For Seniors: How to Strengthen Your Inner Muscles. Fall Prevention
Inner muscles are the deep muscles of the body that play an important role in supporting posture and maintaining balance.
Strengthening these muscles is especially effective for preventing falls in older adults.
By making simple exercises that you can continue without strain a habit, your core will become more stable and your walking will become smoother.
Here, we’ve gathered safe ways for older adults to strengthen their inner muscles.
Incorporate them into your daily routine and aim for a body that moves with energy.
Start building a body that’s less prone to falling with easy exercises you can begin today.
[For Seniors] How to Strengthen Your Deep Core Muscles: Fall Prevention (1–10)
Core training
The core is a part of the body that’s hard to train unless you consciously focus on it, and its decline can lead to a loss of overall muscle strength.
This routine is designed to train the core with awareness, while also working the transverse abdominis and the pelvic floor muscles.
From a hands-and-knees position, extend your right arm and left leg—or your left arm and right leg—and hold that posture to strengthen your core.
It may be difficult to maintain the position at first, but the key is to focus on forming the correct posture even for a short time, then gradually get used to it and extend the duration.
Core-strengthening exercises performed while seated
With these core-strengthening exercises, let’s work on preventing falls and improving posture! Sit on a chair with your feet spread wide.
Cross your arms in front of your chest and lean forward while rounding your back.
Keeping your head up, slowly raise your upper body back up.
If this movement is difficult, lean forward with both hands placed on your knees.
This video introduces two seated core-strengthening exercises.
Seated exercises are easy to incorporate even for older adults.
Doing them together as a group activity can also boost motivation.
Please adjust to your individual condition and perform within a comfortable, safe range.
Foot rock-paper-scissors clapping exercise
This is a game where you make the rock-paper-scissors shapes with your feet in sequence, and make the order more complex by inserting hand claps.
By switching the order of the shapes and where you add the claps, you can turn it into brain training.
Repeat the same movements for a while, then change the order once you’re used to it so you can focus clearly on the sequence.
If movement alone is confusing, saying the steps out loud as you go is an easy-to-follow option I recommend.
Leg-raising exercise
This exercise involves placing a box in front of you while seated and alternately placing your feet on it to train the lifting power of your legs.
Because you do it while sitting, it should be easier than doing step-ups in a standing position.
A large box slightly lower than the height of the chair is recommended, and when you place your foot on top, pay attention to the movement in your hip joint.
Keep your hands at your sides to maintain posture, and focus on lifting firmly using only the strength of your legs.
Multifidus training
The multifidus refers to the small muscles attached around the spine.
When the multifidus weakens, your back can become rounded or overextended, which can lead to lower back pain.
That’s why training the multifidus is effective for preventing back pain.
Here’s how: get on all fours with your knees on the floor, extend your right hand forward and your left leg backward, then extend your left hand forward and your right leg backward.
Repeat this movement alternately.
If you’re not used to it, you might wobble and have trouble balancing, so having someone assist you can be reassuring.
It’s important not to arch your lower back while doing the exercise to make the training effective.
Inner muscle training for the hip joint
The six deep hip external rotator muscles, which connect the hip joint and the pelvis, play a role in stabilizing your posture when standing on one leg.
By strengthening them, you can improve your sense of balance and build a body that is less prone to falls.
There are various ways to train these hip external rotators, but the method with the least load is to step one foot forward, place the heel down, and rotate the entire leg side to side as if turning the knee outward and inward.
Using this movement as a basic exercise, you can perform a range of trainings with different levels of load.
Choose an appropriate intensity according to your physical condition and give it a try.
Strengthening the inner muscles
The inner muscles located deep inside the body.
These inner muscles play an important role in supporting bodily functions, such as maintaining posture and stabilizing joints.
As a result, they can help prevent falls and increase basal metabolism.
By training your inner muscles, you can maintain proper posture for years to come.
It might sound like a difficult exercise, but simply getting on all fours is said to help train the inner muscles.
Depending on an older person’s condition, try gradually lifting the right and left hand and foot in turn.
Even just this can strengthen them effectively.
