Soooooo I really am a bit sedentary

[conuly]

Well, sedentary with long walks because I'd always rather walk than take the bus, but still.

On the one hand, I want to exercise more for general health reasons. I don't want to end up old and find out that immobility has snuck up on me, nor do I want to discover that it's really true that being inactive increases your risk of dementia. (It's all well and good for me to assert that dementia doesn't run in my family, but that only works if I ignore my father's mother. Which I mostly do, but still. Probably I should stop doing that.)

On the other hand, I don't want to exacerbate existing joint issues, which would really suck and probably not help my old age mobility at all, especially not if that's connected to arthritis. In the past month my mother has mentioned off-hand an alarming number of relatives who were severely restricted due to arthritis at rather young ages - and that's only counting the ones who developed it in adulthood! There's at least one cousin of hers or her mother's who was apparently "totally crippled" before puberty. She can preen all she likes about how that gene seems to have skipped her, I see my sister increasingly worried and yet dodging the thought that she might already be developing arthritis. She's not even 40 yet! (She ought to go to a doctor. I think we all know that neither funds nor time is really the reason she hasn't.)

So clearly the thing to do is find some 15 or 20 minute daily exercise routine that's reasonably high intensity but isn't going to screw up my joints, at least, not more than they already are. Preferably something that can be done by somebody with no real coordination - I can't jump rope, I can't ride bikes, every day I nearly trip over my own two feet/my pants/the dogs and break my glasses.

Maybe I should just buy myself an exercise bike. When I don't need to balance, I am very unlikely to fall down. I'm not worried about myself so much as my poor glasses.

Comments

[goss]

the thing to do is find some 15 or 20 minute daily exercise routine that's reasonably high intensity but isn't going to screw up my joints

*nods*

My mother has had arthritis since childhood, and now has increasing issues due to osteoporosis. She commented to me just this week that she's so glad she started back doing regular exercise, because she's noticed that her shoulder joint pain has since reduced and her mobility in that area has increased significantly.

Her routine? Every morning, she takes a brisk walk around the nearby park, followed by 15 minutes on gym equipment (also at the park) like an elliptical, row machine etc. for strengthening arms.

an exercise bike

Yeah, that's a good one for pacing yourself. Due to...foot issues, I can't use a lot of gym equipment that require pressure on the feet (like the elliptical), but the exercise bike gives me a good cardio work-out. My dad, who's had 2 knee replacement surgeries, uses it regularly too, but at a much slower pace, to help strengthen his leg muscles.

[gatheringrivers]

If it's any consolation, everyone (at least on my mother's side of the family), over 30, has arthritis - including me.

Short end of the gene stick is my usual joke about it. :)

[conuly]

How is that a consolation!? They say misery loves company, I suppose, but that doesn't mean I want you to have arthritis at the age of 30!

[lilysea]

The gold standard for exercise that doesn't screw up joints [as endorsed by Arthritis groups and physiotherapists] is exercise-supported-by water.

So,
walking in waist deep water in a pool,
swimming,
hydrotherapy,
water aerobics.

[siderea]

This.

conuly it's just as well you can't jump rope: any sort of jumping exercise is brutal on most of your joints. Running's not great either.

Honestly, if what you want is to protect mobility and fend off arthritis, you don't want "intensity". Intensity is for cardiovascular health, weight loss, and stamina. For what you want, you probably want something like yoga or tai chi or barre, and maybe something like weight training. Now, all these things can be done in ways that don't exacerbate existing joint injuries, but also not, so you might want to get a bit of instruction on how to accommodate your own issues.

[conuly]

Well, I mean, I don't not want cardiovascular health and stamina. (Weight loss I can take or leave. I'm hardly underweight, but I don't care much either.)

[mindstalk]

Reliable weight loss seems "impossible and counterproductive[1] with rare exceptions", from all I read; seems much better to worry about fitness, which actually can be improved. If that happens to lose weight, yay.

[1] "Dieting makes you fatter on the rebound" counterproductive.

[conuly]

Indeed. And, as I said, my weight is not something I overly care about. My interest in my body extends as far as my body's ability to do what I want/need it to do. What it looks like has never been too big a concern.

[ironymaiden]

This. I do deep-water fitness and it is both a great workout and easy on the joints. (At the city pool it is very affordable, 50 cents more than regular admission.) It's also the least intimidating group ever and done to fun music.

For hands specifically, knitting and musical instruments like piano are both good.

[conuly]

Or typing an awful lot, do you think?

[conuly]

Hm. Can't swim, and find the echos at indoor pools extremely discomforting, but I suppose I can suck it up a couple days a week.

[lilysea]

I'm guessing that the sea is not an option because pollution or travel time?

[conuly]

The beaches are closed from Labor Day in September through to Memorial Day in May. Plus, it's cold half the year!

