I wrote this to help motivate you in case you ever start wondering why you do these classes, or if you ever think about “taking a break” from exercising.
I was reading something this weekend that said 30% of people 65+ who are admitted to the hospital for anything, leave the hospital having lost the ability to do one thing to take care of themselves, that they were able to do when they were admitted (ADL). Sometimes it’s from the reason they were admitted, but it’s also from injuries received in the hospital, or loss of strength due to inactivity. Lack of activity does mean loss of function.
There’s a term I use to determine how I’m going to build a workout, it’s called “activities of daily living” (ADL). That means every exercise I put in a workout should correlate to activities that you do daily. Specifically, activities that allows you to remain independent. Examples:
- Sit-to-stand: Getting in and out of a chair, picking things up from the floor…
- Rotation: Getting out of a car(with sit-to-stand), opening a door…
- Overhead stretch: Reaching up to get something out of a cupboard or from a shelf
- Hip hinge: Everything! 🙂
- Heel raise: Walking
When you lose the ability to do one or more of these actions, that’s losing the ability to do something you need to do to take care of yourself. The more you lose, the less independent you become. Through illness or injury, you may not be able to prevent the loss of one of the above abilities. But what you can do is keep ALL of these skills sharp so if you ever do lose the ability to do something, the rest of your body is still able help handle the load. The reduction of one functional ability doesn’t mean the end of your independence.
It’s one of the reasons you take this class. It’s just one of many ways that your quality of life remains high through exercise. And you’re why I’m here, writing the plans and leading the classes. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to do something I love doing!