When we’re young and hale, marathons are heroic. We pull all-nighters cramming for exams, work out and shoot hoops before the midnight bicycle ramble.
When we start working and buy a house, the heroism turns compulsive: We refinish all of the floors in a day so they’re dry when the furniture arrives, double-dig a vegetable garden because we’ve got a long weekend.
Eventually, though, our bodies start to protest. Then we do one of two things: Give up and mope around, or carry on in an act of masochism we’ll whine about Monday morning.
The real heroism, of course, would be to stay happily active by breaking old habits and reshaping our environment to accommodate our new reality.
But that would mean admitting we’re no longer invincible.
“Keep moving,” urges Dr. Gregory W. Holtzman, assistant professor of physical therapy and orthopedic surgery at Washington University School of Medicine. “The body depends on movement; it helps maintain healthy muscles and joints. The key is to find out how not to stop. And that means balance and moderation, so you don’t build up cumulative stress on one particular area of the body.”
JoAnn Filla-Taylor, a Saint Louis University nurse who spent years teaching patients to manage chronic pain, points out that “if there’s one way of doing something, there are 1,000 ways.” Set a timer to make sure you take regular breaks, she suggests. “Divide a project into small chunks, and promise yourself you’re only going to do one of them now. That will give you a sense of closure when you finish. And if you don’t want to stop, switch to a new chunk that requires a different kind of movement, so you’re not stressing the same muscles.”
Throughout the day, Filla-Taylor says, keep your body properly aligned. “If you tend to round your shoulders and have your head forward, put little post-its or adhesive circles in places you’ll see—on your computer, inside a cabinet door, on the dashboard of your car. Whenever you see a reminder, check your position, take a couple slow deep breaths and correct your posture. Do this frequently—30 times a day—so you overlearn it, and it begins to come naturally.”
Sports
Body mechanics: Warm up. That doesn’t have to mean those stretches lissome young women love to do in public, grabbing their ankles and extending their legs because no one else can. Warming up can be as simple as a brisk walk or gentle jog. Maybe a few absurd jumping jacks, just to show you’re in the spirit of things. Anything that gets your blood pumping and turns your muscles from peanut brittle to taffy.
Sports like golf, tennis, and racquetball require extreme twisting or rotation, sudden stops and starts, excessive reaches in one direction. “Take more breaks; play fewer holes; play with multiple people; play doubles in tennis,” suggests Holtzman. “And be aware of your symptoms. Many people just play through the pain, and that’s not always the best idea. You are just causing physical damage, and that’s going to decrease your tolerance going forward.”
For runners, Holtzman suggests intervals: Walk one minute after every four minutes of running. “I’ve had a couple patients tell me it actually improves their time,” he says. “A longer run means fatigue and more chance of moving incorrectly. This way, in those four minutes you are actually running more efficiently, with better mechanics. The body recovers. And your heart rate doesn’t go down significantly during the one-minute walk; you’ll be able to get it back up to your training level pretty easily.”
Gretchen Salsich, assistant professor of physical therapy and director of the motion analysis laboratory at Saint Louis University, studies the weekend athlete’s nemesis: knee pain. “It helps to strengthen the muscles at the front of the knee, the quadriceps muscles,” she says. “We are also learning more about the role of the hip in controlling the knee, so we’re looking at strengthening core muscles—the glutes, the side of the hip, the abdomen—to take the stress off the knee. Lunges and partial squats will help—anything where you’re tightening the glutes and strengthening the abdomen, because both of those muscle groups attach to the pelvis.”
Watch your alignment, Salsich cautions: “As you are doing weight-bearing things and bending your knees, try to keep your feet under your knees, and both your knees and feet in line with your hips. You don’t want your knees together, touching.”
She, too, advocates frequent breaks: “If you’re weeding, for example, you are just kneeling there with this load on your joints, and there’s no movement of fluid in and out of the joint. The knee’s unusual in that it doesn’t have great blood supply. Its cartilage gets its nourishment from the joint itself, as it’s loaded and compressed, then unloaded. So stop, and take a walk around the yard."
If steps loom like Everest, she suggests you squeeze your glutes and go up slowly (which actually uses your muscles more fully than racing up would). If you’re stiff, use slow joint motions to warm up. Walk slowly, or sit on the side of the bed and slowly bend and straighten the knee, instead of going down the stairs right away. “There’s no magic cure for stiffness,” she admits. “But people do report that it lessens when they begin an exercise program.”
Stuff that helps: The right shoes. And that does not mean the fanciest, most expensive sneakers in the sneaker gallery. You want your foot to be able to flex, so you don’t land hard on your heel, and some of the priciest shoes are as rigid as plaster casts. “Go to a store where the salespeople know what they’re doing, know their merchandise, and know how to measure your feet,” stresses Holtzman. “You want salespeople who can watch you walk or run, recognize your body mechanics, and identify the right shoe for you.” Feet change more often than we think; don’t automatically buy your old size. Get re-measured. And if your foot has spread, suck it up and buy a wider shoe, ego be damned.
Thrifty tip: For women with neck or shoulder problems, a quick approximation of a posture-support bra is a strap with Velcro ends, used to pull your bra straps into an X in back.
Cooking
Body mechanics: “If you’re standing for a long time doing dishes—this is a common problem at Thanksgiving!—you’ll get fatigued,” says Holtzman. “Try opening the door of the cabinet under the sink and resting your foot on the ledge. It takes the pressure off your lower back.”
