Physiological Familiarity and Reasonable Fitness

Nowadays, since my schooling (Applied Science in Physical Therapy) it seems I am becoming ever more familiar with my body in many areas, especially concerning muscular balance, strength and proprioception in relationship to aging. Lately, I seem to be on a mission to raise the bar because of seeing where I’m at and more of what’s available for the taking with a little hard work and focus.

For instance, I am constantly restructuring my workout routine as I listen to what my body is telling me regarding energy levels, repair times and joint maintenance.

Also, I am very aware of the typical “naturally” occurring and often detrimental changes to posture due to aging, which although being typical are not necessarily unavoidable or preventable and therefore I take great notice of the necessity to maintain good spinal health and wellbeing for better quality of life.

(I got to add a story here: A few months back I met a 94 year old lady in the hospital who I was assigned to give physical therapy after shoulder surgery and whose inspiration I will never forget. While I worked with her shoulder we began talking about working out after she took note of me being a weight lifter. She said she worked out with weights until 75 but changed to mostly yoga after that and tried to do an hour a day for the last 20 years. Her posture was incredible, near perfect, and far better than most 30 year olds. I asked her if she wanted to get up and move around and she said she was bored and a good workout sounded great! So after some passive shoulder exercises I began using manual resistance on her and I worked her out from head to toe. Meanwhile, I checked her range of motion, flexibility, muscle strength and tone, proprioception and balance and this lady was truly amazing. She performed movements and endured challenges I’ve seen teenagers struggle with. She was very familiar with her body, was informed and was devoted to properly maintaining it. The quality of her life was outstanding! Especially comparing her quality of life to that of those much younger who had neglected their bodies she was truly an inspiring woman and living proof of the benefits of being familiar and maintaining one’s body.)

Anyway, another issue worth mentioning which I’ve more recently taken greater interest in is the inevitable need to make major changes in my nutritional habits in order to maintain and/or raise the bar to reach my fitness goals as I age. Digestion, hormones, weight control while maintaining protein upkeep and carbs for energy all take listening to your body if one’s desire is to be healthy and maintain reasonable goals pertaining to lifestyle fitness and quality of life.

SO when I read something like this, it boggles my mind about just how neglectful, uniformed and unconcerned some people can be about their body:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/02/15/unaware-she-was-pregnant-woman-delivers-10-pound-baby/

I understand that people have different values and goals pertaining to their health and I generally try not to be judgmental of others, but I can’t help to find this level of neglect and physiological unfamiliarity as unreasonable and, frankly, rather disgusting and simply sad!