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Key points
- Muscle building is necessary for healthy function and mobility.
- People can build strength through yoga, pilates, and working out at a gym or with a personal trainer.
- Exercising was more difficult for some people during the pandemic. Now that COVID restrictions are being lifted, exercising may be easier.
Chatting with my dog-walking friends recently, I learned that the husband of one of them had developed a neurological condition that made walking painful and difficult. “I have to support him when he tries to move from the bed to a chair or to the bathroom,” she told us.
“How can you do that?” another friend asked. “He is over 6 ft and you are, what, 5’3” and weigh 110 pounds?”
“I’m strong,” she replied. “I have been doing Pilates for years and weight lifting. But just to be sure I wouldn’t hurt myself, I asked a personal trainer to show me the best way to lift him, especially after he fell. It took all my strength to help him get up.”
Picking up my not-too-slim dachshund to cross the street to go home, I reflected on often we may be called upon to carry out activities that require physical strength. Even with all the laborsaving devices available, sometimes there is no substitute for physical exertion. It could be pushing a double stroller up a hill, carrying heavy supermarket bags into the house from the car, putting a too full carry-on suitcase in the overhead bin, lifting several pounds of birdseed, or attempting to remove a roasting pan containing a 20-pound turkey from the oven. Most, if not all, of these activities, require not just strength in one’s legs and arms, but also core strength: the ability to engage the abdominal muscles so as to avoid putting strain on the back.
Core strength is acquired as a consequence of consistent muscle and core strengthening exercise. It is not the same as cardio fitness, although that too is important, because the heart works more efficiently when aerobic exercise is performed routinely. Building muscles, both peripheral and abdominal, can be done by following a more or less standard set of moves, some of which can be done with resistance bands or weights, or by using machines designed to exercise specific muscle groups. Yoga, as well as Pilates, is also an effective way of building muscular strength.
The best way to build core strength is under the supervision of someone who can pay attention to the beginner’s posture, balance, and movements, and who can guide the beginner through the sequence of movements that work out different muscle groups. However, this option may not be available, convenient, or affordable. The pandemic prevented most of the use of gyms, yoga studios, community center exercise classes, and interaction with a personal trainer. Fortunately, most of these sites, along with trainers or yoga instructors are now available. But the end of the pandemic did not end the scramble many face in fitting into their daily work, family, and social activities time to go to a gym, yoga studio or to workout with a trainer. The alternative, watching a YouTube video or following written instructions on how to move through various exercises, may work. However, they may cause a problem for those of us, such as me, who have difficulty following directions on how to move various parts of our bodies through space.
I randomly clicked on a website promising to guide me through a yoga sequence to build my core in 10 steps. I have taken yoga classes, so I had an idea of what each pose looked like, but when trying to follow the written directions such as the following examples, I found myself having difficulty.
The instructions were as follows:
“Step your left foot back, toes angled at about 45 degrees, keeping both heels in line with each other. Inhale to raise your arms above your head and parallel to each other, exhale to soften the shoulders away from the ears, and bend the front knee at 90 degrees. Keep the knee in line with the middle toe."
“Try to square the hips as much as possible to the front of your mat, and gently draw the thighs in toward each other. Even out the weight between both your feet as you lift up and out of the pelvis, with a slight back arch. Keep the neck soft as you gaze forward, or up at your hands for a deeper stretch.”
I kept stopping and peering at the instructions on the computer to make sure I was doing it correctly and also I was trying not to fall over as I was doing so. This obviously was not the user-friendliest way of learning how to do a Yoga pose. Watching an instructor on a video is probably a preferable alternative, especially if you can stop and repeat the sequence of moves until you feel you know them. Videos illustrating how to use free weights or stretchy bands are also very useful in developing muscular strength.
It is important to start and proceed slowly. Injuries from using weights that are too heavy or bands that have too much resistance, or attempting Yoga poses that stretch underused muscles, may cause substantial pain for days afterward, if not injury.
Motivation to pursue the learning and practice of an exercise routine to strengthen muscles and your core can be hard to maintain. The results may be imperceptible for several weeks, and some aches from under-used muscles may make it hard to continue. Working out in a class, even a virtual one, is helpful because encouragement from the instructor, or even computer-generated compliments ("Good job! Keep at it!") nudges you toward committing to another exercise session.
Slow though they may be in presenting, results will appear: the bag of groceries doesn’t feel so heavy, getting up from a low chair is less difficult, and the pudgy dachshund feels lighter because your arms are stronger. You are never going to be able to lift a car off the ground with one hand to rescue a cat trapped underneath, but should someone in your home or at work or on the street need help in standing up, walking upstairs, or putting a bag in the overhead compartment? Your strong muscles and core will be able to assist.
