Step 2: Squeeze the legs together with the hands while trying to open the legs with leg muscles. Do this for 6 seconds. Quickly release the tension and go into step 3.
Step 3: Press knees downward to stretch groin. This move will assist the groin to be able to go into a much deeper groin stretch when you release the knees. Do this for 6 seconds
Repeat steps 1, 2, and 3 four times.
DEEP SIDE-TO-SIDE BENDS
Alternate 16 slow consecutive side lunges. This exercise will help you to move more easily, whether you are playing tennis or getting into and out of a car, a bathtub, or bed.
SINGLE-ARM FIGURE 8
Step 1: Bend slightly forward while rounding the back. Twist an extended arm internally and begin to sweep it across the front of the body. This will stretch and increase the mobility of the upper back. Take 6 seconds to finish the slow movement, going from step 1 to step 2.
Step 2: Finish sweeping across the body in an extended diagonal reach.
Step 3: Slowly raise the arm straight above the head while straightening the full spine and torso, taking 6 seconds to straighten up.
Step 4: Slowly pull the arms downward and prepare to begin the full rotation of the arm again.
Repeat steps 1 to 4 four times before changing sides.
SPINAL ROLLS
Step 1: Start by bending forward in a relaxed position with head and arms hanging down. This exercise increases the mobility of the spine.
Step 2: Roll one spinal vertebra at a time, reaching from the floor to ceiling, remaining relaxed throughout the movement.
Step 3: Finish standing up tall. Note: Do not drop your weight backward as you pull the arms upward.
Repeat steps 1 to 3 four times slowly, taking 6 to 10 seconds to complete the full spinal roll.
DIAGONAL WINDMILLS
Step 1: Windmill sequences are accomplished by continuously rotating the arms from back to front, to resemble the motion of a windmill. Start in a front lunge, doing a diagonal reach toward the corner with one arm forward and the other arm behind.
Step 2: Start the windmill movement of the arms. Take 8 to 10 seconds to finish one complete windmill.
Tip: This exercise increases the range of motion of the spine.
Step 3: Continue on, never stopping the rotational movement of the arms.
Do 8 slow windmills per side before changing to the other leg and other side.
HIP CLEANERS
Step 1: Holding a chair or freestanding, pull the bent leg across the body to stretch the outer hip muscles.
Step 2: Open the bent leg sideways, keeping it as high as possible without lifting your hip.
Step 3: Pull the bent leg behind the body, keeping it bent and raised as high as possible.
Repeat steps 1 to 3 four or five times per leg. The aim of the hip cleaners is to clean away scar tissue in the hips and to relax the hip muscles. This will make for much easier hip movement and greater hip mobility.
Tip: This exercise increases hip mobility.
HIP STRETCH WITH KNEE BENT
From a sitting position, embrace knee and place the foot as close to the hip as possible, making sure the foot is flat on the ground. Pull the knee into the chest. Rotate on the spine to face the back of the room. You should feel a deep hip stretch. Stretch each leg for 30 seconds.
SEATED SPINE STRETCH
Place the foot near the calf. Keep the spine straight and cross the opposite arm over the knee. Twist the spine, using the arm as a lever. Deeply inhale, and on the exhale, try to twist the spine farther. Inhale for 5 seconds and exhale for 5 seconds. Repeat 3 times, then change sides.
Tip: This exercise increases spinal mobility.
IT BAND STRETCH WHILE HOLDING FOOT
Do this IT band or knee stretch by taking the flexed foot in the opposite hand and gently pull the torso closer to the foot. If you cannot reach your foot, hold any part of your leg that you can easily reach and, as you twist your spine, pull the body forward, keeping the foot flexed. Do 15 seconds on each leg.
CHAPTER 17
PROTECT YOUR BONES
Osteoporosis is a condition in which the bones become thin and brittle, losing their density and their resiliency, and greatly increasing their risk of fracture. The severity of osteoporosis can range from mild to extreme, beginning very slowly with the pre-osteoporosis condition called osteopenia.
In its earliest stages, osteopenia is imperceptible and has no effect on our daily lives. But when osteopenia progresses to osteoporosis, the pain becomes constant and the shape of the body changes. Anyone suffering from osteoporosis, particularly anyone in its advanced stages, must be careful not to fracture a bone when exercising. Consult a doctor for permission before doing the following exercises. These exercises should help to combat osteoporosis and retard its progression at any stage.
The best course of action is preventive. Weight-bearing exercises are necessary to prevent or reverse osteoporosis by increasing bone density. You don’t need to run to a gym or to a store to purchase weights—the human body itself is sufficiently heavy to safely stress our bones. The average woman in the United States weighs 165 pounds and the average man weighs 195 pounds. The average arm weighs about the same as a medium-size watermelon. That’s a lot of weight to lift! Unless you particularly love lifting weights, you will never need to lift more weight than your own body.
