11/13/2024
Back in my group fitness teaching days, I taught a lot of classes targeted for the retiree population. We had a general motto: No toilet handrails.
(Said jokingly and obviously with no shade to those who rely on them for assistance due to physical limitations or challenges.)
Meaning, we purposely worked on functional strength to be able to do activities of daily living, such as sitting down on and standing up from the toilet independently. Or carrying a basket full of laundry. Or carrying groceries in from the car. Or reaching for the good dishes in the top of the cupboard for holiday meals.
Often times when we think about fitness we often focus on physical image of and forget about how it can affect our quality of life aa we age.
Our house is almost 100 years old. It has many features that do not meet modern building codes and standards. One of them is the stairs to our only full bathroom. No handrail. Treads that do not meet depth standards. (The stairs to the laundry in the basement are even more precarious.) And yet the last member of the original family that owned this house lived here well into her 80s. I often wonder if she could travel these stairs near the end of her time here.
While I may not live here into that decade of my life, I plan to be able to safely and comfortably climb these stairs for however long I do. And that requires regular intentional effort to maintain strength and balance BEYOND my regular activities of daily living EVEN with my daily activities being more challenging than average because of the physical nature of the work I do.
Movement for living. That’s what fitness means to me and why time and time again I come back to it as a focus in my life, and professionally EVEN it can be an industry full of disinformation and grifting. Because untimely, if we are lucky, all of us are going to navigate daily life in aging bodies. And my hope is to do so as long as I can without toiled handrails!
