Excercise for People over 50

[retroHelen]

EXERCISE FOR PEOPLE OVER 50

Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of

room at each side.

With a 5-lb potato bag in each hand, extend your arms straight out from

your sides and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full

minute, and then relax.

Each day you'll find that you can hold this position for just a bit

longer. After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb potato bags.

Then try 50-lb potato bags and then eventually try to get to where you

can lift a 100-lb potato bag in each hand and hold your arms straight

for more than a full minute.

(I'm at this level.)

After you feel confident at that level--

put a potato in each bag........

[rocket]

I have to admit, you had me going there for a minute.

[sweetwillow58]

Oh, Helen, that was a good one....lol....I'm 53 and thought I was going to learn something new. Will it work with boxes of instant mashed potatoes? lol

[destiny]

[Debbie]

)'>><

'nough said!

[Catalyst]

Seriously...( ha ha ) I am in the over 50 league and I have found that it is a real struggle to keep fit. Especially fighting off the growing spare tyre. I started using elastic bands (or I guess I should call them Resistance bands) to do exercises with and have found that they really help to keep what muscles I have toned. However, I am sure that there are some other ways to exercise that you have found beneficial. Especially for the middle bit of the body (I know about cutting down on the beer )

Any suggestions?

[Cherie]

Well yes, actually Steve. I have a had a mini trampoline aka rebounder for several months now. No one dislikes exercise more than me! I find that it is the easiest and most fun exercise I've ever done. Although I really hesitate to recommend it because there is sooo much to consider first. A cheap rebounder can actually harm you, and if you overdo it, your liver can get overloaded because your lymph gets moving, and moving toxins out. To begin with, people who know these things recommend that your feet don't leave the mat, and that you only bounce 2 minutes to start. I like the ones that have barrel shaped springs.

[retroHelen]

It depends on the condition of your back. If, like me, you have a weak lower back, you have to be careful what excercises you do. I have 2 bust disks in the lumber region and have had lots of physiotherapy and osteopathy to get just to walking about without pain. I can't bounce about as it compresses the spine, which is a shame as I was a good trampoline athelete at school, even doing back flips and twists on the big school trampolines and loved jumping really high, though I know this isn't for little trampoline work.

I can manage brisk walking while tucking in my gut and keeping my chin in nor jutting and hips forward like your supposed to. I have flat feet/pronation so need instep and ankle support for walking. I find these small ab crunch exercises (can only 15 of them at a time though) a bit easier than sit-ups with my funny back:

With all the worry about heart diseease, diabetes and bowel cancer when you get overweight I have exchanged all my simple carbs for complex carbs or no fibre food for wholemeal/seeded. So far I haven't lost much, but I am persevering as I need to go back to UK size 12/14 instead of 16/18 as I am now.Like most women it's all on the hips and tummy.

Snag is comfort eating - aweful habit -and with my sister going through an acrimonious divorce and my parents being quite poorly, I find all sorts of excuses for chocolate treats while I worry after them.

Like the daily Bible reading and Care-givers corner, Let's encourage each other in our various realistic healthy weight goals, so we can stave off the nasty health problems of being overweight.><

[rocket]

Can you ride a bicycle with out hurting your back? A sister in the congregation was over a hundred lb. overweight and in severe danger of heart failure. Her Dr. put her on a 3 potatoes a day diet (500 calories) and bicycle riding for one hour a day. It seemed to work for her. The diet was drastic but she would quip that she was eating prime rib every day as she pseudo tickled her side.

[Cherie]

Yes, I was immediately sorry I posted about rebounding. It can be tricky for so many of us. I developed a back problem because I wasn't bending my knees, so ix-nay on the bounding-ray! Bicycling is so strenuous for me....uphill battle, haha.

