HEALTHY MOTION. Movement and maintaining mobility is essential to good health. Exercise reduces pain, it promotes lymphatic drainage which is essential for your immune response, and it stimulates your brain.
There are many extra benefits such as getting outside for sunshine and vitamin D, as well as improving mood and bringing people together.
Make sure you keep active and if joint pain is holding you back, try Osteopathy to get you up and going again. The Pure Health Osteopathy team is ready to help. 😀👟❤️
Research and the literature are not always specific on what is the best type of exercise or movement for particular conditions.
Often the recommendation is to remain “generally active”. This means it can be difficult coming up with a specific exercise plan.
Some studies show that maintaining trunk strength can be beneficial for stabilizing the lumbar spine with disc prolapses. Research also shows that maintaining quadriceps (the big muscle group on the front of the thigh) strength can prevent falls in older people.
Maintaining general activity and incidental exercise (exercise from the activities of daily living) is a good rule of thumb.
Adding further activity to make up for our generally sedentary lifestyle is a great way to go.
Australia’s National exercise guidelines recommend 150 to 300 minutes of “moderate intensity” physical activity, or 75 to 150 minutes of “vigorous intensity” physical activity, each week, or a combination of both.
The following suggestions may help you to incorporate more activity into your lifestyle.
- Find something you like doing, fits in with your schedule and budget.
- Exercise with someone else to help motivate you and provide some friendly competition.
- Try something new- indoor rock wall climbing, dance class, martial arts.
- Mix it up! Some running, yoga, walking, short runs, Pilates class etc.
- Set specific times to exercise and set achievable goals.
- Is there an adult version of a sport your children engage in?