Can middle-aged and elderly people still practice flexibility training?

Of course it can be practiced. As long as the method is used properly, not only will it not hurt the body, but it can also help middle-aged and elderly people solve many minor daily problems. This is also a conclusion generally recognized in the sports rehabilitation circle and the elderly fitness field.

In the past, I often heard people say, "As people age, their bones become brittle and their ligaments harden, and it is easy to stretch and even fracture when practicing flexibility." This worry is not groundless. I have met the 62-year-old Aunt Zhang at a community fitness guidance point before. She learned leg press from the young people in the short video. , holding back her strength and pressing down, she stretched the hamstring muscles on the back of her thighs on the spot. She had to lie down for almost two weeks before she could go out to buy groceries. After that, when she met everyone, she advised the elderly not to do flexibility training. In fact, she fell into the typical misunderstanding of "hard work, pursuing range, and comparing progress with young people."

I have been an exercise coach for the elderly for almost 7 years, and I have come into contact with many elderly people in their 70s and 80s who still insist on regular flexibility training. For example, the 78-year-old Uncle Li from our community fitness team had a hard time squatting down to pick up keys in the past few years. He held on to the horizontal bar and gently swayed his hips, then sat on the bench and slowly reached his hands in the direction of his toes. He only paused each movement for 10 to 15 seconds at a time, not trying to touch the ground with his hands. He stopped until he felt a slight soreness and stretch. He persisted like this for more than half a year. Now he can carry ten kilograms of vegetables up to the third floor without gasping for breath. He can squat on the balcony and play with his succulent for half an hour without feeling uncomfortable. The bone density of his last physical examination was better than that of many uncles and aunts who have just retired.

In fact, the core of the current controversy about flexibility training for middle-aged and elderly people has never been "can you practice it", but "how to practice it". There are also many conservative orthopedic surgeons who will recommend that middle-aged and elderly people do less stretching exercises. The essence is that ordinary people equate flexibility training with extreme challenges such as doing splits and lowering the waist. It is really not the case. For middle-aged and elderly people, flexibility training is more like lubricating joints that have been used for decades. There is no need to pursue a large range of motion, but it targets the areas that are most prone to stiffness, such as shoulders that are tight after sitting for a long time, hips that are heavy after walking for a long time, and around the knees that cannot be squatted. After each warm-up, stretch the body gently and stop when there is a slight soreness and swelling. There is no risk of injury at all.

You don’t need to set aside a whole block of time to practice. Usually when you are watching TV at home, sit on the edge of the sofa, put your heels on the ground and gently push your toes back, and feel the pulling feeling on the back of your calf. Change it every ten seconds, or gently turn your shoulders while cooking and waiting for the water to boil. It is a very detailed flexibility training. Over time, you will find that the previous small problems of struggling to put on socks and painful things when lifting your hands to reach the top of the cabinet have been eliminated by most of them before you know it.