ITZINU: Empowering Women's Mindset and Confidence in MIDLIFE

#174: How to Overcome Age-Related Decline by Moving Well

• Renae Elliott • Season 1 • Episode 174

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In this episode of the ITZINU Podcast, I share insights drawn from my 14 years of experience as a personal trainer. I dive into the critical importance of daily movement, especially in a world where technology and sedentary lifestyles are increasingly taking over. I talk about how staying active is essential not just for maintaining health and mobility today, but also for ensuring a better quality of life in our later years.

I also share some personal stories about my own family, highlighting the real-life consequences of inactivity. To help you avoid these pitfalls.

This episode is all about taking preventive measures rather than waiting for problems to arise. I hope to inspire you to take a proactive approach to your physical well-being. Tune in, and let’s make movement a natural part of your life!

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#174: How to Overcome Age-Related Decline by Moving Well


Hello, hello, and welcome back to the ITZINU Podcast. Now, movement is something that I'm really passionate about. I've been a personal trainer for over 14 years now, and movement is something that we all need. But more than ever, as I'm getting older, as I'm watching people that mean a lot to me, people that are very dear to me, as I'm watching them getting older, I'm understanding even more the importance of movement.

And what I want to spread the word to everybody is that how daily movement is, it's just so important. And it is something that as, technology and life is changing, we are losing. And I really, really believe that it is in you. I really believe that you could really change the trajectory of your life, regardless of what age you're at by learning to move more and understand your body.

And it's something I'm so passionate about. And my passion comes even more from watching my gran. You'll try to say this without crying because she is someone that I've always loved and admired, more than my whole life, more than anyone in the world.

She's someone that I have loved and admired more than anyone in the world. And watching her. mobility and her movement decline so rapidly, shocks me. And if you have someone elderly around you, you may have seen this yourself, but it was the first time that I've really witnessed out of somebody that I'm so close to that isn't sick.

So my, my papa passed away. And when he passed away, he had cancer. So obviously you knew the radiate, the chemotherapy and all that would, would take a toll on his body. And he wanted to make my cousin's wedding, which he did. so seeing his kind of decline, but he also lives in Adelaide and I live in Queensland.

So I would speak to them on the phone or on, FaceTime, but you don't really watch it in person where I think with my grand, I'm, I make sure I see her minimum of twice a week and you're just watching this person really, really watching her really decline. And it is that it's really sad, and it makes, it makes my mission more important.

I didn't think I'd cry three minutes in, but I think I'm going to talk about my grad who always makes me cry. Um, anyway, so it makes my mission more important because, you know, um, we, we focus on when, when you're 20 or you're 30. You know, or whatever age, when we're, you know, in your teens or young, you don't, you don't think about it.

And we think we have all this time in front of us, which we do, which you do. But the other thing is the younger that you start doing this stuff, the younger that you start working and maintaining your muscle mass, it's easier as you get older. And when, when we're already, when you're already at that age and when you already get to a certain age, 50, 60, 70, 80, you know, your, your things, you know, you have more injuries over time.

My dad, he played soccer until he was 40, but now my dad has had a hip replacement, knee replacement, and he's had both of his ankles fused. He had thousands and thousands of kicks to his ankles, you know, and, and it all has, you know, your ankles, your knees, your hips there, it's all a knock on effect.

And you know, the thing is that, um, the thing is that you don't, you don't think about that stuff, but you know, it, it adds, it adds up. The thing is though, you can, you can change, you can change all this stuff. If, you know, if my dad would have thought, which he didn't, you know, would have thought maybe I need to do some things to strengthen my ankles, you know, because he did have quite a few kicks to the ankles playing soccer for, you know, 40 odd years.

Uh, if he maybe did some of them things, maybe He wouldn't have had the where in turn six. He possibly could have as well, but you know, um, but, but stuff can be prevented. Um, you know, in my grand's case, she was, She was so active around the house. So keeping a household going, um, that was her activity. So she was so active in doing that.

And then, then when she moved from, she moved from Adelaide to Queensland, she didn't have to do as many household tours and things. But then she started feeling frank. She was feeling more frail and wasn't confident in she's not confident in how her body moves. And then, so, so she started moving less and she started trying to shuffle thinking that that would protect her.

And then she fell. So she had one fall, uh, which was, she was just getting up into the chair and she just caught her foot wrong. She fell flat on her face. And then within a week of that happening, she felt so first time she fell forward and within a week or so of that happening, she fell backwards. And when she fell backwards, she was trying to protect herself because she was scared of falling because she'd already fallen within that week.

 And she fell backwards and she, she hit her head the second time. She hit her head the first time. Front and back. 

