Look After Your Legs

[NoisySnail]

I was in a cafe today and over heard an elderly woman talking to younger friends about getting older. She said the best advice she could give is to look after your legs as they are so important for mobility. But annoyingly she did not explain what she meant by this, and I could hardly ask!

So does anyone know how we can look after our legs?

@pickledandpuzzled - these are a couple of great little workouts for strengthening legs and hip flexors:

Sounds like you have a good plan. You could add calf raises. Hold a door handle or chair back. Go up onto toes and back down 10x

If you can get a very lightweight resistance band (Amazon) that would be very good. Slip around your legs
Whilst sitting bring up to just under knees level and sitting up straight push knees out and back 10x

Whilst standing around ankles hold back of chair or wall and standing on inside leg push outside leg out to the side stretching the band. 10x
Do the same bit kick back 10x

Use the lightest resistance if you find things hard this will work inner and outer thigh plus glutes

Thank you @PaminaMozart and @dowereallyknow

I’ll add the calf raises, along with Achilles stretches on the bottom step.

The other exercises are things I’ve already tried and failed. Too advanced, too exhausting.

Supporting my own body weight is a struggle. Getting up and down off the floor. I despise feeling trapped on the floor.

Those bigger movements wrench the rest of my body out of line and require massive core strength. That’s exhausting.

I need to build on things I can already do, and things I desperately need to get more stamina at, like stairs.

I have to work at getting out of bed, and rolling over in the night. Mornings and nights are bad. I peak in the afternoons, if I’m lucky! 😅

It sounds to me as though you could do with finding a good physiotherapist to identify the root causes of the problems that you have, to give you an individualised exercise plan.
Just a couple of visits to a physio, then practicing the exercises you are given can sometimes be all it takes to enable you to continue to do activities that are important to you.

Dr Jo on YouTube has lots of exercises for different physical ailments - see example below. She is a qualified, experienced physiotherapist and I find her explanations very clear.

Obviously check with your doctor if you have any concerns about whether these exercises are suitable. Seeing a physiotherapist in real life is always a good idea.

Apparently the walking back downhill part is very important for developing your "brakes", aiding in falls' prevention.

I try to do a small hill every day, and have really strengthened my calves.

Also important for maintaining balance is to walk on uneven surfaces - so go onto the grass and off the path or road from time to time.

@Maglian

thsnk you, it was a bit scary, but not too bad once I realised I hadn't done any serious damage & I pulled down some bedding on the way down so I knew that, at worst it would be a night on the floor, but I could keep warm at least.

Last time I fell, it was outside (tripped over a stray builders block), couldn't get up (even with help) needed an ambulance with drugs and a hydraulic chair lift. Got taken to hospital during Covid, terrified. Had my shoulder replaced.

I was worried I'd end up back in hospital, but thankfully not.

Not long before I could no longer kneel, I could get up with no hands.

Covid and the potential need to be carried or picked up off the floor was a big motivator for weight loss for me. I’d been obese but very strong and active, so didn’t see it as a big issue- at least not the biggest issue in my life.

When I became unwell, I lost strength at a phenomenal speed and had so much pain when I moved. I quickly put on more weight as well and found myself feeling ’beached’.

The right meds, a physio, then being furloughed and lockdown really helped me get back on track.

I have plateaued, progress wise, but want to stave off decline if I can’t actually improve! 🤣

Sorry there was a shoulder connection- you don’t realise how much you use your arms for mobility until they go wrong! Having a shoulder problem exacerbated the feeling of being beached! So yes, build up your legs and look after your shoulders!

There are at least 7 different ways to get off floor without using hands. Most of them don't involve a kneeling position.

ps: I can reliably do 5 .... teen DSs can do 6-7.
My knees are technically dodgy, history of patellar tendonitis in both.

This is such a good thread and like others, I am including some advice in my daily activities.

I have had two frozen shoulders and have found that taking magnesium glycinate has really helped with the movement (unless it’s coincided with their unfreezing period!).

It’s good to practice regularly while you can. I learnt a technique from a you tube video after falling and not being able to get up. I was 6 stone heavier though! I now can get up easily. My DH uncle in his 90s had a fall and was not found till three hours had passed, poor man. He was nit overweight just very old.

I have the same issue in that I can't fully bend my knee or kneel on my knee after surgery and I can't work out how to get up off the floor. @lljkk do you have a link to the alternative ways to achieve this please?

Given hip surgery wait is nearly four years I say keep hips supple

My surgeon says that once I have my knees replaced I won’t ever be able to knee down, is this true- knew a bloke who use to bounce on his artificial knees just to show he could- thought he was being a clever dick to be honest

I've heard this, too. Maybe it depends on the device inserted?

"About 60% to 80% of patients report difficulty kneeling or an inability to kneel after a total knee replacement..."

Can You Kneel After a Knee Replacement? (verywellhealth.com)

If it's any help I'm fairly fit and flexible but I can't get up off the floor with my legs crossed either. Not even close (though I can do it using knees). What's more, I'm pretty sure I couldn't have done it in my teens or 20s so it may be just a matter of different physical types. Also it just seems a very unnatural way to get up off the floor!
Otherwise there's been a lot of useful advice on this thread.

