Many people in the U.S. do not walk, bike or engage in other forms of active transportation, missing an important opportunity to improve their cardiovascular health, concludes a new study.
made the rounds on twitter today and I have to say, christ alive
My hot crank take theory is that all the stuff about “ergonomic sitting” is just bullshit pseudoscience. You’re just not meant to sit for 8 hours in a cubicle and no amount of lumbar support is going to fix the underlying problem.
My even hotter crank theory is that much of geriatric mobility issue is caused by just becoming sedentary. We somehow recognize being a couch potato is bad for you, except if you’re over 60, at which point any movement kills you or whatever.
somewhere in my early 40s I decided I would work to develop all the positive habits a very healthy elderly person would have.
early morning stretching for hips, back, posture and flexibility maintenance.
stay hydrated, plenty of water
plenty of rest (early to bed, early to rise), small cat nap at lunch
~2+ mile walk a day
always take the stairs, nice and easy
no booze, no tobacco
I try to never rush, and instead be methodical. no high impact shit that is tough on joints. no more knock around b.s. or high intensity stuff. wear the kneepads, the gloves, the helmet, etc. squat to work low. take breaks, don’t cut corners.
I am saving up to get myself into a situation where I can have a little sauna or steam shower for a daily sweat too. it’s probably a few years away still, but I’m looking forward to it most of all.
anyway, I figured if I laid the foundation for this sort of lifestyle and general approach to maintenance now, the psychological transition to being legit old as fuck would be gentle, assuming I manage to show up. I came up with this olan watching a lot of older boomers trying to fight old age and, inevitably, lose more than they wagered; fast and hard with a lot of ego-driven grief. I see myself as a realist: I can picture how I end up, best case, so I figure I might as well start puttering on over there while I can make choices about the pace. Valhalla ain’t real.
the irony is, my colleagues think I am like 10 years younger than I really am because all these mostly easy little moves accumulate and seem to slow what we think of as aging.
this is a great plan. I’m younger than you but trying to reach the same place w.r.t my habits (I’m at ~50% compliance with your list and increasing). how do you set aside time for the 2 mile walk? that seems tough for me.
when I used to have to drive to work, it was a situation where they wanted us employees to pay to use the lot (get fucked!). so I parked about a mile away in a quiet neighborhood. boom 2 miles a day (added a casual 15-20 minutes each way to my commute, but was a chill time I looked forward to and savored far more than the 20 minutes in bed that vanishes in the blink of an eye.
now I work remote, but live in a place where a solid, affordable takeout lunch place is walkable, as is a grocery store. so if I grab lunch or pick something up from the store, I’m there. that was considerably more difficult to arrange, but the remote work let me get real wild in my searches for smaller communities. pre WW2 “downtown” in a small rural community tends to still be walkable. not always, but a lot follow that 1st floor retail, second floor residential/professional. the trick is really finding a small town that isn’t totally fucked, which is a needle in a haystack situation, imo.
this country has been hollowed the fuck out, like “empty Spain”, but on a continental level and still unfolding.
My even hotter crank theory is that much of geriatric mobility issue is caused by just becoming sedentary. We somehow recognize being a couch potato is bad for you, except if you’re over 60, at which point any movement kills you or whatever.
As I understand it that’s also why broken hips have such a high mortality rate: the injury itself isn’t particularly dangerous, but even with a hip replacement regaining mobility is difficult and painful and if someone doesn’t manage it they’ll be bedridden and suffer a pretty rapid decline over the next year or so.
When my wife and I visited my parents out in the country, she was adamant about us keeping up our walking routine. But there is just no place we could find to walk. The small country roads have too many logging trucks (and no sidewalk), the only place to go are hiking trails but my wife wanted to get steps in and not hike up a mountain, so it wasn’t her thing and that’s understandable.
In the end we just walked around the yard for an hour each day avoiding fire ants and ticks. One day we just went to a Wal Mart and walked for an hour. And we definitely got stares and remarks from our family. Seeing someone walk around is just out of this world for them, and it makes sense given the environment completelt stacked against it.
And this discussion about walking and geriatric health hits real hard because my mom is constantly depressed and sits inside all day. I try to kindly nudge her and ask if she had gone outdoors any and she always says “no”. But I know that even if she wanted to go outside, there are just very limited options of places to casually walk around in. You’d have to drive 40 minutes to get to a small park where you can walk around the little league baseball field.
oh yeah, that’s real. in my family of ~5, I’m the only one doing that. I’m the eccentric one.
pointing out that this low bar is a recommended baseline for maintaining mobility and cognition among the geriatric is not well received.
legit, if they walk more than 200 yards, they act like they’re on a literal death march.
