These are the ones that everyone, at every age need to do on a regular basis. They set the table for a baseline level of cellular, muscular, and skeletal health. These essential practices will give you a foundation to participate in the activities you love, to look great, and feel your best:
Get Your Heart Rate Up: If you haven’t heard, cardiovascular disease is by far and away the number one killer in the United States. Even seemingly healthy individuals are at risk. Cardiovascular exercise is paramount to a baseline level of health. Getting your heart rate up helps flush out your arteries, stabilizes blood pressure, and pushes fluid and nutrients to every inch of your body. It’s proven to boost your mood, balance hormone production, and increase your immune system function. Even small amounts show great results. Power walk, run, ride a bike, play a sport…just get the heart pumping!
Stretch Your Body: A daily flexibility practice ensures healthy range of motion throughout all of your joints. By entertaining a regular “conversation” with the drivers of your body, you can stay ahead of tight muscles or areas causing discomfort. Keep your ankles, hips, spine, and shoulders mobile as you age by taking some time to explore what a comfortable range of motion is for yourself. Static stretches, similar to a yoga routine, are a great place to start. Work in some dynamic bodyweight stretches safely, such as lunges, squats, and reaches.
Load Light and Efficient: You don’t have to be lifting heavy weights for it to benefit your body. Practice light loading with your bodyweight, dumbbells, or a medicine ball. All are great ways to stimulate nerve activity as well as muscle and bone growth. Practice basic combination of pushes, pulls, presses and curls. Add some slight variations to the plane of motion you operate in (direction). By developing an efficient and consistent routine, you set yourself up to be comfortable in situations that require loading. This is a practice that ages very well.
