What is Flexibility For Seniors And The Elderly

You probably remember that as a child you could kneel down on a hard floor or hang from a tree with your arms at your ears.


Not any more?  Well that is likely due to a lot of factors.

As we age our connective tissue changes creating adhesions, and we lose some of our smooth cartilage in our joints developing osteoarthritis.

This leads to pain and stiffness. Certainly we can't reverse the effects of arthritis with stretching, but we can improve our current functional motion.

Try some of these stretches every day and you will notice an improvement in your ability to do certain things around the house. Reaching for that high jar on the shelf or bending over to tie your shoe.

Make sure to check out our flexibility page before beginning.

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Seated Hip Lifts

Do you like these exercises? Did you know you can download the exercises along with a 4 week exercise program?

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Video Help

Click the play button above for video instructions.

Click the play button above to listen to audio instructions.

Purpose of this exercise

• Improve the range of motion in your hips and legs.
• Help stabilize  your low back and pelvis.

How to do it:

Step 1

• Sitting in a chair, place your hands on either side for support.

Step 2 

• Slowly raise your right hip off the chair.
• Hold for 10 to 20 seconds.
• Then lift your left hip off the chair.

Breathing:

• Continue to breathe normally, in through the nose and out through the mouth..

Tips:

• If you have a recent hip replacement, ask your doctor or physical therapist if this movement will be tolerated.
• Make sure your back is comfortably against the chair.
• Use your hands to hold your knee up if you are unable to maintain this position.

Take it up a notch:

• Sit more toward the front of the chair to generate more of a twist.
• Cross your leg over the other for more of a stretch.

Try these other lower body stretches

Watch These Exercise Videos

• Improve the range of motion in your hips and legs.
• Help stabilize  your low back and pelvis.
• Learn what is flexibility.

• Will improve your hip and knee range of motion with these exercises to increase flexibility.
• Can improve your standing posture by allowing you to stand up straighter.

• Improves the range of motion in your spine and trunk with lower back stretching.
• Increases your ability to bend and reach low or high.

• Improve your hip and thigh range of motion with stretching legs exercises.
• Increase your functional ability in standing, walking and stepping.

• Targets the flexibilty of your calf muscle and heel cord. with calf muscle stretches.
• Increases your ability to straighten your knee

• This is a good stretch for the side hip area.
• Improve the range of motion of our hips.
• These stretching techniques also can help with balance.

• Increase the range of motion of your hips with these flexibility stretches.
• Improve the functional use of your legs as in getting out of a car or stepping over the side of your bath tub.

• Increases the flexibility of the deep calf muscle with flexibility stretching exercises.
• Generally improves your lower body flexibility and functional use of your legs.

• Improve the range of motion of the ankle and foot with warming up stretching.
• Can help with ankle swelling.

• Increases your abilty to lean forward and reach your feet with hamstring stretching.
• Improves the flexibilty of your low back and legs.

• Stretches your knee and hip joints with flexibility importance exercises.
• Improves low back flexibility.

• Helps maintain good ankle flexibility which will assist with walking and standing with ankle stretching exercises.
• Also helps with knee and hip stiffness.

Do you like these exercises? Did you know you can download the exercises along with a 4 week exercise program?.