3 Necessities for Aging Well. Part 1: Healthy Hips (of course)!
Since the beginning of the year I’ve had a noticeable increase in clients asking for help with aging-related issues - primarily posture and balance.
It’s never too late to start taking care of yourself. Even if you don’t think you have aging-related issues now, it’s still a good time to start paying attention.
This week starts a short series on the 3 areas I think are most important, and can make the biggest difference, as we age.
Hip health is my #1.
Hip muscles work harder and absorb more shock than any other place in your body. They are so important in so many ways, the biggest two being:
They power your lower body doing things like jumping, running, walking, hiking. But also things like standing and sitting. Anything that requires your lower body for movement or support needs strong, healthy hips.
They support our pelvis and core. Without the support of the hips, the core will overwork and the pelvis won’t be able to stabilize as efficiently to support everything else (more on this in the next post). When our hips don’t work efficiently, other things have to take over and that’s when pain and injuries can easily happen (i.e.: watch out knees and feet and spine).
So, how do we keep our hips healthy as we age?
As we age joints move less easily. Our synovial fluid decreases and our cartilage becomes thinner. Bone quality can decrease. It’s easier for our hips to wear down. And it’s easier for them to break, which can lead to trouble with general mobility and independence.
What to do about it?
In short - move.
Specifically stretch and strengthen. Try to do all the things hips need to do:
- Flex
- Extend
- Abduct
- Adduct
- Rotate
These basic exercises are all good:
- Lunges
- Squats
- Side lunges
- Clamshells
- Reverse Clamshell
To make these the most useful keep these two things in mind:
make sure your pelvis is even and stable while your thighs move. Otherwise it’s your pelvis that’s doing the moving and not your hips.
try to focus on what you want the exercise to do instead of just performing the exercise — focus on flexing the hip or extending the hip, etc.
You don’t have to do them all every day. Try rotating through them regularly. That’s a huge step forward for keeping your hips juiced up and moving.
Try it and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.