Can You Touch Your Toes?

 

We talk here a lot of the important benefits of exercise. Strength training to slow or prevent muscle loss. Cardio for heart health and to keep your blood pressure in a healthy range. Balance to prevent falls and preserve mobility. There is another very important type of exercise that too often gets ignored, especially as we age: flexibility and stretching.

Flexibility is the ability of the muscles and tendons to lengthen and stretch in response to movement and allow a joint to move through its range of motion. A good stretching program is important to incorporate into your daily routine to help maintain flexibility. Losing range of motion in our joints compromises our mobility.

Stretching allows for greater movement in joints and improves posture. It also helps to release muscle tension and soreness, and reduces the risk of injury. Lastly, it may also help increase circulation, muscle control, and improve balance and coordination. 

Everyone should incorporate stretches into their exercise routine but especially seniors. With age, we gradually lose the ability to move a joint through its full range of motion. By age 70, 25%-30% of overall flexibility is usually lost. Some joints are affected more than others. For example, a shoulder flexion loss of 15% was observed in one study between 20-30 year olds and 70 year olds whereas a study on hamstring flexibility observed a 30% loss between similar age groups. 

The good news is that stretching exercises are simple (not to be confused with easy, especially at first), can be done by most anyone (including many people with physical limitations) and require no special clothes or equipment. Here are some guidelines for stretching effectively from the National Institutes for Health.

• Take a deep breath and slowly exhale as you stretch.
  
• Hold each stretch for 30 seconds to give the muscles ample time to relax.
• Don’t bounce while you stretch, this increases your risk of injury.
• Only stretch until you feel tension in the muscle, not to the point of pain.
• Always warm up before stretching by moving around for 5 to 10 minutes, such as going for a walk. 

By incorporating a stretching program into your week, you may benefit from increased flexibility, relaxation, and an improved quality of life. Here are some stretching exercises to get you started.