Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Simple Lifting Exercises for Older People.



Louis Shalako



Boy, it sucks getting older, eh.

Or maybe it’s not so bad—at least, at long last, we seem to have our shit together. It’s got something to do with that attitude.

It happens in a number of ways.

I had to get over my shyness, (or maybe I just wanted to) and one way of doing that was to exercise on the beach. I have all kinds of thoughts on the subject.

If people want to laugh, that’s fine with me.

I am also a bit of a comic character, so there.

I’ve done a couple of short sets of very simple upper-body exercises today. It’s important not to hurt myself, as I have to go to work tomorrow. Quite frankly, I need the money. I can’t afford to quit, let alone be injured.

At the beach this morning, I used a big rock which probably weighs six to eight pounds. I was glad to see that no one had stolen it in the night.

It’s got a good shape so that I can keep a proper grip on it. I wouldn’t want to drop that on my foot or on my phone, both of which would be painful I am sure.

The first exercise is simple curls, which can be done one-armed with different sized dumbbells. Or a rock. I did ten or twelve of those. This is for the biceps. I’m standing for all of these exercises. Then I do lifts straight up, an overall shoulder exercise, another ten or twelve.

Then I do lifts up and outwards from each shoulder, on roughly a forty-five degree angle.

I’ll do five or six of each, and at this point, my hands are definitely a bit shaky. If a beautiful woman walks past, I am resolved to smile and nod and to say hi.

Then I do another kind of simple lift. This involves holding the rock down by the hip.

Now simply straight-arm the rock up to the horizon in front of the face. Hold it for three seconds, and then lower it down again. You want to maintain control of the rock. I do about three to five of those. Then there is a similar lift where I’m holding it by my hip and lifting it straight out sideways from the shoulder. You can feel it pulling on your shoulder muscles, that is for sure. Bring the rock up to the horizon, hold it for three seconds, and then lower it carefully down again. By this time, about three of these are more than enough when first starting out. You can always pick a different rock if it is too heavy or too light. The last exercise is to hold the rock down by the hip and then curl it up, stroking it up in close alongside of my body. It’s an underarm lift.

Later, back home in my living room, I took the ten-pound dumbbell and at full arm extension, laid it on the carpet above my head. I’m lying flat on my back. From there, I straight-arm it up so it’s above my chest and my head. Straight up, and then carefully lower it down to a few inches above the carpet. After three of those, maybe four, I switched arms. I switch hands with the weight off to one side. If I drop it, it’s not going to hit me. The next exercise is similar. Only in this case, the lift is from an arm extended out to the side from the shoulder. 

This is another straight-arm lift, and I bring the dumbbell up above the centre of my chest, or above my chin, that sort of thing. This leads to the last of the very simple exercises I have been doing. This is a simple dumbbell-press, straight up and down again to the shoulder. I alternate arms after ten or twelve repetitions. If you have a bar, you would be using both arms. I recommend very small loads for older people just starting out. What you want is more repetitions in that case.

You want to establish the habit, and that means not hurting yourself or trying to change the world in a day or two.

Right?

Here’s the thing. When you get older, you might sleep on your side and then you wake up in the morning with pain in between the shoulders. You have a really good sleep and then wake up with a crick in the neck. This is due to lack of muscle tone, where the simple weight of your body is putting stress and compression on muscles and joints that aren’t able to properly withstand it.

Note, none of these exercises will do much for that little pot-belly, but simply standing to do them probably does strengthen the core-body group of muscles—which was why I was at the beach in the first place. I stand navel-deep in the cool lake water and soak the pain out of my hips and lower back, the knees. After a while, I lean over and soak my elbows and wrists. I walk around a bit. Try and stand up, resist the force of the light waves. Stand up on the land, raise the chin and try to get a bit of a curve into that lower back…it’s funny how often you hear a little click in the stiff or sore area, as something drops back into its proper place. 

Walking on sand is an exercise in itself.

Being barefoot in the sun and the sand has its Zen-like qualities. It is sensual. It helps to get in touch with your own body.

It is a minor workout in its own right. Quite frankly, it seems to do a lot for me, and no doubt some of that is pure Zen, i.e. a kind of personal applied psychology. It’s all about the quality of your life.

For that reason, a light and simple routine might be of great benefit to anyone who is interested. As for my own goals, I’ve never really had pectorals in my entire life. Not much, anyways. At the age of 58 years old, it would be interesting to see if I could actually give myself some.

Otherwise I’m going to be stuck forever with this saggy little pair of man-tits.


END


Image Credit. By Raquel Baranow - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43853612



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