Advice On Getting Old Gracefully When It Comes To Sport .

How should we adapt aging to sport?

I am always being asked this.

As we age, it becomes ever more necessary to avoid injuries and keep exercising – and, ideally, to still really enjoy fitness. One of the key secrets lies in the core muscles of the torso, and the importance of keeping a good posture and strong core is well known by Yoga, Chi Kung, Tai Chi, and Pilates instructors. It’s interesting to me that running gets such bad press as we age. It is not just the running, but the way we run and what we run on that damages us.

Gentle arts such as Chi Kung, Tai Chi, and Yoga involve the discipline of listening to the body’s wisdom, as well as stretching, balancing, and strengthening every day in order to bring back youthfulness to our aging bodies. TAI CHI is just one of the softer antiaging classes I attended. The beauty and grace of these exercises are truly breath-taking to see, and very inspiring. The key message I carried from Tai Chi was that my arms and legs were just an extension of my spine. Also, that my arms could float effortlessly – like water through pipes – and yet appear to be working really hard at the same time. I still practice a handful of movements, to help with balance and I try to remind myself that being so busy ‘doing’ and not ‘being’ can be bad for our health and our mind.

I find that when patients get problems with their back, it is nearly always linked to poor posture at work, or poor biomechanics whilst running. The arch is in our foot for a reason; its ligaments and tendons need to be elastic in order to shock absorb our steps on tarmac, up throughout our knees and our hips and our spine, eroding away with every thoughtless jolt. When we gracefully walk and run with focus, the arch becomes a great big softening lever, and our body thanks us for it.

“The true man breathes with his heels.”

- Vandi Scaravelli.

  This made me think about how running may be irritating my own poor back. In the east they talk of centring your chi, by focusing on a point called the Dan Tien just below your tummy button, so I read up on Chi running by Danny Dreyer and tried to put it into practice. I’m afraid that when I am running it’s more of a strong resemblance to Mr Bean.

However, sadly with aging even if you run with excellent posture the pounding can still irritate degenerate joints and discs, lacking the shock absorbency of youth. Hence common sense needs to prevail, if you get sore after sports involving running then redirect your energy to more strengthening work.

Having a good posture is so important, especially when it comes to therapists. When I’m working clinically, and am therefore positioning my body to manipulate a client’s body, I have to be in the correct place, and use the correct force. I focus, check my body posture, and sense any unhelpful tension. Then I wind the joint up, and with minimal physical force, I employ a small, gentle movement – a specific nudge navigated with both my Chi and my positioning.

I attempt to apply this body awareness to all my fitness routines as well as my running, and it is helpful in that it quiets my chattering monkey mind. Most importantly, it helps to minimise injury, as I am now at an age where I find if I run my back grumbles. I need to cherish my joints so that I may be like my friends and parents who gym/swim into their eighties and early nineties.

If you find running irritates your back try Nordic pole walking or cycling.

I will admit that stretching is a weakness of mine – I rush it – and it is important for your connective tissues and ligaments, and tendons to feel elastic. Yoga is so healthy for your connective tissue .There is new research questioning how useful it really to stretch muscles to preventing injury, and several new ideas use dynamic movements in order to stretch, and only after warming up with activity first. With a sprinting run, it really is necessary to walk, then jog first, with a stretching session afterwards. Experts say that the constant coiling and uncoiling in a rhythmical action (for example, when running) can only work properly with your healthy, elastic, energy efficient rubber bands (your tendons and ligaments) doing this for you.

Moreover new research states that the immune system and your emotions respond favourably to a more flexible bubble wrap [connective tissue].

Whilst we know that activities such as jogging, cycling and weight training can strengthen bone integrity, our muscles, and blood vessel resilience. It also very importantly builds a relationship with our breath, the most elemental aspect of being alive. This, in turn, stills our mind. , I like to still my mind in a meditative way whilst swimming or running or yoga and I was glad that Sakyong agreed with this. Jerry Lynch – who wrote Thinking Body, Dancing Mind – commented in his book that Sakyong’s lessons “are like spiritual vitamins that will nourish the runner’s soul.”