[retroHelen]

Last time I saw my bicycle it was on fire on the beach down the hill from my house. Both my bike and my husband's were stolen. His was padlocked to our fence in our back garden and mine was in the shed. We live on very steep hills round here, as the photo of our Kingdom Hall in another thread shows. There are cycle paths down in the valleys, but they've been taken over in part by thugs on mini moto bikes who push folk off bicycles as they ride passed. I used to love cycilng down the old reclaimed coal-mine railway tracks with my Mam and Dad years ago. These old tracks, made into bike riding areas, are away from the roads and were peaceful and we saw herons near ponds, foxes and buzzards and in the evenings lots of bats.Local artists had marked the paths with metal sculptures as mile markers so you knew where you were and how far you had travelled. Our town is famous as one of the starting points or finishing points on the C2C route - Sea to sea; East to West or vica versa - and quite a few brothers from the North East travel from their coast to ours along this special cycleway. However, 144 miles/230 Km is a bit ambitious for li'l old me!! http://www.c2c-guide.co.uk/

This is the start/finish at the old Sugar Quay, Whitehaven Harbour

[Tazenergy]

Seriously...( ha ha ) I am in the over 50 league and I have found that it is a real struggle to keep fit. Especially fighting off the growing spare tyre. I started using elastic bands (or I guess I should call them Resistance bands) to do exercises with and have found that they really help to keep what muscles I have toned. However' date=' I am sure that there are some other ways to exercise that you have found beneficial. Especially for the middle bit of the body (I know about cutting down on the beer )

Any suggestions?[/quote'] Oh man that does sound drastic to cut down on the beer!! LOL I'm joking of course I don't like the taste of beer. My honey bought me an elptical when I was healing from a broken leg and he uses it more than I do. I'm on there for 2 minutes and I'm done with it. He on the other hand can get on there for 40 mins. He tells me I'm not breathing right....(no kidding after two minutes I'm flat on the floor trying to catch my breath.) lol

[GrumpysWife]

Seriously...( ha ha ) I am in the over 50 league and I have found that it is a real struggle to keep fit. Especially fighting off the growing spare tyre. I started using elastic bands (or I guess I should call them Resistance bands) to do exercises with and have found that they really help to keep what muscles I have toned. However' date=' I am sure that there are some other ways to exercise that you have found beneficial. Especially for the middle bit of the body (I know about cutting down on the beer )

Any suggestions?[/quote'] I like rubber bands too. When I snap them at Grumpy, he jumps. I laugh, could that be cardio vascular exercise?

[rocket]

Seriously...( ha ha ) I am in the over 50 league and I have found that it is a real struggle to keep fit. Especially fighting off the growing spare tyre. I started using elastic bands (or I guess I should call them Resistance bands) to do exercises with and have found that they really help to keep what muscles I have toned. However' date=' I am sure that there are some other ways to exercise that you have found beneficial. Especially for the middle bit of the body (I know about cutting down on the beer )

Any suggestions?[/quote'] I like rubber bands too. When I snap them at Grumpy, he jumps. I laugh, could that be cardio vascular exercise?

Laughing is good cardio-vascular exercise and so is jumping. If you can both do it from your recliners', better yet.

[LuanaGlobal]

How about a floor pedal to exercise the legs while sitting. The key is to keep moving.

[LeslieDean]

When we lived in LA we were property managers of two large condo complexes. We had a little old Jewish woman who lived above us. Every evening we would here a loud thumping noise that lasted around 30 minutes or so. Every night-same time-like clock work. It drove us crazy trying to figure out what she was doing for so long. My husband was called to her condo one evening to fix her garbage disposal. While he set about to replace it he kneeled down to do the work and "that noise" started up in the living room. He said he raised up and peeked over the kitchen bar/counter to see what it was and she had one of those floor bicycles and was "riding it like crazy". She would get so carried away it would go lopsided and make this loud thumping sound everytime it would hit the floor. Rick said she looked just like the witch on the "Wizard of Oz" riding that bike. After that when we would hear the sound Rick would hum the background music from when she was riding the bike. It had a very fast, menancing sound to it. To top it off she was very cranky and would always scream at the children who lived in the building causing everyone not to like her. She would open her door and scream at whoever was walking in the hallway past her apartment because they were making so much noise. That was a true case of the pot calling the kettle black!

[50gumbys]

She would get so carried away it would go lopsided and make this loud thumping sound everytime it would hit the floor. Rick said she looked just like the witch on the "Wizard of Oz" riding that bike.

Thank you so much for the word picture.

I can see Margaret Hamilton riding that thing in the tornado !!!!