Nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar shares 3 easy lower limb exercises.
Stiffness & dehydration of synovial fluid around your joints are also signs of ageing
If you are into strength training, you are probably already working your legs to some degree. In addition to maintaining the strength of our limbs, we need to ensure that we keep our DALY to a minimum. What is that, you ask? DALY, or disability-adjusted life years, is a metric used to measure the overall burden of disease. It combines the number of years lost due to living with a disability (YLDs). Nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar shares some easy exercises to do at home that can help maintain strength and balance in your lower limbs.
1. “Sit on a chair, keep one foot on top of the other and stand up. Be careful about lowering yourself down slowly. Do 3 counts, repeat on the other side. If you have difficulty in standing up, use someone to help you up, and then place your foot on the floor and lower yourself down slowly. Once you can get up without help, then start with practising lowering yourself too,” says Rujuta. This exercise helps improve balance and strength while also teaching you how to break a fall.
2. For the second exercise, change the leg cross you are sitting on to the less used side. If your knees are elevated, use a rolled blanket to support them while continuing to push down toward the knee from the upper thigh. Since we all tend to use one side of our bodies more than the other, we often experience aches, pains, and stiffness in our joints. Stiffness and dehydration of synovial fluid around your joints are also signs of ageing.
3. Place a stepper in front of you and cross it with your left leg. After three repetitions, switch to the right leg. Once you get the hang of it, return with the same leg. Many of us start to drag our feet as we get older, and this is common among people with back issues as well.
While walking with your feet lifted may seem simple, it is essential to preserve our speed, posture and effectiveness as we age. In addition to loading your femur, this exercise helps strengthen bone density.
Nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar suggests doing these exercises daily.
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