Kundalini Yoga is all about training your mind whilst getting a more flexible spine, and it became fashionable to westerners when an Indian chap called Yogi Bhajan brought it to the hippy Californians in 1969 – no pun intended on the number.

The typical Yoga pose of sitting with the legs crossed is not easy for everyone, so I suggest starting gently, with a little cushion under the bum, and your legs gently crossed, as able. Just to add insult to injury for those who are less flexible, this is known as the EASY POSE. The hand position you’re meant to do in this pose – with the first finger to the thumb – is a big thing, and it’s called the Gyan Mudra. It is important to remember this part of the pose, as it stops you from reaching for snacks whilst doing Yoga.

Now, we have the same old same old pulling in of the tummy button, which is universal throughout Pilates, Tai Chi, and Yoga, and is so important. Ensure that you also tighten up your buttocks and the pelvic floor; this area in particular is very important to work as we age .As an aside, this is said to be where the Kundalini energy is curled up, and contracting these muscles wakes it up. It is called performing a ‘root lock’.

There are all kinds of research studies from all around the world exploring how we should maintain our skilled, dynamic movement in sport as long as we can. I have experienced the importance of cultural differences in the interpretation of movement. I remember Prof Gunn and Prof Aung saying to me in a Korean hospital that some of his eastern patients could not read or write, those farming the land knew how a goat or a tiger moved, so their concept of movement was to copy an animal form.

You may not be able to do any sport anymore, well here is the good news. Professor Jim Levine at the Mayo Clinic, USA, is an obesity specialist in movement, and he says that movement is the secret of longevity – though he calls it ‘non-exercise activity thermogenesis’ (NEAT). This is the calories we burn up with the activities of daily living. In general, we need to move every half an hour in order to keep our fuels moving through our body efficiently. That’s right just moving around a little regularly will help your health.

Sedentariness is a killer: the lipoprotein lipase enzyme drops on being still, so fewer blood fats are available for fuel and you end up getting unhealthy sugar spikes in the blood after eating.

 Researchers used fidget pants to find out how much you move: NEAT pants have multiple sensors and accelerometers in to measure this. Dunstan et al. (2012) looked in-depth into the physiology of sitting, and they concluded that short bursts of activity are enough to help blood sugar levels keep you in a healthier state.

What Time of the Day is Best to Exercise?

When should you exercise? They usually say first thing is a nice mood elevator. However, in terms of physiology, they say mid-day till 7 p.m. is best. In 2005, some research carried out at Liverpool John Moore’s University looked at doing exercise at 5 a.m., 11 a.m., 5 p.m., and 11 p.m., and they confirmed that mid-day to 7 p.m. is the best time.

 What Do Our Genes Dictate About Exercise?

 Homo sapiens have a long evolutionary history; we are the products of 35 K years, thousands of generations of our species, a species that for most of its existence has lived briefly and in danger. Life for a caveman or woman was generally nasty, horrifically scary, and short.

 To keep in shape they didn’t ‘exercise’ in their Pilates classes, wearing the latest caveman fur thong; they simply had to do a wide range of different activities to help ensure that they survived and passed on their genes, eventually, to us. Our bodies and our genes were forged by the demands of the environment in which they – the hunter-gatherers – lived. As you’ll discover if you read Fast Exercise by Michael Mosley, there is compelling evidence that a hunter-gatherer approach is also good for our more cosseted bodies.

