Lazy Is As Lazy Does

Forrest Gump is really handy to paraphrase, hence the title. Lazy workout habits show as you get older. Yeah, I know it’s not fair that you will be caught out simply because you are not doing your stretchies and you are getting older. Rail against it all you want, fair has nothing to do with it. It’s just is the way it is.

As you progress into your sixties you notice that it is becoming harder to bend down to pick things up. The hips and lower back just don’t work the way they used to. My wife has a really picturesque expression for this. She says her ”bender and dipper” doesn’t work like it used to. She first became conscious of this when she went bowling a short time ago. Throwing a bowling ball, an activity that involves a lot hip and knee action, is one of the first to expose this uncomfortable evidence of growing older. If you haven’t done it for a while, you may be in for a surprise.

As you age it is increasingly important to keep up with exercises that use the full range of motion of the hip, knee joints and the joints of the back. Funny, core work comes to mind. How about that? Suddenly exercises like sit ups, squats and dead lifts, old standbys, have new respect, no? Of course, you don’t have to do these particular exercises. There are others. Be creative. If you are one of the lucky ones to be contemplating keeping up after sixty birthdays, you also have to be careful to be promoting strength while keeping limber. Hamstring and thigh stretches combined with hip stretches should definitely be part of your routine along with old standards like weighted squats, lunges and dead lift combinations, especially as we age.

Of course, if you are normal, the stretching routines are the first to go as motivation flags. This is where keeping a log and/or having an accountability partner (or coach) really helps. We need reminders to maintain all of our program, not just the parts that we like or that show best results in our own minds. What do you think? More important, what do you do?