The thing is when we start to lose this confidence in our body and in our body's ability to move, we, we shuffle and we do more things that we think are going to protect it, but you're actually making it worse.

And that's why my mission is for people to understand. your body better, to understand how your body moves and how it can be strong. I don't need to win a marathon. I don't need you to win a marathon. I don't need you to lift the heaviest weight possible. None of the things. I just want your body to move well so you can live a good quality life.

I don't want people to be they're put into homes or restricted and to not move too far because they're so scared of hurting themselves. I want you to know that you can move, that have how well you can move. I want you to feel confident in those things. By working on your body and on your balance and on your strength, all of those things, I really believe so many injuries and So many problems later on in life they don't have to happen.

They can be prevented. And I really believe from coming at attacking life from a way of prevention rather than cure.

So, what is moving well to you, to you? What is, when I say move well, what, what does that mean to you? So I mean, moving pain free, my friend said to me, don't your hips always hurt when you go walking?

And I was like, no, that's not normal. Should this hurt when you're exercising? And I was like, no, none of that stuff should happen. , it's been pain free. Now, if you're a female and if you've had children, did you work on your core after you had children, did you work on rebuilding that strength up, working on your pelvic floor, pulling in, working on how to really switch your core and probably pulling in those transverse abdominals, strengthening from the bottom layer out, did you work on that stuff or did you just try to jump straight back into exercise?

Now that might be something depending on what age you had kids or how many kids you had that might be something that doesn't bother you yet. But the thing is that when, if you've never quite spent the time to strengthen that area, it will take its toll later on in life. And as I say to everybody, you choose your hard

you choose your hard. You choose your hard to be now, where you have to do some work where you are younger and or you choose your hard later on in life where, because you haven't worked on those muscles properly and because your body, our bodies are amazing and it compensates in some way because, you know, or are you choosing your hard later on in life where you may be pain and then your motivation will be even less to do anything.

Now, you know, I watch my gran and she has arthritis, and her mobility has more than halved or more. I wish I could show people what she was like before and what she's like now, but I wouldn't actually do that to her. But I can only describe that now where she is now, she struggles to get in and out of a chair.

She feels like walking is she has a walker, but she feels like walking is so hard and she does laps. around the home, but one lap of the home, which would, it's one lap of a corridor, section is enough. And that that's her daily movement. That's what she can do. And there's some days that that's too much for her.

It seems crazy, but that that's what it's come to and that's and she's in pain when she's moving, but she's determined that she doesn't want to become bedridden and she now, because of arthritis and, because of weak muscles, she can't put on her own jackets.

She, you have to choose certain clothing that's not going to be too painful to get or too painful to get on and off and going to the toilet. If things like just taking on and off a t shirt, she can't, she can't do that stuff. She can't dress herself. 

She can't wash herself. She needs aid with all of those things. Getting in and out of bed. She can't get in and out of bed. So she needs help to do that too. And what I want is I want you to be strong enough for when you get older, that you can prevent that happening as long as possible.

My Gran 89, the decline has been in the last two years more rapidly within the last year. but that doesn't have to be the case, we can try to keep ourselves strong and moving and capable as long as possible.

And that's why I want everybody to move. I created my Total Body Connection program so that you can learn to move well, you don't have to, it doesn't have to take hours on end. We have specific, exercises and little drills that you can do intermittently throughout your day. There's lots of research that shows when you fit in little bits, like one to two minutes more often, you, it's actually a better result than doing a concentrated hour.

 I want you to be able to like you can walk past your kitchen bench and add in a little stretch. You can try to add your balance while you're brushing your teeth. Those types of things that you can start adding into your day. We'll make a huge difference as life, as life goes on all the things that you take for granted now so basic things. 

So before my grand went into a home and she was still living on her own, um, as she started to get older things, she, she always had a bit of arthritis, but things that started to affect her was she couldn't reach above her head to get things in a top shelf. She used to have a spoon. We all learn ways to compensate.

But what I say is instead of trying to compensate, let's look at strengthening it. And yes. It is a bit of work. Yes, it takes time, but gosh, it makes such a difference and it can make such a difference as we get to that older stage in life. 

After 30 years old, if you are not actively working on muscle, you lose more than 10 percent a year, 10%, but you can change that.

You can change that by making sure that you are doing strength training, and making sure that you're keeping that muscle active. It's the younger that you build up muscle, it's easier to keep. And once you've got the muscle there, the maintenance isn't very hard. The same with movement.

