Blog Category: Healthy Aging

Finally, we are going to start heading down! This last month, we have been on a journey building up the framework to make it possible to get up and down off the ground with the least amount of assistance. Studies have shown that the more help you need getting up off the floor, the shorter the time you have to live! I know that sounds crazy, but I think most of us realize that is empirically true. The less mobile and strong we are, the less healthy and capable we are of taking care of life's daily needs. We have talked about the following:

1. Proper form in getting up and down out of a chair
2. H...

As you probably already know, this month, we are working on how to improve your ability to get up and down off the floor without using any help, or at least as little help as possible.

The first article in this series discussed a cool study that showed that your ability to get up and down off the floor with as little help as possible was directly related to how long you were going to live! The second week, we learned how to start training some of the muscles that will help propel you up off the ground by looking at the mechanics of a "chair squat." Last week, we slowed the whole process down i...

If you are just joining us, we are in the middle of a blog series about living longer through having a stronger butt. Though that may sound kind of weird, there really is science to back it up! In week one, we referenced a study that showed your ability to go from standing to sitting down on the floor and back up again with the least amount of touches or support could predict your likelihood of death. More importantly, it showed that improving your ability by just a small amount could pay big dividends on reducing your mortality risk. Last week, we started breaking down the process of strength...

We started off the blog series Getting Out of A Chair last time by reviewing an interesting study about the Sit To Rise Test. This test related the risk of dying to how easy you could lower yourself from standing to the floor and back up again. Essentially, you scored a perfect 10 if you could do the whole maneuver without using any assistance (touching anything) and you lost points for how much assistance you needed. The lower your score, the more likely you were to die sooner. One of the interesting things about the study was the difference between scoring a 7 and an 8 (this is literally the...

Over the next few weeks, we are going to be talking about how to improve the mobility and strength of your hip and pelvis. In today's post, we will look at a few reasons why you might want to do that.

Ask most people why they should have a strong lower back and hips, and they will probably tell you it does the following: prevents injury, helps avoid pain and makes you look good in jeans! Now, there is definitely truth to that statement - the preventing pain and injury part. A lot of the patients I see have a weak back, tight hips, and no butt muscle. This is the perfect "Trifecta" for how to i...