Ageing Backwards with Fascia Exercises for Seniors
Good afternoon, everyone! Bob here, and Twyla May, my cat, and we’re about to do some ageing backwards with fascia exercises for seniors. Fascia, you say? What is fascia? All your muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons, and nerves—everything inside your body—are together with connective tissues, better known as fascia.
If you’re one of those who moves around a lot, you’re working your fascia. But if you’re one of those people who sits around a lot or lies around a lot, you’re not, and those connective tissues can cramp up, lose their elasticity, and cause you all kinds of trouble. So today, we will do some exercises to help you improve your fascia.
Breathing for Stillness and Health
Let’s begin with breathing for stillness and health. Put one hand on your chest, open the fingers and palm on the chest, and the other over your belly button and your abdomen. With my chin on that ledge, I will stand neutral, pleasant, and tall. I’m going to push my chin into the back of my neck and try to relax, and I’m going to be as quiet as possible and enjoy the sounds around me as I breathe in through my nose and blow out very slowly through my mouth.
Well, that’s five times for me. There are very, very, very few situations where you would breathe in through your mouth and blow out through your mouth or even blow out through your nose. If you want to be as healthy as possible and be able to get the most out of all that fascia that you’ve got inside your body helping you, you want to practice breathing into your nose and blowing out very slowly for a very long time through your mouth. Inhale, exhale.
Tapping for Energy
The second exercise is called tapping for energy. Your body has a lot of energy coming and going: positive energy hopefully coming in through your breathing, through the food that you eat, and through the thoughts that you think, and negative energy leaving your body, like the carbon dioxide that you exhale, the toxins that you eliminate through your digestive system, and the bad thoughts that you get rid of when you meditate.
So we’re going to tap for energy, and we’re only going to tap the grand central station headquarters in your body to try to remember where they are. I will tap with my karate chop first; it doesn’t matter what side I use. Some people like to do both sides of their body before they move to the next tapping centre. And as I do this, I will think positively about the world around me and myself. Now, that’s the challenge. Your mind will wander and think about the things that upset and worry you, but you don’t want to have that when tapping.
Tapping Points
There are several tapping points:
Remember to think positive things as you tap these points.
Warm-Up Movements
When you move in your warm-up, you want to take your range of motion to the extreme without any pain. So, I will raise my arms, spread my fingers apart, and reach way out there with my fingertips, way out to the side. I will tap with my toe as I do that to straighten my leg right to the tip of my toe.
Instead of just going like this, I want to reach right out straight with my straight arms, right out to the tip of the fingers, and then I want to point my toe as I get to the side with my legs. So, we’re going sideways. Let’s try it this way. So, I’m reaching straight up, reaching out with my fingertips, taking my leg back, and tapping my toe. So, I went sideways; now I’m going front and back. Now, I will bring my knees up and my arms down. It’s called the up-and-down movement. Some people like to keep their legs close together and maybe their arms close together as long as you reach way up with your arms and your fingertips, way up there to the heavens, and get those knees up as high as you can. We’re just warming up, so this is an up and down.
Circle Balance
I call the next exercise circle balance. If you need to hold on to something to do this, choose a wall, a chair, or maybe that garden pole. But if you can do it without holding on, that would be great as long as you don’t compromise your body position. I want you to be in the best posture possible. So, first of all, I want you to get your feet together and go forward and back on your toes and your heels. Toes and your heels. My feet are flat on the ground, though, and I’m feeling the ground with the outside of my feet, the front of my feet, my toes and my heels, and the bottom of my feet, the plantar part.
Good. You can do this with closed eyes, but we’ll have them open today. Good. Let’s go from side to side, work those ankles and the sides of our feet. Standing up nice and tall, chin on that ledge, push the chin back into your neck, keep the legs straight. All right, you’re ready for the circle. Let’s go around in a circle. It doesn’t matter which way we go because we will return the other way. Balance. Everybody is a little different. Some people are hardly moving at all and find that difficult. That’s still okay. Let’s go the other way. Back home, we unwind ourselves here. Some people can lean forward a long way, lean back, and lean to the side, and they’re having a great time with no problems. That’s good, too—circle balance.
