Restoring the Aging Baby Boomer

The Baby Boomer generation comprises those in the population born between 1945 and 1964. Yes, I fall into this group too. These individuals were active growing up by playing outside, participating in sports, having physical chores, regular PE in grade school (compared to today’s standards), and walking or cycling as a form of transportation. Put simply, they moved more. Many baby boomers were raised during the marathon running craze of the '70s and the era of Presidential Fitness awards in grade school during the late 60’s. They also remember the infamous group exercise of step aerobics in the 80’s.  

Now these bodies are getting older, obviously. Time and gravity are challenging to the muscular skeletal system. Many say that age is a state of mind. However, the evidence is in the joints, ligaments, muscles, and the way they move. The majority of them are stiff or unstable. It’s not always graceful to move efficiently. There are literally thousands of people turning 60 years of age each day. With that said, there are a lot bodies out there suffering with repetitive use injuries, syndromes, and complications that could be prevented or greatly reduced.  Overuse sport-related injuries can occur in people of all ages, but the risk increases as joints wear down from poor alignment, lack of flexibility, or stability and compensated movement patterns in the older population. But also, lack of using each joint in its full range of motion enough, or sitting too much educates the body to be weakened, dysfunctional, and unsupported. In 1999, an orthopedic surgeon, Nicholas A. DiNubile, coined the term “boomeritis”, and rightfully so. This surge of patients with chronic conditions swamps the physical therapy clinics and doctor offices nationwide with overuse issues and underuse complications.

It’s up to the individual to take action and make a commitment to learn how to care for one’s own needs. This should be a designed program, not a “one size fits all” plan. But many just give up because Medicare and insurance won’t cover preventative care. Does insurance pay for a healthy lifestyle? It costs money to stay healthy. What I have observed in my practice is that those who invest in their health are the healthiest. When we spend time and money on something (an investment), typically we usually do it and take care of it. Pain, illness, and disease remind us when we aren’t doing the right things.  

The Critical Role of Bodywork
Bodywork cannot repair a traumatic injury such as a tear in the ACL of the knee (anterior cruciate ligament), ruptured disc in the lumbar spine, or significant tear in the shoulder, soleus, gastroc or hamstring. It does, however, initiate healing and eliminates contributing factors of the injury. The body heals itself. It needs proper time with no other complications in its way. Manual therapy, Bodywork, assists in getting the proper tension relationship from left to right, top to bottom, and front to back with all the muscles, connective tissue, trigger points, scar tissue, ligaments, and tendons. In the process it unravels posture holding patterns that are preventing proper movements to be efficient. The goal is to get these relationships back to where they aren’t too far from perfect balance. Too far out of balance is where the body breaks down and becomes injury prone. Which could be the cause, not running being the cause. Take the knee as an example. If there is too much tightness in the hip above the knee, there is a good chance the foot has to laterally rotate to compensate. This causes the knee to absorb with a twist or torsion between the two (usually a medial rotation). This brings about a poor tracking knee, an unstable knee. You can see this during posture reading under weight-bearing stress and in movement. This is an environment for the knee to age and wear down faster. It also becomes injury prone. Bodywork therapy releases tightness in the hip muscles and lateral tissue of the leg as well the posterior side and opposing sides of the body. Treating in isolation is only treating symptoms. Tissue and joints of the human body are all linked into one large unit, so key factors are often located far away from the symptom. For example, a shoulder can be a contributor to a knee issue. Just keep in mind that working within the site of pain isn’t always the quickest way out of that pain.

Bodywork incorporated into a routine maintenance plan is smart. Just like maintaining a house, car, or lawn the body needs attention of making sure it’s in check. The therapist should have sufficient insight of genetic, environmental and training factors for help.  The routine maintenance plan can help with decision-making with the training program too. During a treatment session there can be identifiers of potential trouble that weren’t observed by the runner. This feedback can give the runner a choice to change the program if needed. Does the body feel good for more miles or less miles? Is it responsive for faster speed work, or needed change to slower speed work?  Maybe the session will bring up the thoughts of time for new shoes, change surface of running, improve warm-up, increase or decrease bodywork maintenance program, or possible gait analysis to be done.

 The Empowering Role of Simplistic Exercises

Keep it simple. It’s a model that works. Think in terms of how the body developed from an infant through adolescence. What were the steps in muscular skeletal development and systems of movement? There was no fancy gym equipment, or trainers to tell us what to do. Many of those movements can restore us. We have a model that we have followed before, and it was easy. It can also be done just about anywhere. The important thing is to reminder ourselves that the body is interconnected. Opposing areas affect each other from left to right, top to bottom, and diagonally. Restoring exercises (these can also be warm-up exercises before fitness workouts) need to have the same approach. Otherwise, the body is training itself to be out of balance even more or in another way. Consistency is critical because changing the muscle memory of the compensations from injury, shortness, tightness, and instability has been in play for weeks, months, years, or, for the baby boomer, decades. Clearing the old patterns can be a very educational experience. Simple movements that we think will be easy we find are surprisingly difficult. These can be “ah-ha” moments. When we establish the new greater ease of movement, pain will be reduced, there will be less risk of injury, and we even increase our potential for performance gains. Keeping an open mind of how the body is so linked together is important. Training/fixing should not be in isolation, we can go far away from the injury, make a change, and watch how it helps the problematic area. Furthermore, putting a little change into an exercise can have a dramatic effect. It is like we are backing up time, getting younger, or reorganizing movement. An example is the classic Mackenzie press up, pictured below:

The movement is designed to help establish lumbar curvature, stretch the thoracic, and more. But what if we add a side-bend movement or a thoracic twist before the press up? It is so simple, but it can improve or fix tissue that is begging for release. This is could be the golden nugget for proper lumbar curvature and low back health. To return spinal health for better running. Can you imagine an infant doing this during floor time? The answer is yes, it part a natural development process. Is the Mackenzie press up for everyone? No, there are many ways to design a program without this exercise. Some individuals aren’t ready for this position. Rule: If it creates pain, we don’t do it. Treat in areas, or motions, that are pain free! It’s easier to be consistent that way.

Life is too short to be in pain or to be left behind in the mall, grocery store, playing field, golf course, or wherever. It makes sense to spend some time learning how to be pain free. Fill a tool box of knowledge for a lifetime and a to-do list for your unique needs. There is no one size fits all plan. Most routines, once mastered, are only 20 minutes out of your day to maintain. This is a small price of time to pay for feeling better and staying there. Then you are able to build fitness on top of function instead of dysfunction. No Pain Equals All Gain!