Are you worried about a future where chronic pain and stiffness are more common? Try simple mobility exercises. Meryl Streep, cheese, and wine tend to get better with age, but your mobility is something that requires extra attention to keep it in perfect shape. Mobility exercises benefit any kind of fitness regimen, but they are often neglected.
If you feel immobile, stiff, and tight, you are not alone. Our modern lifestyles can make you look older than your actual age. Working behind a computer, not moving for a short walk, and being inactive adds up. The result? You lose mobility and get a general sense of stiffness all over your body. Fortunately, you can regain your confidence and physical fitness through simple mobility exercises for all age groups discussed in this post.
Simple Mobility Exercises for Seniors
Mobility is crucial for maintaining independence, particularly for seniors, since lack of mobility has serious physical, psychological, and social consequences. If your muscles and joints are not adequately supported, simple movements can cause injury or even pain. Here are two simple exercises to prevent immobility, particularly for seniors, to ensure that your joints and muscles perform efficiently.
1. Seated Abdominal Press
Seated abdominal mobility exercise for seniors aims at strengthening your core. Maintaining your core is essential to improving stability, and thus, your total mobility.
Here’s how you perform this exercise:
a) Sit in your chair while keep your flat on the floor
b) Put your hands on the knees and lock your elbows
c) Press your palms on the knees to engage the core
d) Hold for at least 5 seconds
e) Repeat
2. Lower Back Rotational Stretch
The lumbar region of your lower spine is a powerhouse of all body movements. The advantages of stretching your lower back frequently include improving the flexibility of ligaments, tendons, or muscles while reducing back pain. Stretching workouts that concentrate on the lower back assist in relieving morning stiffness and tension.
Here’s how to do lower back rotational mobility exercises for seniors:
a) Sit on your chair while putting your feet flat on the floor
b) Twist your upper body so that the shoulders rotate to your left side
c) Hold for at least 30 seconds
d) Return to the initial position
e) Repeat using your right side
3. Mobility Exercises for the Hips
Your hips play an essential role in the overall body movements, so the less restricted and healthier they become, the huge potential your body has for athleticism, strength, and power. Low hip mobility can contribute to health problems like knee problems or lower back pain. That’s why this post will discuss two hip mobility exercises to practice daily for looser hips.
Lying Hip Rotation Mobility Exercise
This workout begins the sequence as an effortless movement for warm-ups and building up towards other exercises.
This is how you do it:
Sitting on a bench or chair, lift your legs onto a chair or stool (the higher the position, the more daunting it will be) and rotate one leg at a time. Then, try to cross over one ankle over the other leg and turn it from that position. You can have the bottom leg straightened more or bent fully.
Frog Stretch
Here are the steps to follow to know how you do these hip mobility exercises:
● Begin on knees and hands, keeping your knees as far apart as possible.
● Rock forth and back in that position
● Keep the balls of your feet on the ground, with your toes pointed outward.
Modified Version; Just like the butterfly stretch, you will begin sitting in a chair with your knees splayed outside. However, your feet won’t be touching, and you will concentrate on leaning backward to help you open your groins as much as possible.
4. Lower Back Mobility Exercises
Doing back mobility exercises to strengthen your lower back can help prevent and alleviate chronic pain or stiffness. Such exercises can improve your arm muscles, core, and legs.
According to researchers, back mobility workouts can increase blood flow to your lower back region, thus reducing stiffness and facilitates your healing process. If you regularly suffer from back stiffness or pain, use these back mobility exercises to loosen your muscles and keep your spine healthy.
Bridges
Bridges work on your gluteus maximus (a large muscle in your buttocks). You can engage this muscle by moving your hips significantly when you bend into a squat. The gluteus maximus is an important muscle in your body, and strengthening can help to support your lower back.
To perform this exercise:
● Lie on the ground while bending your knees, put your feet on the floor hip-width-apart
● Press your feet on the floor while keeping the arms by your sides
● Raise Your Buttocks off the ground until the body forms a straight line from the knees to shoulders
● Squeeze your buttocks with the knees staying on the floor
● Lower the buttocks on the floor and relax for a few seconds
● Repeat 15 minutes and rest for one minute
Cat Stretch
This back mobility exercise can help to lengthen your back and reduce the tension in the muscles.
To do the cat stretch:
● Get onto the knees and hands with your knees hip-width-apart
● Arch your back
● Relax the muscles slowly and let your abdomen sag towards the floor
● Return to the beginning position
● Repeat this workout at least twice a day.
Say Goodbye to Chronic Pain and Stiffness Today!
If you have suffered continuously from immobility and its related complication, your time of redemption is finally here. The simple mobility exercises discussed in this post can have numerous benefits at all stages of your life since consistency is crucial to improving your mobility. It would be best if you worked with an experienced personal trainer, like PJ Olsen to achieve the desired results.
If you want to reclaim your physical fitness and mobility at any age, contact us for more information today.
