Boomer Fitness: Moving Free

For your spine:
Get a towel and extend your arms overhead pulling the ends of the towel slightly bending your elbows and squeezing your shoulder blades together. Hold for ten seconds and repeat up to 6 times.

You can get yourself one of those big backpack purses and try walking around with that. Hold your abs in and keep an erect posture. This helps to strengthen the muscles that hold the spine in alignment.

For your wrists: Use hand weights or go to your pantry and grab some cans. They weigh about a pound apiece. Hold your arms bent at right angles at the elbows palms up and using only your wrists, curl the cans up toward you and then back down. Repeat 8-15 times. Then hold the cans palm down and curl them up away from your body then down. Repeat 8-15 times.

For your hips: Hold on to a chair or wall and while standing on one leg lift your other leg straight in front of you slowly up, then down 10-15 times. Then switch. It's a double bone loading whammy for both the leg you are standing on and the leg you are lifting.

If you do these exercises every other day, you might just have the best bones in your neighborhood.

Mirabai Holland M.F.A. is one of the leading authorities in the Health & Fitness industry, and public health activist who specializing in preventive and rehabilitative exercise for women. Her Moving Free™ approach to exercise is designed to provide a movement experience so pleasant it doesn't feel like work.

For more information www.movingfree.com. Send your Ask Mirabai questions to: exercise@movingfree.com

Posted on March 28, 2007 3:46 PM

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10 Tips for Aging Boomers
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1. Whether we like it or not, exercise is possibly the most important factor in maintaining health for everyone. Some of the benefits that interest me as an aging boomer include better sleep, improved strength, flexibility, and endurance, increased metabolism and reduced body fat, better memory, and decreased risk of major diseases such as osteoporosis, heart disease, and diabetes!
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2. Advanced prostate cancer and other cancers are more common in populations that eat a higher fat diet. I try to keep fat content well below 30% of my total food intake.
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3. Here's a cool website I found when my ascending colon twisted and surgery was suggested. To research any elective surgery, visit www.yoursurgery.com for info on risks, benefits, complications, and average recovery time before you make a decision.
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4. Haven't taken a driving course in 40 or 50 years? Consider an Alive at 65 Driving Refresher Program from AARP. Yea, yea I know you haven't joined yet...but don't get your hackles up. It's a special course for adult drivers and the driving-safety statistics for those who have taken these courses are impressive.
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5. Older people are more prone to eye diseases all worsened by eye strain. Sin many of us will now be working longer to rebuild our 401K accounts, we are spending a lot of time in front of a computer. We can avoid eyestrain by consciously closing our eyes for a few seconds every 15-20 to lubricate our eyes. Also gaze off into the distance a few times each hour to refocus your eyes on something far away.
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6. I noticed this one because my 92-year-old Mom has OP...There seems to be a direct link between osteoporosis and clinical depression. Women suffering from depression also have lower bone density in their spines and hips, due to an increase in cortisol, a stress-related hormone that saps bones of minerals. If you suffer from depression, seek care. Don't forget there is research showing that acupuncture and Chinese medicine can be a very effective therapy for depression!
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7. Take vitamins, herbs,�and supplements with meals...your intestines can absorb them better with food and they are less likely to cause digestive upset.
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8. Seniors who own pets are healthier than those who do not. Pets give us love, purpose, and companionship, and often require us to get up off the couch and get some exercise! I love my dog...best piece of exercise equipment ever invented.
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9. Deal with stress promptly. Even minor cuts or sores heal more slowly if we are under unremitting stress, and stress can accelerate other aspects of aging such as memory loss. Yikes! Remember that acupuncture is one of the best stress therapies in the world!
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10. If you take Western pharmaceuticals, keep alcohol intake moderate. While herb/drug interactions are extremely few and far between, medication/alcohol interactions are common and�dangerous, often leading to falls, delirium, and stomach problems.

So, you guessed correctly that I do acupuncture and am an advocate for it. We can all benefit from acupuncture and Chinese medicine to help us age more gracefully and healthfully.

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