  Get Moving and Research Agrees

We need to be active, but not too active; we benefit most from short bursts of intense activity, and we need rest days to recover or we’ll undo all the good work. Especially as we get older recovery takes longer. As the authors of ‘Achieving Hunter-gatherer fitness in the 21st Century’, a paper in the American Journal of Medicine, point out:

“Hunter-gatherers would have likely alternated difficult days with less demanding days when possible. The same pattern of alternating a strenuous workout one day with an easy one the next day produces higher levels of fitness with lower rates of injury… The natural cross training that was a mandatory aspect of life as a hunter-gatherer improves performance across many athletic disciplines” (O’Keefe et al., 2010).

 So what are the characteristics of a prehistoric hunter-gatherer fitness program? Well, they include short bursts of moderate to high intensity exercise (20 seconds to a minute) interspersed with rest and recovery, 2-3 times a week. Just as long as they’re regular sessions of strength and flexibility-building. Hunter-gatherers had to chop wood, gather veg and nuts, climb trees, and carry children, or chase food.

Their ‘exercise’ was done outdoors, as their caves were likely to be dark and cramped, so they were regularly exposed to sunlight, which gives the skin a chance to generate vitamin D, a vital hormone. Many of us – particularly those who live in the northern hemisphere – are chronically short of vitamin D. Some people, like our ancestors, find it much easier to do in a social setting, as self-motivation can be poor. We are intensely social creatures, and doing exercise together is a good way of ensuring that we do it at all.

Hence bowling and golf is increasingly popular after retirement.

3 min Bursts

Jamie Timmons also professor of aging biology at Birmingham University, works out of labs at Loughborough, which is home to the Centre for Olympic Studies and Research, one of the leading sports research centres in the UK. He worked with Dr Mosley on the t.v documentary, about 3 min bursts of high impact activity at any age, telling him that if he was prepared to give it a go, he was confident that in just four weeks he would see significant changes in his health and his biochemistry.

“Since 2011, HIT has really taken off but the principles remain simple [and time-efficient]: do 3-10 minutes of exercise a week, take lots of rests but pushing yourself hard enough to get your heart pumping” (FastExercise.com). It is said to help with getting slimmer, strength, fitness, and insulin sensitivity. The concept is simple, and in the Fast Exercise book, there are many workouts to play with (Mosley, 2013).

 Whatever your age or level of fitness – and whether you prefer to cycle, run, swim, or walk – there is an exercise regime for you. Try jogging on the spot at speed for three minutes – it feels like forever! I just had a go now, and wow it doesn’t half make your heart pump! The brain likes the number three; it’s a nice sized chunk that also seems like an achievable goal. You can use your stopwatch setting on your phone. A word to the wise here: don’t answer the phone straight afterwards – I frightened a friend to death as all they could hear on my end of the line was heavy breathing.

 “I got myself properly tested and then I went for it. The results were a revelation” (Mosley, Fast Exercises.com). Of course, there’s a bit more to staying thin than that, as it also matters what you do when you’re not exercising. Exercise, even with the HIT style, will just turn into a SHIT outcome if you’re sitting down for hours, day in, day out. As has been mentioned earlier in this chapter, the concept of youthful activity and moving more is called ‘NEAT’ – non-exercise activity thermogenesis – and this is, as it says, the amount of energy you burn in everyday activities that are not considered exercise.

 How Much Should We Exercise?

 We also know – from summarising lots of research studies that often feature opposing views – that very simplistically, up to an hour’s exercise a day improves mortality rate, and more than this decreases it. For example exercise instructors wear their joints out faster than the general public. In a study by H. Sandmark in 2000, the hip and knee joints of 500 Swedish physical education teachers (who qualified between 1957 and 65, making them in their fifties at the time of the study) were assessed. Here we have slimmer, more health-conscious fitter people who are – guess what? – three times more likely to suffer with arthritis in their knees and hips. In fact, only 20% of the studied group could still work due to their joint problems.