I could do beaches or outdoor pools in the summer, no problem, but it's winter I worry about.

[lilysea]

The beaches are closed from Labor Day in September through to Memorial Day in May

Aha!

As an Australian... "the beaches are closed" is not really a thing that happens, ever. Except for a few days after a shark attack.

[conuly]

Yes, I figured that was the source of your confusion. (We don't have shark attacks in NYC. Jellyfish, maybe.)

[lilysea]

By the way, does "the beaches are closed" in NYC mean

a) "If you swim here you will get a fine and/or arrested"

or

b) you can swim here, but there are no surf lifesavers on duty to rescue you if you get into trouble?

[conuly]

It means the parks department will absolutely chase you out of the water if they find you, even if you're not even an inch in and fully clothed. I don't know if you'll get a fine or a ticket, though - but you definitely could drown in some spots on the NYC coastline, so you shouldn't do that.

[lilysea]

Wow. Yeah that is DEFINITELY not a thing in Australia.

We have lots of beaches where there are no surf life savers in winter, but you can still swim there at your own risk.

[marahmarie]

Are they actually "closed" nearer to you? On LI we lost lifeguards after Labor Day and didn't get them back until Memorial Day, but you could still go (at least to the smaller North Fork/South Fork/East End beaches) any day of the year.

[conuly]

They'll chase people out of the water if you show up 5 minutes before opening time any day of summer, so I assume it's the same over the winter.

[marahmarie]

That is...strange. We didn't have lifeguards (or anyone) to chase us out of the water once the season was over.

[conuly]

Well, the parks department is there anyway, because beaches are parks, so.

[marahmarie]

OK, that explains it. The beaches we most often frequented aren't state or county parks (I just checked the LI state and county park pages to see if that's changed, but it hasn't) so I guess it's a little easier to visit or even swim in them off-season.

(Now I wonder: "Who the heck controls those beaches?". The towns they're in? ...

Yes! The towns indeed run them. Just googled and got this answer for the ones we'd visit the most: "All beaches are open daily from sunrise to 10 p.m. year round." TIL)

[glinda]

I don't know how accessable swimming is to you, but I have joint issues and when I had a more sedantry job I found that swimming a couple of times a week was really quite effective for keeping mobile. Also with swimming you can go as hard or as gentle as you like, I'm more at the doing gentle lengths of breast stroke in the slow lane first thing in the morning end of things but you can crank it up to a fast crawl if you want a more vigorous work out. (I enjoy it precisely because I can vary it up based on energy/inclination.)

[conuly]

Swimming is one of those coordinated things I can't do. I might make more progress learning if I wasn't also scared of drifting into the deep end of the pool, even in pools that don't have a deep end, and finding myself trapped.

[redbird]

Yes; with an exercise bike in your own home, you might be able to leave your glasses on some nearby surface. I say "might" because I don't know your eyeglass prescription; I had to keep mine on/with me at the gym so I could read the combination lock on my gym locker.

[conuly]

My eyesight is now bad enough that just having my glasses off for anything other than showering, sleeping, or reading a book makes me anxious that I must have lost them. Even if, of course, I haven't.

[scripsi]

Would yoga be an option? I find it very good for mobility, and I found several Youtube canals which offer short sessions. My favourite is called Yoga with Adriene.

[conuly]

Yoga may be an option, but with the aforementioned hypermobility* I'm wary about overextending myself unless I know more about what I'm doing.

* After carefully examining the evidence and various diagnostic criteria I'm certain there's something, but I'm equally certain I'd never get a formal diagnosis barring expensive genetic tests proving the something exists in my family.

[scripsi]

Of course, I can understand that. I hope you find something which works for you!

[cesy]

If you're hypermobile, Pilates may work, as it's focused on balance and strength, rather than yoga's focus on flexibility.

[oracne]

A friend with joint issues does tai chi and climbs stairs (she lives in a tall building).

[conuly]

There is something to be said for stairs.

[acelightning]

I've been sedentary my entire life, which is probably part of why I wound up with congestive heart failure and arterial plaque. But a former student of mine is certified as an instructor by one of the Chinese schools of T'ai Chi, and he is giving me lessons via Skype (he's in the Navy). It has already improved my balance and coordination, and my general stamina - a couple of weeks ago I was able to traipse around a large gem-and-mineral show, and I only had to stop and sit down and drink some water once during the afternoon. T'ai Chi is extremely low impact, which is why you see videos of outdoor parks in China with hundreds of elderly people doing T'ai Chi exercises at sunrise. There's a lot of "Western medicine" proof that it's very good for people with arthritis, high blood pressure, stroke damage (like mine), and limited energy; you're encouraged to stop, and not push yourself too hard, whenever it becomes uncomfortable. I'm enjoying it.

[conuly]

Stoke damage. I wonder if I can pressure my mother into doing it with me as a mother-daughter bonding thingy.

