Add Some Balance To Your Workout Lifestyle Written by Dr Stacy Irvine

A very common type of injury most active seniors will encounter at some point in their athletic career is due to overuse, or chronic repetitive strain.  Tissues that become injured due to repetitive micro-traumas, and one day they just “give up” and you are left with an injury.  These injuries are usually labeled as some type of syndrome, such as IT band syndrome or Upper Cross syndrome.

An easy way seniors can prevent these types of injuries is to add more balance to your workout routine.  This is accomplished by looking at your overall weekly activity schedule and determining the amount of time you spend doing similar motions and body positions.  Most people enjoy doing things they are good at.  This can add to the problem of doing too many activities that are very similar.  Our bodies are healthiest when we are able to do a wide variety of activities with many different body positions.  For example, a runner might spend the majority of their week running.  Soon their body will adapt to this type of training by tightening and strengthening certain muscles while other areas will atrophy.  A great balancing activity to running would be yoga.  Yoga will lengthen the tight muscles used in running and provide your body with new movement experiences.

If you are still working, your work setting will also have an impact on your physical health.  Seniors should strive for variety in positions here as well.  For example, if you sit over a computer for eight hours in the day you should avoid sitting in a similar position in the gym, like bending over a bike for an hour.  Finally, there are some new theories in the health industry about sympathetic and parasympathetic exercise.  How this works on a practical level is, if your daily activities are very stressful you will be spending many hours using your sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system.  When you get to the gym it would be more beneficial for you to do a very relaxing type of workout that stimulates your parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system, instead of a fast paced, intense workout where you are competing against reps or times.

This sounds like common sense, but you would be surprised at how often your personality will cause you to fill your day with activities and body positions that are very similar.  Seniors should take some time to analyze what the dominant movements are in your day and mix it up a bit. It is never too late to learn a new style of movement, incorporate a different activity or adapt a new habit. The little bit of extra effort will pay off by keeping your body young, strong, versatile and free from repetitive strain injuries.