 In a big international study, “1,000 people were asked to exercise four hours a week for 20 weeks. Their aerobic fitness was measured before and after starting this regime and the results were striking. Although 15% of people made huge strides (so-called ‘super-responders’), 20% showed no real improvement at all (‘non-responders’),” (BBC website) and also, 30% showed no improvement in insulin sensitivity. “There is no suggestion that the non-responders weren't exercising properly, it was simply that the exercise they were doing was not making them any aerobically fitter. [Scientists] investigated the reasons for these variations and discovered that much of the difference could be traced to a small number of genes” (BBC website).This difference in response to exercise is believed to be a genetic code in just 11 genes. Prof Jamie Timmins’ team in Loughborough have a DNA test to predict an individual’s response to exercise, though this kind of genetic test is still in its infancy.

 Culture, upbringing, and partners will determine the compliance to any exercise, and if you only ever hobble 10 yards, being asked to walk half an hour a day will be disastrous. This means that no thought has been given to your exercise capability/capacity. Always think about how much work you can achieve before the pain comes on, and tell your therapist this. A good exercise prescription takes into account your tolerance, personality, and current capacity. Some people can hardly walk without pain, so they need to take several tiny walks a day, whereas someone else could go on three long walks a week. For those with little capacity, progression takes longer until you get to your specific goals of pain free activities.

 There is increasing exercise research pointing to the importance of keeping the duration of holding a position under ten seconds, and building endurance with repetitions, rather than increasing the duration of the holds – this avoids fatigue. Near infrared spectroscopy of the muscles show that this is the best way to build up the endurance without the muscles cramping from oxygen starvation and acid build-up, not to mention tearing.

 Weights Why?

Why isn’t it enough just to do aerobic exercise? Why should we go to the gym or use weights at home? Why do you need to get some muscle? First, let’s look at some sobering facts:

? In the mid-80s, biochemists established that muscles are essential to immunity, as glutamine is manufactured by muscles and is key to the immune system.

? American females, aged between 20 and 80 years old, lose on average 8 lbs of healthy muscle over the years and gain 23 lbs of excess fat.

? American men, aged between 20 and 80 years old, lose a quarter of their muscle mass, and a lot of their immunity to diseases follows this.

Ladies, do you want to lose more fat and look younger? In a ten week study by Neil McCartney, it was shown that resistive exercise is part of the answer. In this study, inactive females were found to have an average of 21.8% fat (McCartney, cited in Colgan, 2005). Some of these ladies were advised to follow an aerobic exercise regime, and their fat was reduced to an average of 16.2%. Others were advised to do resistive work with weights, and they measured in at 14.7% – get my drift?

All sorts of interesting studies went on to show that resistive exercise boosts human growth hormone, testosterone, and DHEA, which are all anti- ageing and immunity boosters. Furthermore, when this happens, the stress hormone goes down, slow wave sleep is boosted, and so is bone strength. A University of Pittsburgh study looked at 2,300 people over five years and found that those with low quads strength were 51% more likely to die. A second study looked at both age and quads strength, and they found that you were 13 times more likely to die with weak quads. That should put the fear of God into you weak kneed individuals.

Starting point: start by doing an aerobic action, either by using a light weight with 8 to 12 reps, or just a warm up exercise, then work a chosen muscle group with a heavier weight, say 3 sets of  8 to 10 repetition, pushing yourself to near exhaustion by the last one. To work a selected group of muscles, leave a minimum of 48 hours in between for healing, and take a protein drink or a meal no longer than an hour after a hard workout. Before a workout, take some glucose and hydrate well – drinking ionised water is even better – and keep an alkaline diet, as muscle work will enhance an acidic environment.

 The NHMRC writes in Eat for Health (in 2014). ‘At least 60 to 90 minutes of moderate-intensity activity (a day) or lesser amounts of vigorous activity may be required to prevent weight regain in formerly obese people.’

