Moving through Midlife | Helping Midlife Women Move Better and Feel Better

161 | Unlocking Core Strength and Balance for a Healthier Midlife

• Courtney McManus

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Unlock the secrets to a healthier midlife as we explore the transformative power of core strength and balance. What if achieving true core strength is less about six-pack abs and more about the collective muscle power of your back, diaphragm, hips, and pelvic floor? Join us for a journey into understanding how strengthening these vital muscle groups can improve posture, reduce back pain, and combat the natural muscle loss that accelerates after age 40. We’ll discuss the often overlooked health implications of striving for low body fat and advocate for a holistic approach to core training, which is crucial for maintaining overall well-being as we age.

Discover practical and engaging ways to seamlessly integrate core and balance exercises into your daily routine. Whether you prefer structured workouts like planks and bridges or functional movements that mimic daily activities, there’s something for everyone. We'll highlight the significance of breathing techniques, like 360 breathing, to effectively engage your core and pelvic floor, ensuring every movement is both efficient and injury-free. Dive into the interconnectedness of the whole body with a particular emphasis on the foundational role of your feet. By actively practicing balance work and engaging in programs like Move Better Feel Better, our listeners can look forward to enhanced stability and grace in midlife. Don’t miss out on joining our Moving Through Midlife community on Facebook for more insights and to share your journey with others on a path to healthier habits.

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Speaker 1:

Today we are discussing core strength and balance in midlife, why it matters and how you can get started. Welcome to Moving Through Midlife. I am your host, courtney, a personal trainer and movement specialist who wants to help you move through midlife with more grace. Each week we will discuss ways we can show up better for ourselves and our children without the burnout. We will focus on overall health through habit stacking to help increase energy, provide movement snacks to help you move more throughout the day, while also moving your body more, and learn from professionals on moving through midlife with ease so that you can feel confident with aging. Gracefully, grab your earbuds and join me on a leisurely walk while we discuss moving through midlife. So for many of us, when we think of our core, we tend to think of six-pack abs. That is what has been glorified in the fitness industry and I am going to ask that you push back against that, because I don't think that that is the healthiest way for us as women in midlife. If you have it naturally, that's one thing, because there are, you know, we're all designed differently and some women are able to get that very easily. But if it is not something that you naturally have, then I would recommend not even trying for that just because it can wreak havoc on your hormones. Our bodies, women's bodies are designed to have a little extra fat on them for estrogen, and it could be unhealthy if you are trying to get that low body fat percentage and try to get that appearance of core strength. I do feel that core strength is far more than what we see with our eyes and has a lot more to do with what is within us. So if we want to think about core strength, we need to make sure that we're looking beyond just the abs. Our abs are a portion of our core, but there are a lot of other muscles involved with core strength. That is going to be our back muscles, our diaphragm, our intercostal muscles, which are the muscles around our rib cage, our hips, our pelvis, our pelvic floor, our glutes, our inner thighs. All of this is interconnected with our core and it's important that all of those muscles are being strengthened. When we have a strong core, including the muscles that I just mentioned, we will have better posture, we will reduce the low back pain, we will be able to move better, with more efficiency, and have functional strength. So functional strength being if I lift my suitcase to put it in the overhead compartment. That is going to be my functional strength. So doing an overhead press is an exercise I might want to do functionally to help get strong so that when I do press that suitcase up over my head I don't tweak my back Twisting, twisting and bending, being able to twist our midsection without our lumbar or low back responding as well, causing tension, tightness, pain, slip discs, all of those things occurring in our midbath.

