Look After Your Legs

Plenty of good advice here… including watch your weight - your feet, ankles, legs and hips bear the brunt of weight carrying. You also want to avoid t2 diabetes if you can do that you have feet and lower limbs when you are elderly. Keep your muscles strong in case your bone density goes to shit. You want something holding you upright. Your muscle movement is required to get your blood circulating back towards your heart to be reoxygenated. It’s true that if you don’t use it you lose it. This is why it pools and clots if you are sedentary. Look after your legs.

Is there a specific technique to getting up from a cross legged position without using hands? I'm able to do it (only 39 so I should be) but wondered if I'm making it too easy.

My Apple Watch annoyingly reminds me every hour to stand. It's good though. It does this even if I've been standing up minutes before though!

I know children who can barely get themselves up and down off the ground. It's really concerning because it's going to be tough for them to turn it around and learn to do things they barely did, or they're ploughing into mobility problems at a very premature age 😔

I had difficult pregnancies veering from exhaustion in the early days to SPD that had me near housebound and using mobility aids. After the first birth I was left 2st heavier than usual, but had lost an inch off my lower legs due to muscle wastage. I got fit from a base of walking 100m to the end of the road and back with a pair of hiking poles. I've gone on to become a gloriously average runner (and dare I say better than average for a VW40-44) and do weights based classes. My knees give me far less aggro than they did in my teens/ 20s. Many pain issues can stem from tightness or weakness elsewhere in the chain causing over-compensation elsewhere.

Everyone will have different starting points, but gently pushing your comfort zone from where you are is a good guide. For some, that's through active exercise, for some moving more, for some more of a physio approach to functional movement.

Older generations of women in my family have had decades ruined by arthritis, and I suspect that they've been hindered by poor advice about resting too much and notions of "lady-like" diets and acceptable exercise affecting their bone density. I can't dodge genes, but I can keep using my balance skills, max out my potential bone density and maintain longer through weight bearing excercise and varied diet to reduce lifestyle influences and delay the inevitable.

There's a lady I know in her 70s who signed up to the local gym and has since be able to ditch her walking stick because of the gained muscle, improved fitness and reduction of some body fat.

Don't live in a bungalow - it will give you bungalow legs.

Thank you OP for starting this thread, agree it's been very interesting

Also like the idea of being 60 (ish) with 20 years of weight bearing behind me, rather than as I am a
Feeling like a big lump who has let it go, thinking about how much I have to gain in next few years

I too have watched my fairly fit dad become immobile so so quickly after just one infection so am conscious that fitness is so important

And finally to @WearyAuldWumman I just wanted to say how sorry I am that this happened and that you weren't properly supported and sending very un MNetty hugs to you

I walked masses as a child and teenager living rurally and not having a car or public transport.
I was fitter, more flexible and active than my friends all the way until menopause and then literally everything seized up and all my joints started hurting even when resting. It is weird.

Its very demoralising actually. It feels like I've aged 20 years in a year.

I love bodypump @MrKDilkington

Agree re core, I had a few ops on my stomach with what felt like very long recovery. It’s fucked my core, which has messed with the rest of my body and alignment. Once you get out of balance and start overcompensating in one area, it causes horrendous problems that can follow you for life (speaking from grim experience). Do core exercises even if just watching telly etc. and don’t move to a bungalow unless you actually need to. Don’t preempt losing mobility, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and you rapidly lose leg and core strength.

My friend was always told 'use it or lose it'. The physio had said to her no matter how she felt with her knees and joints to keep going for walks and moving about, especially when she felt she couldn't, he said that was the time to go for a short walk

edited to add: I'd guess putting your feel up and resting your poor legs at certain times helps too, I used to do this a lot more when I was younger and I really feel I'm doing a disservice to myself that I'm not

I just want to say this is a really useful thread, thank you OP!

Maintaining good core muscle strength (abdominal) is also essential, particularly if you have back problems. I have RA and have been told my many physios that the core supports your back, so I do stretches, Pilates and yoga. your core muscles are what help
you get from lying down to sitting.

Doesn't that mean by walking?

I have had a painful left hip for about five years. I finally paid to see a consultant and he said I have hip abductor malfunction. Now that I know what is wrong, I can do the correct exercises and the pain in my hip has reduced but my legs are weak and painful (shin splints I think).

There are plenty of options, take work calls standing up, use a standing desk, go downstairs for a drink every now and then. I bought a walking pad and now use this in front of the tv instead of sitting. Exercise snacking is great for you
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/54mscpFxdQWZMk6jZbq3cWb/don-t-worry-about-going-to-the-gym-shorter-bursts-of-exercise-could-be-better-for-you

It is repetative movement (e.g typing) or prolonged standing without movement that is bad for you not movement per se
https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/ergonomics/standing/standing_basic.html

“Bungalow legs” is common in older people. They move to a bungalow so they no longer use the stairs and their legs get weak. That loss of strength makes them more likely to have a fall or struggle to get up out of a chair, and it’s the main reason people end up in a home. You need to climb stairs, stand up and sit down, keep your legs strong and you’ll be independent for longer.

This makes me feel better about having bought a four story house when I was 38 and still thought that old age only happened to other people! I have known people who still walk in their late 90s and beyond, but only one (96) who actually goes for walks. The rest are afraid to go outside in case they lose their balance and fall, which is a shame.

Basically exercise. My late mil stopped leaving the house when fil died, hence a lack of mobility and exercise. She went pretty quickly from someone who was very active and fit, to struggling to get herself from her chair to the bedroom. I guess your limbs, with lack of use, just cease up quicker when you’re older.

It is very hard to not to sit for over an hour though. Most people work and no one watching a film at the cinema or on the sofa is going to be jumping up for a quick jog about. I think people can get a bit obsessed with this rather than thinking maybe put your feet up instead?

I was always told that any job where you are on your feet a lot (hairdressing/nursing) is going to cause you more issues - wearing down joints and varicose veins etc.

I'm not sure what this is for. Hope it made you feel better.

You need to maintain muscle mass through exercise/activity and sufficient protein. Aim for at least 30g in every meal including breakfast. It gets harder to utilise protein as you get older so you will need to eat more.

Make sure you get at least 8000 steps a day and try to do some step climbing or strength training. Don't sit for more than 1 hour without a break.

Try to maintain 10/10 on the sit/stand test

How old are you? Both my mum (68) and my MIL (72) can do this.

maybe something to work on. Never too old to build muscle + increase flexibility!

I’m 56, I do Pilates and yoga. I also have a dog so I walk her every day, but at the weekends I get her out on the Cotswold way to walk steep hills.

I have osteoporosis thanks to 8 years of breast cancer drugs. So I’m trying to look after muscles and bones. I could do better though, I need to remember to take my calcium and Vit D - often forget 🙁 And I know I need to eat more protein.

Body pump is what finished my back off even though I had a personal trainer at DL who said my form was perfect. In my case I do think it's to do with my hyper mobility but if you're super flexible be careful.