Soooooo I really am a bit sedentary
Apr. 24th, 2019 03:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyWell, 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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-26 09:07 am (UTC)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).