Looking Backwards
This exercise is called looking backwards. So, I want to stand in neutral again, you know, feet below my knees, below my hips, below my shoulders, which are below my ears. My shoulders are relaxed, and then I’m just going to turn my body. We’ll start to the left and do a twist. Take your time turning to the left and doing that twist, but stand tall. It’s all about you and your fascia. Remember, to work your fascia, you must move as much as possible and in as many directions as possible. So, if you do these exercises with intention, like with me, we’re thinking about those other body parts and that different fascia. If you move about the planet, you may hit all the fascia; perhaps you will not. Let’s go the other way; turn gently, stand, and look back.
Up and Down
The next fascia exercise is called up and down. So, I’m standing in neutral here with my feet shoulder-width apart, and all the other stuff is lined up. I’m just going to take my hands and put them on my hips, and then I’m going to touch my shoulders, my deltoid muscles, and the fascia up there, and then my hips. This is called up and down. Pretty easy. Let’s try to touch the knees from the hips, and when you do that, instead of bending over to do it, I want you to bend your knees, lower your body, and touch your knees and hips. That’s pretty easy. Well, for me anyway. I have yet to learn about it for you.
Now, I will go from the shoulders to the hips to the knees to the hips to the shoulders. Hips, knees, hips, shoulders. One more. Knees, hips, and I will go from my hips to my shoulders and reach way up. The arms are straight. Let me move back a little bit so you can see. Get the fingers apart and go with the fingertips way up, and as I do that, I will come up on the balls of my feet and lift my heels. And then I will come down to my shoulders, my hips, my knees, hips, shoulders, reach way up, lift your heels. You can pause briefly in those positions. So, I’m tricking you here. We’re doing an overhead reach. Balance is important because I’m up on the balls of my feet, and we’re doing a little mini squat.
There’s only one more up-and-down move I’m going to add to this, and it comes right here where you touch the floor with your fingers, but you keep your head up. So, don’t put your head down. See if you can feel the floor. Knees, oops, shoulders, reach up, open the balls of your feet. Shoulders, hips, knees, keep your head up. Floor, knees, hips, shoulders. Can we do it one more time? Yes. Can we put our knuckles down this time? Here we go. Knuckles. Good work. That was called up and down.
Push and Pull
The next fascia exercise is called push and pull, and I know you’ve done it before. Remember how we put one foot in front of the other, toes straight ahead, toes straight ahead, and the other one is making a space for your cat or your dog to go through your legs, but your heels are lined up, and this leg or foot is on a 45-degree angle. And then, as you push, push everything. Notice my palms flexing my hands at the wrists. I’m moving all the bad energy away and pulling all the good energy in, and my knee is going over my toes. And even if I go farther than that, that’s okay. But keep those feet planted on the ground. So, it’s called push the lousy energy, pull the good stuff in. How about blow out, breathe in? Blow out through the nose, sorry, the mouth. Breathe in through the nose. Then we switch around, warrior one or whatever, with the feet—45 degrees- straight ahead. Take a deep breath in and then blow out. Get your knees over top of the toes—one more.
Folding Over
This fascia exercise is called folding over. I will have my feet wider than my shoulders and my toes pointing straight ahead. And as I come out with my arms like in the warm-up, I push the fingers way out, even at the top. I’m going to push my fingers way up, and then I’m going to fold at the hips, keeping my legs straight. My head’s between my arms. It’s neutral. I’m coming down with my spread-out fingers, and I’m going to touch the floor and then come across my toes and my ankles and my shins and my knees and my quads. Put my hands on my hips, relax, and here I go again. Reach out way, far away, way up. Legs are straight as you slowly breathe and bend. Touch the ground with your fingers. Toes, tinkle, shins, knees, quads, and put your hands on your hips. I need to get away from that wall. Okay, one more time here. Relax, and here we go. So, I’m going to take a big deep breath, then start blowing out and breathing in and blowing out through the nose and out through the mouth, and see what happens. So, I did it three times with the breath, and it was coordinated to the hard part, blowing out on the hard part. Here I go one more time.