 So I was working on my shoulders, getting my shoulders to move better. Your shoulders are hip and, they're the same joint as your hips. They're ball and socket joint. So they need to move this whole way around.  We tend to only move them in one plank. So while I was working on, um, these shoulder rolls, now I was doing that and it was, Yeah, that was so, so, so clunky, but I did it every day.

So it took me six weeks and now my shoulders move very well. The thing they, they can still be improved. Yes, they can still be improved and I'm still working on it, but I'm not doing it every day concentrated like I was before. Now it took me six weeks of doing the movement multiple times through the day, this, this one movement.

And I did. And now, I might do it once a week. And that's just to maintain the movement that I have. And that's what I'm saying. Once you've got it, once you're there, the maintenance isn't that hard. So that's why I create this program because I want everybody to be able to move well.

I want you to age well. I want you to lead a good quality life so you can run around with your kids, run around with your grandkids. We don't accept pain and it's not okay. And you can lead a good quality life. You can do all the things that you want to do. So that's what's really, really important to me and it is.

All these things that we take as gospel, we say I can't do it because I'm getting older and getting older. Isn't something to accept, it's something that's going to happen, but you have the knowledge that you can make the change that. 

And again, you can choose how you want to age. Do you want to age? Well, do you want to be able to still be active in life or do you want to just give into aging and, and be in pain or not be able to move so well. We have all these aids, as technology has gone along, we have all these aids to help us.

 But in my opinion, I don't actually know if they're helping us. I think they're actually making us lazier. Back in the day the hunters and gatherers and all that at all ages people had to keep active and moving now We're more sedentary than ever.

We're creating more things for us to make our lives easier Like these drawers in the laundry you put your basket on so you don't have to bend down and hurt your back What about if you move well to get down and pick something up so you don't hurt your back, We've got all these different aids and all these different things to make our life easier , I think it's just, it's making us move less.

We already move less, and it's making us move less more, which means those, those everyday muscles that you don't even think about, working, those things that you don't think about working and not working anymore. So you're becoming weaker in those areas. So it's more important than ever to be, to be working on it and to be working on it in as a daily progress.

It is, it is something that needs to be worked on. And like I said, it doesn't have to take hours on end. It can be five minutes here, five minutes there. I've got someone that had. back pain, spends a lot of time driving in a car, uh, as part of their job and had constant back pain and the different vehicles he had to drive.

And he just thought that was something he had to accept within a couple of weeks that back pain was gone, gone. That's what I'm saying from just doing this one stretch. And then he made sure he fitted the stretch in every day, like every day before we got in the car, that was gone within a couple of weeks.

Like I said, this stuff is not what you have to, you do not have to accept that this is how your life can be. you have the choice to make the change and decide to do the work. And if you have anyone elderly around you, watch how they move. I really believe that my gran's decline, in her quality of life.

 It's because of lack of movement, lack of mobility, and lack of trust in her body. And I don't want that for anyone. And it doesn't have to take over your life. And the younger you are, the more that you start working on it.

 The less work you're going to have to do as you get older. Uh, it doesn't matter what age you are. I've had people in their 50s or 60s, , that had women that had pelvic floor problems. They had to pee every time they went, to pass the toilet. I've had that being able to be reversed from working on their core and their pelvic floor.

I've had people with constant back pain go because they were able to stretch their hips out and to be able to move better. I had a client that's been building his own house and he's in his 50s. Uh, and he said if he hadn't done the work, that he'd done with us before he started building the house.

He would never have got through. He built his extension of his house all on his own. So all of these things are things that you can change and it doesn't have to be things you accept. There is always something that you can do in your parameters and it is time to have confidence in your body and how your body moves.

And we can work at becoming stronger and fitter and, have better balance and all of these things. So then, you know, cause as we get older, we lose our balance and it's just, it's so, so important to me because We don't have to be stuck to a chair and scared to get up and move and not live your good quality life.

 For my gran, she's somebody that gave so much of her life to other people. When she looked after everyone, she looked after other people's kids and she brought up her brothers and sisters and she, she's just one of these most amazing people. And it's just really, really sad to see that at the end of her journey that this is where it's ended up for somebody that just gave so much that this is where it's ended up, , not being able to move too well. We can take her out, but she doesn't want to come out of the home because she's too scared of how she moves.

 She's too scared to move too far away from the toilet because she can't get to the toilet quick enough. That's what I'm saying, I want you to have confidence in your body when you're in your 80s, you know, or 90s. I don't want you to have to live a life like her because it's and, and we try to show little movements, can't be bothered and everything's too sore.

 We can prevent this if you start working on it now, and that's why I've created my total body connection program. Okay. I am going to leave you for that. And, um, I'll speak to you all soon.