Speaker 1:

And all of these things matter because in midlife we are dealing with a lot of hormonal changes, which is going to increase our risk of sarcopenia, so that's our muscle mass decreasing, and actually all of us are going to deal with muscle loss. Once you hit it may even be 35, but by 40, you will start to see a rapid decrease of muscle mass, which is why it is imperative for us to work against it and find ways to add some strengthening exercises into our daily life. I do want to make a quick aside here, because there are often times just last week I did a episode on exercise Y'all you are not listening to those episodes. It is a drastic. It is about 50% of you who stop listening to those episodes and I want to say that we cannot. We cannot be healthier, we cannot move through midlife without doing some of these things. We have to do it. You have to. I know you don't want to. I don't want to either, but we're going to figure out a way. We're going to do it through movement. We're going to do it through movement. I'm going to help guide you through that so that you're not having to do exercise. I got you Okay, so I'll make sure to hit on it here today with core strength and balance. So we want to make sure that we are working on all of this to help, because what's going to happen is, if we're not doing these things, then we're going to be that 80-year-old woman who can't walk without a walker because she's scared. She's going to fall. Okay, these are things that you need to be cognizant of because it's going to come up quick and you don't want to wait until your balance is affected to start working on your balance work. You need to start working on it now, because it's going to sneak up on you and balance does become harder in midlife because of the decreased muscle strength that we're dealing with, because of that sarcopenia that's naturally occurring Because of our joint mobility, things start to tighten up, especially for those of us who are not moving as often.

Speaker 1:

We are going to be tighter through our joints, tension tightness through the muscles. The joints start to get a little achy and then we're not able to move as well as we had hoped. And then our reflexes that's another thing is your reflexes start to slow down. You may notice that when you go to grab for something you're not quite as quick as you used to be. Or if you go to jump, anything like that, your reflexes aren't quite there, which is going to affect us when we hit that sidewalk a little bit differently and we end up falling because of it. Or we, if you're like me, in my house, we have that slippery tile and it's fine unless we get a wet spot. And if you don't see that wet spot, you're going down or you're getting close to going down. And there have been so many times where we have walked both my husband and I we've walked we've hit that water with our heel. That heel slides out from under us and you gotta be quick.

Speaker 1:

Those reflexes have to take over and those are the kind of things that if you have the core strength and you have that pelvic floor, the hips and the glutes, all of those inner thighs, all of it working together, you can pretty much right yourself without going all the way down. But those of you who don't have that strength are going to end up falling and then you're going to deal with possible other injuries definitely strains and possibilities depending on your age and your nutritional factors. You know some breaks or fractures as well. So, in addition to the core strength, we need to be working on some balance training to help with that. So we're going to reduce the risk of falling because we're doing not only core strengthening exercises but balancing exercises Because remember, like I said, your inner thighs, your glutes, your hips, your pelvis all of these muscles are interconnected with that core. So how do I hit those muscles? In a functional way? It's going to be standing on one leg, movements on one leg, rotating through those hips on one leg to work on those deep hip muscles, hip rotator muscles. All of those things are going to help and that's where that balance training comes in.

Speaker 1:

So we really can't you'll always hear me mention this we really can't segment things out. We've got to really work on incorporating all of these things together. So we're not just going to do core work and we're not just going to do balance, but we've got to kind of incorporate them all together because they, our body, works that way. Our body works all together. It's not segmenting things out as we move. So what things can we do to begin to strengthen our core? So you've I'm sure you've heard of them the planks, the bird dogs, the dead bugs, the bridges all of those things are great exercises and are great for those of you who like to exercise. Add those in you probably already are. If you want to make sure that you're doing them with proper form, head over to movingthroughmidlifecom. You can find the community, the free community. Join us over on Facebook and that way you can. I'll put a video each day this next week for you, each day this next week for you, so you know how to do them with proper form. But the other thing is for those of us who may not want to exercise did I just throw myself in there, okay? So that was a slip For those of you who may not want to do specifically exercises, what you are going to focus on are functional movements.

Speaker 1:

What do I do in everyday life? A functional movement is what do I do in everyday life and how can I mimic that? Right, we are not going to do crazy exercises. You might see people in the gym and you're like, how does that even relate to what I do in real life? I'm just it's amazing to see some of these exercises. Yeah, it's fancy, but I'm never going to do that. That's not what I'm going to do. Okay, getting off track.