Traditional weight training often focuses on the obvious large bones in the body while ignoring all the rest. Osteoporosis attacks all our bones, not just the biggest ones! So you have to strengthen them all, right?
The 200 bones in our body are the structure around which we are shaped. When the bones soften, the structure collapses, and we look deformed and shrunken. The point at which the spine collapses from osteoporosis is the most visible sign of the condition. In order to straighten the spine, we need to strengthen the vertebrae, the bones of the spine, by moving them in all directions—bending forward, backward, sideways, and rotationally.
Our muscles enable any movement as they lift and lower our bones. Each time we move, the bones are stressed or de-stressed. That stress stimulates and reawakens the cells, in effect strengthening them. That is what makes osteoporosis reverse.
To understand the relationship between the bones and muscles, I imagine a marionette, complete with strings. This image aptly conveys how our bones and muscles work together. Every move we make, no matter how small, requires a symphony of muscles and bones working together in harmony. As our muscles lift and lower our bodies through large and small movements, stresses are continually being put on and taken off our bones. These movements cause blood to be pumped into and out of the bones, flushing out the wasteful by-products of cell maintenance and bringing in calcium and other bone-strengthening minerals and nutrients.
Every movement, every gesture, every exercise helps to stress the bones, which in turn fight back by building stronger “walls.” Our bodies have a honeycomb-like matrix that acts as a receptor to the minerals and crystals inside the walls of the bones. With osteoporosis this matrix crumbles, so there is nowhere for the minerals and crystals to be deposited. They are flushed out of the bone and the bone becomes porous and soft.
Exercise stresses the bones, helping to rebuild the crumbling matrix that is characteristic of osteoporosis. Large rotational movement pumps blood into the bones, delivering minerals and crystals with it. Once the honeycomb-like matrix is rebuilt the crystals can be deposited into the receptors on the matrix. This is how to reverse or prevent osteoporosis.
After working closely with many doctors for over 15 years, receiving many medical reports from students attesting to their personal reversal of osteoporosis, and seeing clients in my own centers reversing their osteoporosis without using weights, I now firmly believe that we do not need to use weights to reverse or prevent osteoporosis. Our own bodies provide sufficient weight to tax our muscles and bone structure. What we do need is bone-stressing exercises, whatever they are, and we need to do the
m on a regular basis.
I have put together a series of exercises to help prevent and reverse osteoporosis. None of the ESSENTRICS exercises should be done with external weights—any external weight could actually cause joint damage. These or similar full-body exercises should be done every day for about half an hour for the rest of your life.
ARM EXERCISES
Extend arms out toward the wall with the elbows straight and hands flexed. Do 32 pumps downward against imaginary resistance to strengthen the bones of the spine and shoulders.
THROW A BALL
Step 1: Hold the ball!
Step 2: Throw the ball!
Repeat steps 1 and 2 thirty-two times to strengthen the bones of the arms and fingers.
DIAGONAL STRETCHES
Step 1: Bend sideways as you also bend your elbows while making a tight fist. This increases blood flow when you open the fists.
Step 2: Open arms into a diagonal stretch, opening the fist at the same time. This will strengthen the bones of the spine.
MAKE A STAR
Step 1: Open both arms above the head, pulling them toward the upper back corners of the room.
Tip: This exercise strengthens the bones of the spine and shoulders.
Step 2: Open arms to shoulder height, pulling arms backward.
Step 3: Open arms to 45 degrees below shoulders, also pulling arms backward. Repeat steps 1 to 3 a minimum of 8 to 10 times.
Tip: Never bend backward. Keep your spine always leaning slightly forward.
FOOTWORK WITH CHAIR
Holding on to a chair, lower and raise heels while bending and straightening the knees.
This exercise will build strong leg and foot bones. Do 32 lowerings and raisings of the heels.
FOOTWORK FOR SHINS, FEET, AND LEGS
Step 1: Do a plié, lifting heels while holding a chair for balance.
Step 2: Straighten the legs.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 eight times slowly. This series will strengthen the shins, feet, and leg bones.
FOOTWORK FOR HIP AND ANKLE BONES
Step 1: Start with heel flat on the ground in a wide-stance plié.
Step 2: Raise heels as high as possible to deeply stretch the shins and increase the ankles’ mobility.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 eight times.
HIP STRENGTHENERS
Holding a chair, flex the foot while doing 16 side kicks. This will strengthen the standing leg and hip bones.
HIP AND LEG STRENGTHENERS
Holding a chair, flex the foot while doing 16 back kicks. This will strengthen the hip bones.
SPINE AND LEG STRENGTHENERS
Holding a chair, do 16 front kicks with the toes pointed and repeat with the foot flexed.
