out of shape, it's very hard to overcome. I endured almost a decade of unrelenting pain that was misdiagnosed by every doctor I saw, and during that time I became totally out of shape. I made spasmodic attempts at exercise but it usually caused my pain to increase to the extent that I soon gave up on it. I found that where overdoing exercise made me sore when younger, it now causes severe, debilitating pain.

In 2006 I finally found a doctor who diagnosed my most serious problem and replaced my hip joint. That relieved 95% of the pain I had been experiencing day and night. Then I was up and ready to go and discovered that I no longer had what it required. So I started walking and looking for ways to increase my body strength.

One thing I learned in the process is that when a senior starts an exercise program, everything should be done in moderation. I have a book, "Strong Women Stay Slim" and another, "Strong Women Stay Young," both of which demonstrate exercises for people in their senior years. I first saw one of these books in the office of my gynecologist, and after scanning the book, decided to buy a copy. I bought both of the books, used, from Amazon.com, and both were very inexpensive paperbacks. I would highly recommend them to anyone interested in strength training.

The exercises recommended in these books are designed for people of all ages. Many of them involve lifting light weights. My suggestion would be not to just buy some light weights and start lifting them without proper knowledge of how it should be done. I was surprised to see how many different ways one should lift weights to get the most benefit. The books recommend one number of repetitions for younger people, and decreasing numbers for advancing age. They recommend starting out very slowly and gradually increasing the number of repetitions through coming weeks. I have found them to be very beneficial.

One word of caution, though. If you find a particular exercise to be unusually painful, I would suggest you leave it off entirely. It may have been nothing more than coincidence, but my husband was doing these exercises with me and always complained that the one involving rising to your toes and letting back down slowly was painful to him. While I didn't find it particularly painful, it seemed strange that both of us developed foot problems at the same time. He had plantar fascitis, and I had a neuroma between two toes. We went to a foot doctor at the same time and both had painful injections, which seemed to clear up the problems in time. But now we leave off that exercise.

Through the end of 2006 I was practically an invalid, walking with a cane when I could walk at all, and unable to sleep at night because of the pain in my back, hips and legs. I was on seven prescriptions, including one for my stomach, which was probably irritated by the pain meds. Now, thanks to a hip replacement in November of 2006, followed by starting an exercise program which includes walking and light weight lifting, I can do almost anything I want to do. I'm also off all the prescriptions except for my thyroid supplement.

I have been hiking, to the extent of climbing a mountain, and have been able to paint rooms in the house, climb through the hole accessing my sister-in-law's attic because it needed to be done and no one else could do it, including her 20-something granddaughters, and helping my husband cut trees killed by an ice storm. I had to start very slowly and work up to more difficult exercises in order to regain my strength, but it was well worth it. I'm always amazed at what an aging body can do when necessary.

While I have no desire to be a professional weight lifter or look like one, it is very comforting to be able to do the jobs I need to do. Ideally, I would like to "sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, and dine upon strawberries, sugar, and cream," like Curly Locks in the old rhyme, but unfortunately I live in the real world and have real responsibilities, and often no younger person around to assist me.

I would recommend to any senior who feels down physically and emotionally, get your doctor's okay on it and then start a program to build your body strength. Just remember, the key word is moderation and patience. It took a while to get out of shape and it will take a while to get back in shape.