The Best Drill for Active Agers to Age Empowered!

If you want to know how to remain independent as you age and have your best quality of life, stick around.  You're going to learn how to build and maintain your strength, so you don't become frail and weak.

Your goal is to stay independent and confident as you become more mature. But unless you have the strength to do so, you could find yourself feeling weak and frail. You might even be in a wheelchair.

Having muscle strength, and the ability to move well is vital to keeping your independence and having a great quality of life. If you're afraid of becoming frail as you get older, listen up. 

Sarcopenia is a decrease in muscle mass and function. The first thing to go is the ability to get up from a chair. And that makes you more of a fall risk. What we're looking for is power. 

Power = speed + strength. 

Strength is incredibly important for your day-to-day life. You need strength to get up from the chair. But you also need strength to pick up grocery bags and put groceries up on the shelf. It's called functional living. 

50% of Americans aged 50 plus have sarcopenia. In 7- 10 days of inactivity, the muscles begin to shrink to the point of function being impacted. Every minute you don't take action, you're losing muscle mass. You want to be on a positive journey that will keep you independent as long as possible.  

I am going to teach you one exercise that will strengthen your thigh muscles, your quadricep muscles, and help you get up from a chair. Remember what I said - speed = power + strength.  

You're going to need a chair for this exercise. The goal is to get up and down. And because I talked to you about speed, we will add the speed element into this as well. 

First, let's get clear on what this looks like and what this is. Everybody sits in chairs. You do it every single day. But to be able to sit down onto a chair without plopping and letting gravity take over is a different story.  

I often see my Active Agers plopping into chairs. They allow gravity to pull them down. And they don't resist that with their muscles.  

If you can resist gravity with your muscles, you're adding muscular strength. So when you lower yourself into a chair, try to do it slowly, as if you're just sitting, instead of plopping. 

The goal is to get up and down from the chair without using your hands and without plopping. You might need some assistance when you first start.  You might need to use your hands to push up. But the goal is to eventually stand up without using your hands. 

So how do we practice this, what do we do? We literally get up and down from a chair. This is how you practice it, you go up and down.  

And as I said speed is vitally important. When you sit down, sit down gently, but I want you to come right back up. And then we're going to do a number of repetitions of this, and I also want there to be speed. 

Now, if you're doing this on a soft chair or sofa, you're going to sink a little deeper and it's going to be a little bit more difficult. But I know many of you sit in those. So it's not a bad thing to practice, to work with the sofa or soft chair. However, if you have a hard chair, start there. 

When you come down, make sure your butt touches the chair. Now we want to add the speed element. And you can time yourself. How many times can you go up and down in 30 seconds or a minute?   

When you go up and down, if you're timing yourself, you have to make sure you don't just hover over the chair. You have to make sure that your butt gets on that chair. Up and down. 

What does this do? It works your hips, thighs, booty, and hamstrings. It works all the muscles in the lower half, and it starts to strengthen them.  

If one of the first things to go is your ability to get up and down from a chair, that's problematic. That means these muscles are not strong enough to lift you from a chair. That's why sometimes you see people push with their arms, because their thigh muscles are not strong enough.  

Which muscles do you use to walk? Your thigh muscles. When your thigh muscles become weak, you lose the ability to get up and down from a chair and you become a fall risk. 

This is also why people end up using canes, walkers or even wheelchairs. Without use, your gluteal muscles, hamstrings, calves, will become too weak to carry you forward.

Sarcopenia is serious business. It is “use it or lose it” in action, in as few as 7 – 10 days. We want to keep you moving and healthy. 

This chair exercise is one of the most vital things you can do to start to strengthening  your muscles and your brain. Yes, your brain. You're showing your brain what you're supposed to be doing. Hey, brain, I'm thinking of getting up from the chair, I don't need to use my hands.  

Move in a positive direction. Start to make these muscles work. Get up and down from a chair,... or lose muscle mass. Your choice. 

Sarcopenia can lead to needing assistance from a family member or friend. It can eventually land you in a retirement community with a nurse assisting you from a bed to a chair to another chair. You have to keep moving. You have to stay upright. Right?  We want you to stay independent.  Cool? 

So this is a really great way to keep your independence. This is a great way to keep your confidence up, knowing that you are active and your muscles are strong. I don't want you to become frail. This is just one way.  

There are many ways that you can strengthen your body so you don't become frail and weak as you get older. If you have questions about what to do next reach out to me.  

If you don't have a process, if you're not strategic, you will waste time and money. You will waste your energy. And you will waste years of your life where you could be moving so much better.  

What's the recommended dose? How often are you supposed to do this? 20 minutes of resistance training every other day. That doesn't mean just doing chairs up and down. That means there needs to be a planned, intentional program. 

If you need help, I've got the program for you. I have a system called the Timeless Aging Blueprint. It's a five pillar system where we touch on all the elements you need to remain independent and it’s customized to you.  If you want more information, if you want to remain independent, strong and empowered, reach out to me.

Stay active, 

- Adrianne