A personal story of "use it or lose it"

about my Mom

As i’m sitting in the ER with my mom, some notes on aging in regards to taking care of your physical body

My mom is 82 and has relatively few health issues relatively to others, but she does have some pretty bad hip osteoarthritis. The changes to the joint are such that she’s limited in ROM in pretty much all motions.

It’s usually not a big deal unless she overdoes it. She walks on a treadmill, and does some basic exercises, but for a majority of the day she is mostly sedentary.

Because of this the line between doing it and over doing it is VERY thin.

She’s had two flare ups with her hip, both have come from a specific event that required more activity than normal.

From a rehab perspective most of my advice is based on

• personal experience dealing with my own injuries

• clinical experience dealing various orthopedic conditions

One thing you notice with the elderly is that

It can turn very quickly

I think Greg Glassman (founder of Crossfit) said this but in essence the one thing that olympic athletes and the elderly have in common is that they are both operating at the edges of the capabilities.

So, they key to performance is to PUSH your capabilities. Or at least maintain them.

From a rehab perspective, that’s all I can personally do. I look at the future (elderly people) and try to reverse engineer what is and isn’t working for them. From talking to 1000’s of elderly the things that stand out are

• joint mobility

• muscle mass

I’m sure most of you have elderly relative you see all the time and see the decline.

This is why I do mobility work. This is why I do strength training.

This is why YOU should do mobility work. This is why YOU should do strength training.

If you want do be independent in your later years, you have to fight for it now.

Our mobility programs and joint strength protocols are the simplest place to start. They are included with an upgraded subscription.

When you get older and someone tries to tell you you should do it, you’ll either

• not want to listen to them

• not be physically able to start