[acelightning]

When I got out of the hospital last year, they sent me home with a walker. I promptly stopped using it (I used to trip over it when I tried to walk) and got a cane. I'm now reaching the point where I don't need the cane nearly as much as I used to, now I mostly need it for going up and down the stairs.

There is a mental/spiritual component to T'ai Chi; you have to visualize things and adopt a somewhat meditative state. If your mother can do that, I think it would be good for her.

[novel_machinist]

This whole post is a big mood for me. I am hoping to start bike riding if there is ever a weekend where RAIN doesn't happen

[gwydion]

water Aerobics?

[marahmarie]

I don't know how good shape I'm in overall or how much what I do (or don't do) might help you to know about, but I walk. And walk. And walk. I usually put in a few miles a day between what I do around the house, taking the full-flight staircase up and down all day/night, covering several neighborhoods and doing elsewise (shopping, running around town, or whatever; sometimes I also walk back and forth to shopping, which is a non-trivial walk with a few mild hills).

I've tried taking up bike-riding again now that I've finally had both my broken bikes re-assembled into a working one, but the neighborhood's so atrociously paved (basically an assortment of rough gravel, rocks and sand and potholes - in fact, someone just totaled their car in one of the worst potholes smack dab in front of our place, the other night) and so poorly graded, and made out of small yet unending hills that I just can't.

Yet if I take my bike over to the next neighborhood where it's graded and paved perfectly, biking's like wheee! - feels like I'm a kid again, and is both easy and fun. It's getting the bike from here to there that feels like it'll kill me before I can. I'd rate my neighborhood 0/10 for biking, it's that much of a nightmare.

That said, an exercise bike is good and fun and basically the same thing, just automatically balanced for you with less scenery, and super-convenient because if you just have a minute here and another there, then it's real easy to fit in.

I know you're asking about exercise and not supplements but I've been taking Collagen II with Asperflex for maybe a year now and it seems to be helping; my knee arthritis doesn't act up much, anymore (had it since wearing my knees out in a retail job in my early 20s), my injured foot seems better, and my hormonal whole-body arthritic flares seem anywhere from reduced to simply gone, from month to month just depending, so I'd call it a win, overall (of course, assuming it's the supplement responsible. I don't have that much faith that my expanded walking regimen and mostly better diet the last few years could have *that* much of an effect on my arthritis issues, in particular, though I'm sure it all helps).

[chez_jae]

Swimming, or aqua aerobics? Good exercise, minimum joint impact.

[conuly]

Not ideal, but possible.

[dandelion.livejournal.com]

I'm going to try an app called Seven which might suit you? The gimmick is it only takes 7 minutes. (Can always do it twice-three times for 15-20 mins :P) I have an exercise bike, but even setting it up by the TV, I find it quite boring.

[conuly]

App, I'll look into it.

As far as bikes and treadmills, of course they're boring. Treadmills were originally used as a form of punishment in prison! That's why you watch TV at the same time.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

This has been the top post in my Lj for the past two years:

"When I'm online, I set the timer to go off every 45 minutes, and when it does, I get up and dance to a song on Youtube. I highly recommend this exercise plan to everyone as a fun, free and simple way to burn fat, tone muscle, and avoid the deadly effects of prolonged sitting (http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/11/health/sitting-increases-risk-of-death-study/index.html). So, these are the videos I've mostly been dancing to (https://elenbarathi.livejournal.com/703178.html) recently, in order of duration. All these bands have a lot of other very dancey songs too. Enjoy!

I know you said Youtube doesn't play well for you, but you can certainly find some other source of dancey music, and get up and dance to it for a few minutes every hour. Dancing will do a lot to improve your proprioception, which will improve your balance; plus it's free, it's not boring, it requires no equipment, and it's good for your joints. Especially if you're prone to arthritis, you need to be putting every joint through its full range of motion at least a few times a day - yes, you'll be stiff at first, but nowhere near as stiff as you'll be in a few years if you don't work to keep your joints supple.

Awhile back, I noted that doctors are now recommending that older people stand on one foot while brushing their teeth, as a simple way to improve balance. Some people are naturally more coordinated than others, but everyone can improve their coordination with practice. The threat of losing mobility is certainly a powerful motivator! I live with a woman only 5 years older than I am, who can barely walk across the back yard because she's spent so much of her life with her butt stuck to a chair in front of the damn television: "Don't Be That Girl."

[conuly]

:D

I should have remembered that post.

As far as one foot toothbrushing goes, I think I'll wait until our bathroom is slightly less embarrassing, that is, until we have a sink. (We now have a door again, hallelujah.) God forbid I fall and break my neck, I don't want the EMTs to see that.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I sure hear that. My room and bathroom are too messy for any mortal to enter and live.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

Elliptical machine!