So you’re not straining to read your recipe (or just find it amid all the broken eggshells), try shutting a cabinet door on the edge of the recipe to hold it in place at eye level.
Find the right height for each task: Open a bottle of wine on a lower counter or tabletop, so you have leverage; decorate a cake on a higher counter or pedestal.
Stuff that helps: Ergonomic handles that slide onto cooking utensils. A jar opener that mounts under your cabinet. A rubber mat so you can pound and baste for hours; chef’s clogs, or another comfortable shoe with a shock-absorbing sole. Knives specially designed for arthritic hands, like the “Rocking T” knife or the Good Grips rolling knife, which won the Tylenol/Arthritis Foundation Design Award.
Caveat emptor: A rubber mat will do nothing for you if you’re wearing the wrong shoes. Great shoes will do nothing if they’re the wrong size.
Reading, Scrapbooking, Close Work
Body Mechanics: When it comes to reading, bed’s a lousy place. Sit in a chair or tilt back in a lounger, put two pillows in your lap and rest the book on top of the pillows, so you don’t have to bend your neck to read. Use a footrest so your feet don’t dangle, and use arm rests to take the weight of the arms off your shoulders and neck.
“If you wear bifocals and you’re reading online, make sure you aren’t having to look up to focus on the screen,” says Holtzman. “Change its position so you can look straight at your monitor.”
Stuff that helps: A book stand. One of the best comes from Atlas (bookandcopyholders.com); unlike most book holders, this one is tall, with multiple slats, so you can raise reading material of any size until it’s eye level. A magnifier you lay across a book page. A stand with an adjustable, illuminated magnifying glass, so you can see what you’re doing and still have both hands free to weld or snip.
Thrifty tips: Duct-tape a phone book (one major metropolitan area or two small towns) as your footrest. The tape will keep the book sturdy and prevent pages from tearing off. Don’t want to spring for a lumbar cushion? Roll a hand towel and rubber-band it, then pin it (to an upholstered chair) or Velcro it (to a straight chair) where it will support your lower back. Don’t want to buy a chair with adjustable arms? Rubber-band a towel or piece of foam to the top of the chair’s arms to raise them; they’re nearly always too low to really support your forearms, and thereby your shoulders, which will then ease the strain on your neck.
Caveat emptor: “Ergonomic” doesn’t automatically mean it’s right for you. You can spend $800 on a fancy chair and, if you’re not aware of your own postural habits, solve nothing.
Gardening
Body mechanics: “Using the weed-eater’s very stressful on my back,” says Holtzman. “It’s all on one side of the body, and it vibrates. So I cut the front yard, then weed-eat, then cut back.” Similarly, when you’re raking leaves, it’s easy to forget how much you’re stressing one side of your body. Rake on the other side of your body for a while.
“People have a tendency to garden three hours at a time,” he notes. “Garden for an hour, then go wash the car, or go inside and read a novel. This goes against our nature; people want to keep going and finish the task they started. But it can be very helpful for the body, because you are distributing the stress. What in the short run seems relatively inefficient can in the long run be very forgiving on your joints, and therefore let you do more.”
Stuff that helps: Raised beds. A potting bench, so you’re not stooping. Lightweight pots. (The new biodegradable ones are light as a feather, and manufacturers are also getting a lot better at making faux terra cotta that doesn’t look cheesey.) Wands for your hose, so you’re not stretching and over-extending your reach; watering canes, so you’re not craning your neck and reaching up awkwardly to water hanging baskets. Plant stands on rollers, for finicky plants you need to shift to follow the light as the season lengthens. The new super-light aluminum garden tools with non-slip, ergonomic handles. Leaf carriers that unfold on the ground, so you can rake leaves into them and then fold the carrier by the handles; no lifting of leaves into a bag or basket. A lightweight tote or basket you can carry when you’re weeding, picking flowers, or harvesting vegetables. To plant or weed, wear kneepads, or use one of those kneeler/seat gizmos padded a whole lot thicker than a church kneeler. They have a frame with arms that can help you raise and lower yourself, and they flip into a seat so you can gather rosebuds.
If you don’t find just the right thing at a garden store, go online. Just don’t get distracted by the solar mole chasers or the plantcam that takes time-lapse movies of your daisies opening.
Thrifty tip: Wrap foam or just lots of duct tape around the handles of your old but beloved trowel or spade. You can make any grip user-friendly by thickening it, so your joints aren’t stressed and your hand muscles aren’t cramped by a tight grip.
Caveat emptor: The vibration of all those helpful power tools can aggravate carpal tunnel syndrome or nerve problems. Try vibration-control gloves, available at hardware stores.
None of this will work, of course, if we spend 40 to 60 hours a week stressing our necks, backs, and joints at our day job. “One thing for people to consider, ” says Holtzman, “is how to do what they have to do correctly, so they can do what they want to do without difficulty. Makes for a much happier person. ” For example, he says, “People sit for hours and hours at work. Sitting is not a great position. It changes the curve of your back, so that all the pressure is borne by the lower back area. Don’t sit more than 20 or 30 minutes at a time.”
If all else fails, and you do overdo, head off a flare-up with ice and ibuprofen, and relax. You’ll live to play again.
