Two Exercises That Anyone Over 55+ Must Do!
This video is a must-watch for anyone over 55.
In 13 minutes, FitGreyStrong explores 2 muscle groups – the Hip Flexors and the Dorsiflexors – and the must do exercises that are often overlooked or simply just ignored, but which are crucial to maintain stability and high physical functioning in older adults.
Crucially, the presentation helps explain what these muscle groups do including why and how you train them so that you can reduce or even prevent your chances of tripping and falls, as well as how better strength and functioning of these muscle groups improves walking.
Many (maybe even most?) older adults (55+) who are seeking better strength, fitness and health, and who are currently including strength or resistance training in their weekly schedule, may not be aware or have never been instructed to exercise these absolutely critical muscle groups.
We need to recognise that the vast majority of strength training exercises do NOT adequately stimulate or recruit these 2 muscle groups (i.e., hip flexors and dorsiflexors). While some of these exercises may activate the dorsiflexors to some degree, it is primarily isometric so improving strength through a full ROM does not occur.
Let’s look at some of the best lower body strength training exercises to illustrates this:
SQUATS ❌
SINGLE-LEG SQUAT ❌
DEADLIFT ❌
SINGLE-LEG DEADLIFT
LEG PRESS ❌
BULGARIAN SPLIT SQUATS ❌
RDL ❌
HIP THRUSTS ❌
CALF RAISES ❌
Exercises that do stimulate these 2 muscle groups to varying degrees are:
(Forward) LUNGES ✔️ (some hip flexion needed to lunge forward)
STEP-UPS ✔️ (clearly recruits hip flexors but is restricted as can’t be progressed; just requires lifting the mass of limb irrespective of the increase in weight lifted for the actual exercise)
KNEE-UPS ✔️ (often understood as an abdominal exercise but good one for the hip flexors)
You’ll also learn how to perform strength training with resistance bands at home. YBells are also displayed; a fairly new piece of equipment for strength & conditioning.
Therefore, this post makes a valuable contribution to help educate and instruct older adults how to do some exercise to keep these muscles healthy and strong.
Any questions, leave a comment and I’ll answer so others can learn & educate themselves 😊💪
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