@Mt61 As much as anything it's a psychological thing concerned with kneeling onto a long scar, that's been my experience so far. And that's not taking into account how much flexibility has been achieved - that outcome can differ hugely between those in recovery.
I've found a method on you tube that I think looks possible, so I'm going to try working towards that. I don't know how to link but it's called "How and why to practice the Barry get-up exercise" by Peter Attia
And I agree @Tomatina I'm not sure when, if ever, I've last got up off the floor or even crossed my legs, probably around 1975!
Thanks @NoisySnail for starting a really stimulating discussion.
What I'm taking away from this is that we each have to start with where we are now and do our best to make any improvement from that starting point. I'm trying to only compare myself with where I was yesterday, rather than with anyone else's journey. This is helping me to stay positive and hopeful, even if progress is miniscule 😊

I have been following the advice to sit on the floor to put on/remove my socks for the last few days. I think I must have had a mental block about it at first, as I was sure I couldn't get up off the floor, even with hands.

I tried the Barry method and gave myself terrible cramp trying to rotate one foot to keep it flat. It was so painful that without conscious thought I leapt up using the other leg! I did rest on my hand though. Since then I am having more hits than misses when I try to get up. My body obviously remembers how to do it! Spirit willing, obviously.

I'm not going mad because it's a bit too much on the wrist and shoulder but if I achieve leg muscles like steel hawsers then it will be a doddle.

That's encouraging to hear @TeaAndStrumpets and a good way to add it to a daily routine. Perhaps I'll put Barry on the backburner for the time being! I too have a mental block and yet know that if I don't get around that soon I will have missed the window of opportunity.
It's so difficult isn't it that in doing one exercise/movement it actually causes an issue in another part of the body - I'm also finding my shoulders are complaining even when getting in and out of the bath, as they're having to do more work because my knee is, quite literally, not pulling its weight.
I agree with the OP that for some of us we're having to focus on functionality and that in doing so fitness is hopefully going to improve.

@ThisOrdinaryLife

You will soon be Wonder Woman with your new knee! Can you do squats at all? I try to squat quite low with my feet flat to the floor and it doesn't hurt my knees. I can only get down so far though.

I was always terribly impressed by a friend who could basically sit flat-footed on his heels...he said all the men in his family could sit like that for extended periods when required, rather than kneel to do something. It was a legacy of working down the pit. They needed to crouch a lot and had nowhere comfy to sit underground to eat their snap!

Here are Dr Jo's post knee replacement exercises:

@TeaAndStrumpets
My op wasn't a total knee replacement, it was the prescursor to that, called a tibial osteotomy, so I have my old knee but re-engineered you might say. It's true I'm carrying quite a lot of metal around nowadays!
I can do squats but not deep enough to sitting, I can't do lunges yet, everything wobbles. I admire your friend's capabilities and would love to be able to do that, not that I need to in my daily life 😊
But it's interesting that in some jobs or cultures it's possible to keep this level of mobility well into older years. Use it or lose it is a logical conclusion to make. There's a scene in the programme I'm watching where rows and rows of quite elderly men are kneeling in the mosque to pray, and in Turkey I'm always impressed in the markets where the locals are sat like your friend whilst they make bread.
I seem to be developing kneeling envy 😂

I think it’s called the Asian squat. It’s the norm in lots of cultures and I have at times attempted to achieve it.
I think you can start with blocks under the heels, and use progressively smaller ones.

I wish I’d trained my dc in it so they’d have the ability!

Ultimately it's nudging your comfort zone from where it is now, whatever that is now.

I posted about my motivations regarding arthritis a few pages upthread. My logic is the better that I maintain my muscle and bone density in my 40s and going forwards, the more I have to work with as I age.

I am fit. Objectively and for my age. But that's been earned by prioritising it.

I had SPD when pregnant to the point of being offered a mobility scooter as I hauled my heavily pregnant body through the supermarket car park on a pair of crutches (I politely declined as I was hoping the effort might trigger labour by that stage 😂) That was an improvement on first time around where I was fobbed off about my "pregnancy aches and pains" and couldn't leave the house independently in the last month. Second time round, the SPD lingered post-natally. With the help of an ostepath and following the rehab exercises I managed to address the ongoing pain. I then realised that I was pain-free but limping. 9 months of constant pain had changed my gait and it was a habit and with a couple of weeks of very conciously trying to even my gait, I was walking normally. I then took up C25k because I was fed up of panting around. A year later I did a HM and was in love with running.

I had the advantages of being early 30s and the condition being recoverable, but I chose to work with the pain and improve my health. I literally started with 100m walks with walking poles and going to bed to recover (so that took more out of me than running a marathon!) and then 15 min pilates videos. I chose to keep it up when I went back to work using late nights/ early mornings, and the weekends for longer sessions. I'm in a good position now but those early stages were physically hard, and logistically hard. It was worth it though because my body is stronger and faster now than 20 years ago.

Every step along that way has been listening to my body and nudging its capabilities a bit further. The outcome looks very sporty today, but those foundations were very modest

I've had relatives die prematurely from lifestyle related conditions. I've seen relatives have long lives with long, frail old-age stages. I'm mortal, but I'm hoping that looking after my body now maximises quality of life for as long as is feasible. If nothing else, "using it" is fun and interesting in there here and now than minimal activity levels (despite my PE teachers' best efforts at convincing me that I was lazy and entirely non-sporty)

Progress is usually just doing a little bit more from where you're at. Sometimes you get new results, sometimes it's maintaining where you are.