Strengthen your weaker side
This is the resolution everyone 55 and older should make.
BY the time people get to the middle of their lives, their bodies have a dominant side. This can cause a problem.
You may be right handed, but are you also right legged, right shouldered, and so dominant on the right side of your body that your left side is weaker and much less flexible? If so, you’re setting yourself up for a painful old age.
Face it: at age 55, you may think that 65 or even 75 is old, but given the choice, you certainly want to live to be that age.
However, you probably don’t want to suffer through the common discomforts of being older.
Here is the good news: many of the aches and pains of age can be prevented. That’s because a large number of these complaints may be caused by one side of your body being more strong and powerful than the other side.
Think about how you move through your daily life.
Do you always reach up into the cupboard with the same arm? Do you always unlock a door with the same hand? When you stand up from a sitting position, is more of your weight always shifted to one leg?
If so, you may be surprised to learn how weak you have allowed your less dominant side to become.
You can easily test this for yourself with a simple set of comparison exercises. First, try kneeling, first with one leg, then the other. Was kneeling harder to do with one particular leg? Did you wobble slightly because that leg is weaker?
Next, take down a can or bottle of food from an overhead cupboard. Lift the same item down with the other arm. When lifting, did one arm need some support from the other arm?
Push the item to the back of the shelf so that you can only reach it with your fingertips. Can you now reach it with the fingertips of the other hand?
If one side of your body is noticeably weaker and has a shorter range of motion, your skeleton will actually adapt to this as the years go by.
The bones on the stronger side of your body will be connected by stronger ligaments, the muscles will have stronger and more flexible tendons on each end. Now take a wild guess: which side is more likely to get injured?
Everyone has a dominant side, but when it gets too dominant over time, that also affects balance. Persons,