Speaker 1:

So exercises that mimic everyday activities, like I had mentioned, if you go to pick up a suitcase off the ground, you might have a kettlebell. You might go squat down, grab that and then push it up overhead. That's going to be a squat with a press, an overhead press. That is going to mimic grabbing a suitcase and putting it up over your head. That tends to be one of those things that people do and they tweak their back. So that would be a functional movement, a movement that you want to practice to help you get stronger within those core muscles. Some balance work, some standing balance work, some lunges, all of those things that you think of already.

Speaker 1:

But let's add in breathing. So breathing is one of those functional things that many of us don't think about, because many of us think that we're doing it properly or because we continue to take oxygen in and out, we feel as if we're doing it right. The problem is is most of us use our accessory muscles to breathe and we're not using the muscles within our core to breathe, our diaphragm most specifically. So when we work our diaphragm, we are working our core muscles in the most functional way possible. So if you want a really strong core, start breathing well, and breathing well is going to be that 360 breathing pattern.

Speaker 1:

What I would tend to say is try to bring the breath deeper within to your core. Some people call it belly breathing. Belly breathing is good, except for the fact that when we think of expanding through the belly, we don't expand through the low, through the mid back, where the back ribs are, which can create some issues as well. So I like to. It's called 360 breathing. I didn't create that name, but I like to. Anytime I talk about breathing well, I like to say 360 breathing to ensure that we're getting those back muscles working the back ribs working that back of the diaphragm working In turn.

Speaker 1:

When you do this, like I said, you're going to be effectively working your core in a functional way, which is also going to work your pelvic floor in a functional way. So for any of you who are dealing with incontinence, who are dealing with pelvic floor tightness or pelvic floor weakness, by practicing 360 breathing you can start to fix that, not urge incontinence. Urge incontinence is a trained thing. This is more going to be your stress, incontinence or pelvic floor tension, tightness or weakness. So 360 breathing is imagining your rib cage is either a jellyfish or an umbrella and every time you breathe in that's expanding out and every time you breathe out it's expanding in. If you work on doing that, that is going to help work on strengthening your core in a functional way. All of these things will help you to integrate core work into your everyday activities. All of these things will help you to integrate core work into your everyday activities.

Speaker 1:

The other thing that tends to happen is a lot of people over. These are my exercisers. If you are an exerciser, you may over tense up, over brace your core to do movement patterns and we really need to start to understand what is a natural bracing technique for our movements. We don't want to overly brace. So if you're sitting at your desk right now, you would think or for those of you who might be out walking while you're listening to this. What is your core doing right now? Is it braced really tight because you're trying to create? What is your core doing right now? Is it braced really tight because you're trying to create an appearance of your core? If it is, you are overworking your core muscles and something's going to give. We need to instead. Usually the diaphragm gives and doesn't work as hard, but we need to make sure that we don't have too tense muscles within our core. We want to make sure that we're able to move based on the movement that we're using.

Speaker 1:

If I'm not using my core while I walk, yes, I'm walking and I'm using it a little bit, but I don't need to brace it for walking. You would brace when you pick something heavy up, right. So, just understanding all of that and how to make sure that you're bracing effectively, and if you aren't sure, then I would go back to that pelvic floor situation. If you deal with leaky bladder, then you probably have either a bracing problem or you're not working your core enough. Once you work on those core things, then you can also start to add in some balance work, and this is going to be again the same type of thing For those of you that exercise. It would be a lot of single leg work, working on single arm movements, even because doing things with one arm requires the other side of the body to help stabilize.

