A Word to the Wise

 

A few weeks back I was experiencing severe knee pain and searched the YouTube videos on various opinions on the subject, and one of the more helpful tips on walking up and down stairs was to place the feet with the toes at a 45 degree angle to the stairs. I did that for a few weeks and it was moderately helpful in reducing the pain — but seems to require a lot of attention that never became natural and fluid. But then I added leaning my weight forward as I went up the stairs — and leaning my weight back as I descended the stairs — and it became a very natural and pleasant movement again.

Then, it seems like one is falling up the stairs, and properly resisting falling down the stairs. As one ages, I think they tend to get it backwards. Using hands is not cheating but what they are designed for.

Another popular idea for developing and maintaining leg strength for this ultimate daily test is the lunge.

Most people will find lunges very hard on the knees — done in the manner usually prescribed by exercise instructors — to produce maximum pain. The way to make them easy is to hold on to the back of a chair in a comfortable fore and aft leg position and gently rock back and forth with the knee moving over the toes and then back in alignment with the ankle to the extent there is no pain in the knee joint. But that gentle movement will cause the cartilage to secret synovial fluid into that joint — which is a form of mucus that is the lubricant for movement in the body, and why it also lines the mucus membranes that lubricates the digestive, respiratory, lymphatic systems, etc. The other major fluid of the body is of course the blood — which is more obvious in how it moves more forcefully and visibly.

However, the joints are not lubricated by the blood as much as they are by the synovial fluid effected by changes in the compression of the cartilage — preferably repeated many times rather than few repetitions with a heavy load. In this case, it doesn’t matter how hard or heavy a load the joint is bearing, as the simple movement throughout its full range — as in cross-country bicycling at a slow pace — enabling one to persist all day. That is the kind of fitness most seniors require to maintain an active life throughout their years. Nothing violent or heroic — unless they absolutely have to, otherwise, the difference is not how fast they can walk or run, but that they can still walk or run at all. Likewise, they don’t need to bench press their bodyweight, but just have the upper body strength to push open the doors, etc.

That is the difference that makes a difference — that they can do all the daily activities independently — for as long as they live — and not that they’re still competing in their age-class and risking debilitating injuries.  Easy does it.