My hot crank take theory is that all the stuff about “ergonomic sitting” is just bullshit pseudoscience. You’re just not meant to sit for 8 hours in a cubicle and no amount of lumbar support is going to fix the underlying problem.
My even hotter crank theory is that much of geriatric mobility issue is caused by just becoming sedentary. We somehow recognize being a couch potato is bad for you, except if you’re over 60, at which point any movement kills you or whatever.
somewhere in my early 40s I decided I would work to develop all the positive habits a very healthy elderly person would have.
I try to never rush, and instead be methodical. no high impact shit that is tough on joints. no more knock around b.s. or high intensity stuff. wear the kneepads, the gloves, the helmet, etc. squat to work low. take breaks, don’t cut corners.
I am saving up to get myself into a situation where I can have a little sauna or steam shower for a daily sweat too. it’s probably a few years away still, but I’m looking forward to it most of all.
anyway, I figured if I laid the foundation for this sort of lifestyle and general approach to maintenance now, the psychological transition to being legit old as fuck would be gentle, assuming I manage to show up. I came up with this olan watching a lot of older boomers trying to fight old age and, inevitably, lose more than they wagered; fast and hard with a lot of ego-driven grief. I see myself as a realist: I can picture how I end up, best case, so I figure I might as well start puttering on over there while I can make choices about the pace. Valhalla ain’t real.
the irony is, my colleagues think I am like 10 years younger than I really am because all these mostly easy little moves accumulate and seem to slow what we think of as aging.
this is a great plan. I’m younger than you but trying to reach the same place w.r.t my habits (I’m at ~50% compliance with your list and increasing). how do you set aside time for the 2 mile walk? that seems tough for me.
when I used to have to drive to work, it was a situation where they wanted us employees to pay to use the lot (get fucked!). so I parked about a mile away in a quiet neighborhood. boom 2 miles a day (added a casual 15-20 minutes each way to my commute, but was a chill time I looked forward to and savored far more than the 20 minutes in bed that vanishes in the blink of an eye.
now I work remote, but live in a place where a solid, affordable takeout lunch place is walkable, as is a grocery store. so if I grab lunch or pick something up from the store, I’m there. that was considerably more difficult to arrange, but the remote work let me get real wild in my searches for smaller communities. pre WW2 “downtown” in a small rural community tends to still be walkable. not always, but a lot follow that 1st floor retail, second floor residential/professional. the trick is really finding a small town that isn’t totally fucked, which is a needle in a haystack situation, imo.
this country has been hollowed the fuck out, like “empty Spain”, but on a continental level and still unfolding.
As I understand it that’s also why broken hips have such a high mortality rate: the injury itself isn’t particularly dangerous, but even with a hip replacement regaining mobility is difficult and painful and if someone doesn’t manage it they’ll be bedridden and suffer a pretty rapid decline over the next year or so.
I know 60-70 year olds that play tennis every day and go on 50+ mile bike rides (non e-bike). Mobility is very much use it or lose it.
yeah absolutely. Like you’re not gonna be top athlete or whatever but I think the whole idea of 60 year olds being unable to move starts at like 30
When my wife and I visited my parents out in the country, she was adamant about us keeping up our walking routine. But there is just no place we could find to walk. The small country roads have too many logging trucks (and no sidewalk), the only place to go are hiking trails but my wife wanted to get steps in and not hike up a mountain, so it wasn’t her thing and that’s understandable.
In the end we just walked around the yard for an hour each day avoiding fire ants and ticks. One day we just went to a Wal Mart and walked for an hour. And we definitely got stares and remarks from our family. Seeing someone walk around is just out of this world for them, and it makes sense given the environment completelt stacked against it.
And this discussion about walking and geriatric health hits real hard because my mom is constantly depressed and sits inside all day. I try to kindly nudge her and ask if she had gone outdoors any and she always says “no”. But I know that even if she wanted to go outside, there are just very limited options of places to casually walk around in. You’d have to drive 40 minutes to get to a small park where you can walk around the little league baseball field.
Just a very hostile place all around. It’s sad