Glass of something served with a crisis?
It’s a bit frantic!
Perhaps it’s just our view, but it feels like it’s all been a bit frantic for the last decade looking back over your twenties. If an individual stops to take a look at what you have achieved, it can be a bit scary! Some people don’t have the luxury of stopping to take a step back, others don’t want to, and still more simply sort of get there because the status quo just doesn’t feel right for them otherwise.
Some are delighted with where they’ve got to; however even so, taking time out to plot how you got where you are, and where you want to go, is worthwhile. Keeping it all together both in body and mind will be vital looking forward.
The life pitch
In a way, where you might be at now in terms of your physical health is like a ‘time-out’ or break during the match that is life. You might be ahead on your score for the first half – hopefully you’ve not had too many musculoskeletal issues so far, as you’re still young – however, there’s still the second half to go. When you come back on to the ‘life pitch’ after a segment of orange and a talking-to by the coach, you need to make sure you keep your health on track in the second half, otherwise your body’s final score might not be as healthy as you’d like.
We know that day to day life can be crazy at this age, and there can be little time for yourself. However, it’s important to make sure you look after your physical health, and preventative physiotherapy in particular can be useful at this stage to try to make sure you remain flexible and active as the years go by.
What can be done and how can physiotherapy help?
Recent years have seen an explosion in home exercise work-out provision and packages which aim to cater for both busy work schedules and family commitments. The more traditional Moderate-Intensity Continuous Training (MICT) generally consisting of 30-60 mins of 64-76% peak heart rate has been overtaken in popularity by a High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) programme which consists of short bursts of high (near maximal) intensity periods of activity, followed by less intense recovery periods, which is often only 20 minutes in duration. Individuals will often choose what exercise regime works for their lifestyle and goals, rather than what is possibly best for their body.
HIIT is popular as it quickly builds up fitness and burns lots of calories in less time. However due to its high impact nature, if you are already nursing an injury, it is advisable to hold off and continue with lower impact forms of exercise whilst you are recovering. As with all new forms of exercise, it is advisable to build up both muscle strength and aerobic fitness over a couple of months to reduce the risk of pulling muscles or stressing your joints too much too soon. Saying that, just because you may have some age-related changes in some of your joints does not necessarily mean that you are unable to perform high impact activities. It may mean that some exercise needs to be adapted to your individual needs, which your physiotherapist can help you with. The mantra should not be “no pain no gain” when it comes to fast pace, high impact exercise.
Contact Life Made Simple Physiotherapy
We hope the fourth in this series of age-related blogs is helpful as we progress through the remainder of 2021 and beyond. We hope you will see that thinking about your physiotherapy care is important and chatting through what you anticipate and expect is part of that process. Please do contact Life Made Simple Physiotherapy by email at Physio@lifemadesimple.co.uk , or by telephone on 07309 272 555 for your individual physiotherapy needs and care.