Tip: Try not to move the spine. When lifting the leg, lift only with leg muscles, not back muscles. (Height is not important.)
CHAIR TRICEPS
Start in a 90-degree position to the ground with hands on chair.
Slowly lower the body, staying as close to the chair as possible. Do 8 chair triceps strengtheners, rest for a few seconds, then repeat the full exercise 4 times.
Tip: This exercise uses the full weight of your body to stress the arm and shoulder bones.
STANDING LEG KICKS
Kick leg in front with toes pointed, keeping back completely straight. Contract your abdominals throughout the entire exercise. Don’t forget to breathe even though you’re holding your stomach tight! Repeat 32 times per side, then repeat with foot flexed.
STANDING HIP STRENGTHENERS
Rotate the leg internally and externally 8 times for each leg to increase blood flow into the hips.
SIDE AND CEILING REACHES FOR STRENGTHENING THE SPINE
Step 1: Reach your arms toward the ceiling, pulling up as much as possible to strengthen the large and small muscles of the spine. Do not bend backward.
Step 2: Bend torso sideways, keeping abs tight and pulling up as much as possible. Take 6 seconds to bend sideways and 6 seconds to return to starting position. Repeat 4 to 6 times, alternating sides each time.
AFTERWORD
THE POWER OF LIFE
Life is a powerful force that does not surrender quietly. Life fights for every second of survival. Yet time moves steadily and slowly forward. We have to keep vigilant and not let ourselves age prematurely, despite the movement of time. I’ve shown you that you do have a choice, provided you commit yourself to daily exercise. Time never stops, so neither can we.
To remain feeling youthful, we must choose to prevent cell death.
To remain feeling youthful, we must choose to prevent atrophy.
To remain feeling youthful, we must choose to prevent poor posture.
Doing nothing is a sin of omission rather than commission. Doing nothing is a choice to let your body decay before its time. Doing something is the choice to stay vital, healthy, and youthful.
We are born with DNA that gives us a vague expiration date. But what we are not born with is the quality of that life we will have between birth and death. The quality of our lives is where free will and the element of choice come in.
I have shown you that we have control over how rapid the process leading toward death will be. I have shown you that through regular exercise you can maintain good posture, high energy, strength, and mobility. You have control over how much you will suffer from fatigue and chronic pain or how wonderful you will feel. The control rests in your choice to be sedentary or active.
I have shown you that without regular exercise, you are almost guaranteed to age rapidly and painfully. Atrophy is painful; arthritis is painful; weakness is exhausting. We have two clear choices, action and inaction—there is no third choice. There is no putting off the choice till you feel like making it. All you are “putting off” is your chance of having a vital, exciting, energized time well into your twilight years.
The pace of time is calm and steady; it is not desperate or frantic. We don’t need to exercise frantically to keep up with the pace of time: 30 minutes of gentle exercise each day will keep time at bay. Half an hour every day is all you need to do if you want to be able to dress and undress yourself without assistance, enjoy an active relationship with friends and family, and not tire easily during the day. Half an hour a day is all you need to keep your muscles strong and pain-free. Most of us are not asking a great deal; what we are asking is to feel young rather than old, healthy rather than unhealthy.
To slow down and reverse the signs of aging requires us to show a minimal amount of discipline by participating in half an hour of daily exercise. That’s it!
If we want good posture, we have to maintain strong flexible back muscles. Without regular exercise our muscles are programmed to atrophy and become tight. If that happens, we won’t have the strength to maintain good posture.
If we want to have energy, we have to stoke the fires of the mitochondria to give us energy; if we don’t exercise, calories aren’t burned to give us energy and we will feel tired all the time.
After reading this book you know what’s happening inside your body to make you age. You also know what you can do to prevent your body from aging. You now have a choice.
I am here not only to educate you about the choice but also to encourage you to choose the path of greater health. I’ve chosen to be active and I am thrilled with the way my life is turning out. I’m not naive; I know that staying active doesn’t mean I will never get sick. I’ve had my share of major illnesses and broken bones, so I know what they are about. Because of that experience, I know I can live through them and come out even stronger. Being active means that I have a good chance of fast recovery; probability is on my side. It also means that I will feel healthy and vital well into my senior years. Being active means that I can enjoy my life. I can enjoy my daughter and my friends. I can look forward to traveling. I can look forward to every year with the expectation of a new adventure. I am no longer waiting for “old age” to happen to me. I know now how I can have a fun life until I die. And
that is what I am doing.
What more could anyone ask for?
As I watched my father struggle to stay alive in his final months, I was struck with the knowledge that all of us have the same powerful force of life coursing through our veins.
All we have to do is activate that force of life within us, and that force will respond a thousandfold.
The smallest movements will turn on the mitochondria and start the fires of life!
Aging Backwards_10 Years Lighter and 10 Years Younger in 30 Minutes a Day Page 18