Speaker 1:

For that, for those of you who don't want to exercise, that would be, you know, taking a few minutes to maybe do a little bit of balance work while you're standing in place, maybe while you're brushing your teeth. It doesn't mean you need to go into like a yoga pose to create this pattern. It would be more a thing that I would call a hip list. So when we walk we naturally list our hip. Our hip kind of lifts up so that our leg can sweep across the floor without hitting the floor. If you notice that when you walk hitting the floor, if you notice that when you walk you have a foot that kind of scuffs and I'm not talking like foot drop, I'm talking just every once in a while it kind of scuffs across the ground that would be possibly a hip list situation, where one side, one hip, is weaker than the other hip and a hip list exercise is really good to help with that because it's going to work on strengthening the muscles around your hips to help you through these movements. So a slight movement like that, which is always good, all of us can work on that. Movement like that, which is always good, all of us can work on that. I've never seen where it doesn't help someone but to do a quick little hip list. While you're standing in the grocery line or in the Starbucks line or the Target line, wherever you're standing, you can do that hip list and that is going to help you work on your balance. The other thing is, like I said, if you're not an exerciser, next time you go grab a bag of groceries, just put the bag of groceries on one arm rather than on the other, not up near the shoulder, but, you know, on your hands or your forearm, and carry it out to your car. Like that you will feel your core working. So there are ways that you can incorporate strength training without going into a gym to do it. So those are some of the things that I would recommend.

Speaker 1:

If you are working on balance training, how can you get started with all of this? So start small, don't do too much. Try to find ways, like I mentioned, to just add it into your every day. Just start working on you know, paying attention to how you move. And what can I do if I have something held close to me, if I push that item away from me, like, say, you grab a box and it's kind of a heavier box, you're bringing in your Amazon boxes because I know you guys have a lot of them, right? No, I'm joking. So you're going to grab your box. Well, if it's a heavier box, we tend to hold one closer to our body because it makes it easier for our core. Well, maybe hold it a little bit further away so you can feel that core activation. You're going to feel that stomach bracing up. Try to find that work within the stomach, within the core rather than the arms, and see if you could change that. It's just kind of playing around with your movements and seeing how can I change this movement to feel it a little bit differently with your movements, and seeing how can I change this movement to feel it a little bit differently. Those are, you know, the ways that we can do it in our everyday life.

Speaker 1:

If you practice these types of things, you will notice that you will get better, because I always say, the more you're attuned to what you are doing, the better you will get at it right. So we've got to understand it. First. We need to understand what we're doing, why we're doing it, and then we'll start to actually feel moving through those exercises or movement patterns. So that is what we're focusing on this week is your core balance work.

Speaker 1:

I'd encourage you to try something. Pick any of the exercises that I mentioned today or the movements, even if it's just grabbing those grocery bags and holding them in one arm. You will start to notice a difference in your core. You can even do the breathing. All of us can do it right here while we're sitting here.

Speaker 1:

If you're confused about anything, make sure to head over to our Moving Through Midlife community on Facebook. You can always find all this information at movingthroughmidlifecom. It will take you to my website and then I've got a few things that you can click on based on what you're interested in learning more about. And then, if you're wanting to kind of dive deeper into understanding your core, understanding this breathing and posture that I spoke about, that is all within my Move Better Feel Better program. It is part of the Core Connection program that I have in there. You can gain access to all of that through the Move Better Feel Better program and ask your questions Questions. I love to get questions because it helps me to kind of know where you need help.

Speaker 1:

So this week, let's focus on working on our core, strength and balance. Don't wait until it's too late. Let's start working on strengthening now and understanding how our whole body interrelates to our balance. So not only our core that's what we spoke about today but I always like to bring it back to the feet as well, because the feet are our foundation and if we don't have a solid foundation, then we have nothing to work up towards. So your core could be really strong, but if you have really weak feet, you're going to have balance issues. So making sure that we look at it through the whole body as well.

Speaker 1:

So hope you all have a wonderful day. Make sure to keep moving and go practice some balance work today. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found something to take away to help you practice healthier habits, move more or handle the midlife and aging with grace. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or leave us a review to help us reach more. Moms just like you Head to movingthroughmidlifecom to join the free community or learn how you can move more and feel better in your daily life.