Did you know your  bones are remodelled throughout their life, as they respond to stresses put on them by activity, and every day, millions of old bone cells get replaced by new ones. Fibres within the bone matrix – that act like bridge girders – need weight bearing exercise to trigger reactions at connecting stress points. This triggers a cascade of biochemical reactions which, in turn, stimulates bone growth. In space, weightlessness cannot trigger bone matrix repair and bones thin. Remember the film Gravity? Sandra Bullock had wobbly legs when she landed from space. George Clooney gives me wobbly legs, but that’s a whole other story…

In the same way as being in space, running, cycling, and swimming alone is not enough to reverse osteoporotic changes. In one study of mature ladies, a year of aerobic exercise resulted in an average of 4% bone loss. Weight building exercises took two years to reverse the loss. The American College of Sports medicine and the Osteoporosis Society (to name just two) insist on the prescription of aerobic exercise to include weights. Did you know? Just three hours of immobilisation, and we start to rot. Disuse means death. Don’t be a couch potato.

Exercise is vital for healthy ageing, so get out of that chair! When we slouch in our chairs, we don’t breathe correctly, we have less lung capacity, less oxygen, weaker bones, a poorer blood flow, a weaker heart, and less nutrient delivery. Smooth muscles tighten up to take up the slack, and get painful and our blood pressure readings go up. Blood flow can’t accommodate sudden movements anymore, so dizziness follows, and with it, increased accidents. Men’s sexual potency falls, the gut slows, and digestion fails. Sugar metabolism struggles…..get my drift……get moving. And diabetes is more likely to take hold. In an article in Psychological Medicine, Dregan and M.C Gulliford wrote about how intense exercise helps brain function (Dregan & Gulliford, 2013), so you can remember where you put your gym wear! Get my point?

Here are some more facts I sourced for you to back up reasons to exercise– for all you academic buffs out there. Whether you are old or young,‘it’s widely acknowledged that a healthy body equals a healthy mind. The Government recommends a minimum of 150 minutes of exercise per week, between the ages of 19 and 64’ (Dregan, 2013). A word to the wise – if you don’t exercise at all, start. If you are new to exercise, start small and just walk a little further than usual. Exercise doesn’t have to mean enduring lengthy, intense programmes or taking up a gym membership, although I think the discipline of going and the social angle is great. If you are exercising on your own, you still need to add in working out with weights as well as aerobic exercise, such as walking.

Did you know that at 44 years old, without exercising, we are at the peak depressive age? However, at 70 – if we follow a fitness programme – it is possible to be as physically fit and happy as we were when we were 20! Another study got a group of 60 year olds to start doing three long swims a week, and their medical measurements and tests were those of 40 year olds.

Exercise is much like medicine – it doesn’t have to taste nice, but the outcome is more than worth it. Being disciplined about getting your exercise is your key to longevity, so exercise regularly and effectively. Most people will say they don’t like it, that it’s boring or painful, that they have no time to do it, but they’re just in denial for the need to move. Well, couch potatoes, here are some more facts for you:

? In a study in Dallas, USA, five 20 year olds took to their beds for three weeks, and their readings showed a 30 year ageing effect on their aerobic activity. Then followed 8 weeks of intensive training in order to reverse the damage that occurred due to the bed rest (Saltin, 1966). These same men were revisited, as their physiology was being mapped throughout their lives. At 50, these men had gained, on average, 50 lbs in weight and had a 40% loss in cardiovascular fitness. They were then told to exercise for five out of seven days for six months, and their physiological fitness returned to that of 20 year old men.

? In a study of 1,000 people of an average age of 80, the chance of being disabled dropped 75% with an extra hour of exercise. Of the older ones, who spent 2.25 hours a week active, 25% were less likely to die. With 7 hours of exercise a week, 57% were less likely to die (Reader’s Digest, 2009).

 Professor Derman has hit the  nail on the head here: “Exercise is the closest thing to an anti-ageing pill.”

There is exciting new evidence that it can possibly increase the telomere length, our internal clock, by enhancing cell rejuvenation, so this quote is very apt indeed!