Are you looking for ways to stay active and healthy as you age? At Wigmore Chiropractic Care in Gillingham, we understand that your body and back have different needs and vulnerabilities at different stages of life. Our experienced chiropractors specialise in providing tailored chiropractic treatment and pain relief therapy to help you maintain an active lifestyle through the years. Our services include arthritic pain treatment, joint pain treatment, and comprehensive care from skilled chiropractors.
Whether you're experiencing chronic pain or seeking preventive care, our goal is to support your well-being with effective and personalised treatments. Staying active is key to ageing gracefully, and we are here to help you achieve that. Reach out to schedule your appointment and start your journey towards better health and mobility.
For Teenagers
At this age you may not think about your back. Being active during your youth and teenage years is an important part of development, but it is a good idea to get into some good habits that set you up for a healthy life.
When you do any exercise, make sure you warm up first. This can be as simple as going for a five-minute walk, or do some gentle mobilisation exercises to get your body used to moving before starting to do exercise that puts real strain on your body and your back.
You also want to get in the habit of doing a cool down after any form of exercise by doing some gentle stretches, and allow your heart rate to go down.
School Bags
An important factor contributing to back pain in teenagers is carrying heavy back packs. It can increase the risk of back pain by 50%. So, as a parent, make sure that you check your child’s school bag regularly to make sure they only carry what they need to carry on that day.
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Also, make sure that your teenager has a backpack for school and wears it the right way with both straps on the shoulders and tightened so it is snug on the back. This ensures that it reduces the amount of strain on the spine.
In Your Twenties
Some people find it much easier to stay active in their twenties than others do. This may have to do with time, or how much your social life takes over. If you have been an active teenager, you might find that some of your social life still revolves around being active, like if you’re a member of a football or rugby club, or go to the gym with your friends.
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Even if your social life doesn’t include sporting activities, staying active by going for walks, going out dancing, or even joining a park run with your friends are good ways of making sure you move enough.
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When it comes to bags, start thinking about bags that distribute the weight evenly across both shoulders, so this may still involve a backpack of some kind, or a cross-body bag is a good option.
Your Busy Thirties
At this time of life, a lot of people focus on their career while also starting a family. The demands of both can be detrimental to your ability to stay active.
Many people use a laptop for work and don’t think too much about the position they’re in. Even with your laptop, try to put it on a table rather than your lap, and if you can raise the screen so it’s level with your eyes, it will really help you to avoid slouching. Your arms need to be flat on the table or desk and your elbows level with them.
At this stage, having a supportive mattress also becomes more important. When you’re buying a mattress, spend plenty of time in bed stores, trying lots of different mattresses to see if you feel properly supported. Have someone check when you lay on your side, to see if your spine looks straight.
If you find that you don’t have time to do the exercise you used to, see if you can carve out 5 or 10 minutes a day to do an exercise video at home, or maybe do a park run with your children over the weekend. It teaches them to enjoy moving and see it part of their normal life, and it keeps you active.
Lifting And Carrying
Make sure that when you need to lift something, or a child, that you face in the direction you want to carry. Lift with a straight, but relaxed back and use your legs by keeping them at least hip width apart, and bend your knees.
Make sure you don’t bend forward when you go to lift something, but keep your weight and shoulders above your feet. Once upright, make sure you don’t lean forward or backward, but keep your shoulders and head above your waist.
Avoid twisting as much as you can, and if you need to turn while lifting or carrying, please turn from your feet, rather than twisting your back.
Life Takes Over In Your Forties
A lot of people find it even harder to find the time to stay active in their forties. Between the demands of your family, work and often times the increasing needs of your own parents, you may struggle to find time for basic self-care.
Whenever possible, try to walk, or take the stairs. If you’re only need to go 5 minutes up the road in the car, see if you might be able to cycle there.
The more you can eat healthily and stay active during this period in your life, the more you set yourself up to keep your bones and ligaments strong, improve muscle tone as well as improve circulation and make it easier to maintain a good posture.
You will find that it may take you longer to recover if you’ve hurt yourself, but the more you can keep moving and stay mobile, the better your recovery will be. A nice benefit of staying active as you hit your forties is that it will slow down the wear and tear processes in your muscles, joints and ligaments.
Staying Fit In Your Fifties
You may feel your body change and your strength and fitness levels being affected by it. Try to find some way of exercising that you enjoy doing, or that you can do with friends or family.
Staying active and mobile by doing gentle exercise, especially weight bearing exercise, is really important. Try something like yoga or pilates, to gain strength and flexibility.
If you find that weightbearing exercise is hard to do, or gives you pain, try swimming or cycling to reduce the impact on your body and still build strength.
Active In Your Sixties
At this time of life, it’s important to do gentle, weightbearing exercises with moderate impact in order to maintain good bone and muscle strength. If you’ve been diagnosed with osteoporosis, it’s even more important to stay active.
And don’t forget to exercise your upper body. Even if you walk a lot, and keep your lower body strong and healthy, you can develop osteoporosis in your upper body that can lead to fractures.
If you don’t have any weights at home, use two cans of beans to exercise your arms, or do some push ups against the wall in order to keep your upper body strength going.
Seventy Plus
Staying strong and active helps you stay healthy for longer. Pilates, Tai Chi and yoga are great forms of exercise to maintain strength in your core and stay flexible in your body. Ten minutes a day is all that you need to improve bone density in your spine.
The main benefit of practicing yoga, pilates and Tai Chi though are to maintain your balance, co-ordination and muscle strength, which are predictors of staying healthy and active as you get older and reduce your risk or falls and fractures later in life.
For more information about how chiropractic might help you through the different stages of your life, contact us today.