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Silver Stars Fitness is a fitness studio that specializes in working with the baby boomer & beyond client.
At Silver Stars, one of our top priorities is to increase our client’s stability and range of motion at various joints.
After the age of 50, it’s inevitable that we will experience some form of aches and pains, unfortunately making us more prone to various injuries. So that’s why we believe that our philosophy of increasing stability and enhancing mobility will help prevent aches and pains and eventual injury, and will also help the person who might have been discharged from physical therapy continue to make progress and avoid future injury.
We do this by incorporating exercises in the beginning of each session that will help to give you stability and mobility, which will help prepare the body for more challenging work as the program progresses.
The most important area to focus on would be core stability, which is not only working on your abdominal and low back muscles, but making sure your hips, buttock and rotator cuff muscles are strong. By performing exercises like the bridge, clams, planks, bird dogs, inner/outer thigh and work for the rotator cuff, you are building your foundation, making you less prone to injury in the future. If you don’t build a foundation, eventually the body will break down. This type of programming has been labeled as “corrective exercise or pre-hab” training, so you can avoid REHAB!
Aches and pains and injuries happen for many reasons. One being, as we get older we tend to become a bit more sedentary than we were in our twenties, thirties and forties, which causes weight gain, loss of flexibility and muscle loss/weakness. So, yes, aging by itself naturally causes us to lose muscle tissue and flexibility, but, this process is accelerated by a sedentary lifestyle.
Weight gain, loss of range of motion around joints and loss of muscle tissue can cause you to overcompensate when you exercise in the gym, walk, run or even just while sitting. Weight gain, loss of stability flexibility and strength can cause you to move inefficiently, essentially putting additional stress on various joints of the body. An example is when you walk and you’re carrying more weight than you should and/or have weak butt and hip muscles, you tend to lean or tilt your pelvis to one side. This puts stress on your knees, hips and back. Another example of weakness and tightness is if your knees buckle inwards when you climb steps or get up from a chair. This can be a sign that your hip and butt muscles are weak and inner thighs are tight. This could result in all sorts of knee issues, such as potential ligament or meniscus tears.
Another reason for aches and pain as we get older is the old “Weekend Warrior” issue. This occurs when you do nothing all week and then go all-out on the weekends. This mentality is just as much of a set up for pain as having a sedentary lifestyle. Too much exercise without preparation, proper progression and recovery is a guarantee for the Monday morning blues, as you will be extremely sore (this isn’t a good thing), which will affect you at work and make you more prone to injury. We need to be mindful, especially as we get older, that exercise is a stress to the body and should be done in proper doses, progression and allowing proper recovery time between sessions. The lesson here is that a little exercise spaced out during the week is a better option than going “all out” on the weekends.
Some people exercise, but really don’t have a plan or are still following a program from the 20th century. Your exercise program should be based upon your goals, time constraints, fitness level and medical history. Not having a plan or performing outdated exercises can cause muscular imbalances that could affect your posture and put stress on your joints and muscles. An example would be someone who stands in a rounder shoulder posture and they are doing a lot of exercises for their chest and not much for the opposing back muscles. So the chest muscles get stronger and tighter and the upper back muscles get weaker, which causes further rounding of the shoulders, which will contribute to neck, shoulder and back pain.
An outdated program can also be very problematic. We use the old crunch as an example. The crunch, especially if you already have back pain and a rounded shoulder posture, doesn’t make much sense. The crunch forces you to round or flex the spine. This is not a good thing for the disks of your back, as they become compressed, but also contributes to poor posture. Life’s daily tasks tend to put us in a bent over position, such as sitting at a computer, driving, etc.., so the last thing we want to do is make it worse by crunching.
To find out more about Silver Stars programs and to set up a consultation, please contact us at 646-573-9724, or email info@silverstarsfit.com. Visit us at silverstarsfit.com.