Body Wash
Number nine is called body wash. So, standing in neutral, in my best posture, I will pretend that I have water and want to wash my hands. I will wash them, but they won’t touch my hands. My fingers aren’t touching each other. It will wash, clean every finger, and clean the nails and the top of the knuckles in the palms. I will wash my hands. Yeah. And then, let’s wash my arms. Remember the shoulders under the armpit. Sometimes, I forget to wash my shoulders and my neck. Hit the other arm and wash that. You can choose what kind of disinfectant you want to use. Get those shoulders.
Let’s wash our neck behind, especially where the crease is between the back and the neck. This part, but don’t touch; keep your washing going without touching it. Let’s get the face, wash the face. Remember the ears; the hair is essential behind the ears. Get their hair right. Let’s clean the front or interior part of our body. Okay, let’s do the legs at the front. Let’s go to the back of the legs and come up the back. Do a good job. Watch that bum. Okay, let’s do the inside here. The back is tricky, so try to bend my arms into the back. I reach over my feet at my back. Good. And then, oh, my feet, got to wash my feet. I might have to hold on to something, but maybe not. Let’s see if I can get my feet. I can’t do it that way. Try this one. I can bend or fold, but do you know what? I’d prefer you squat to get down there and wash the feet. Get the toes, get the heels. All right, are you clean inside or outside there? Slowly come up. Good work.
Peace Massage
The number 10 fascia exercise is called peace massage. I want peace, and I want to massage myself. So, I’m going to start by massaging my abdomen here. And since the food travels clockwise, I will massage my stomach and put my hands on my belly, amen. I will push with the palms there and use my fingers, and I will go in a clockwise direction. So, if I was facing this way, it’s on the right, cross underneath my ribs, down the left side on an angle over to where I started, and back. It’s a fascia; the abdomen has lots of them. There are lots of organs there, right? Good work, good work.
Now, I will use my hands here and rub them together, the palms. Try to get them warm. Remember to put your fingers together. And then I’m going to place them on my knees, and I’m going to let the heat go in through the kneecap into the bones of my knees as I go around in a circle. I could rub them again and get them hot. Lots of friction will make the hands heat up. Knees, go the other way. Yeah, good work. I’m going to put my hands on my quads, and I’m going to squeeze them.
Quad means four. I think you have five muscles in your quad, but let’s say there are four major ones. So, I go from my hips down here. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze right to the top of the knee. You can squeeze on the way back up and squeeze on the way down. And then I will do the same but on the back here. I’m going to do my glutes, my bum. I’m just going to give them a tap with my hands, big fingers spanking; I guess you would call this, even though we don’t do that anymore, hopefully. Very good. And then these hamstrings need to be squeezed, too. So, they’re between your knees and your bum, the muscles on the posterior part of your body. And we lose muscle mass as we age.
No, I don’t think I should be doing a fold like this. Can I do a squat like that and still squeeze them? Yeah, so. Anyway, I’m squeezing my hamstrings, and then I’m going to grab my, with both hands, I’m going to hold my lower leg there, half muscle, shin, and I’m going to give it a little twist. I’ll come down on one knee to keep my upper body more erect instead of folding like that and sometimes putting extra pressure on my lower back that I don’t need to. Let’s switch. Knee down, grab here and twist it. So, I’ve got my calf at the back, my gastroc, and my shin at the front, my soleus. Can I get back up slowly? Good. And my feet, you know what I’m going to do with my feet? I will squeeze my toes like this and straighten them out. Squeeze them in, even if you’ve got shoes on. Hold them in there, out, massaging your feet. Now, if I was sitting down, there’s another way to do it. We’ll do that another day. But right now, it’s just like this with the toes and then straight out. Squeeze and out. Squeeze and out. And that’s called the peace massage.
So, to recap here, those were ten different fascia exercises you can do to help with the movement of all your joints, muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones, blood vessels, and nerves. And by the way, your fascia is filled with nerves too, so very, very sensitive. They can create little knots, and you might have to use that tennis ball, squash ball, or foam roller to iron out the fascia, but that’s for another day. So, feel grateful you’re still moving with us and spreading the love.
