Hi, I’m Nathan Simmers. I’m a fitness and nutrition coach who specializes in helping older adults regain and maintain their freedom and strength.
The aging process can be difficult and sad. One of the worst things I see is when people stop playing with their children and grandchildren as they get older. Their wrists and shoulders start acting up, and it becomes too painful to get on the floor or lift the kids up.
It’s hard to see people give up something so rewarding and fulfilling. But I don’t believe it’s supposed to be that way. Though aging gives us challenges, we can overcome them.
The idea of helping people regain the freedom and power they once enjoyed (and then some!) inspires me to create training materials and coaching to reach as many people as possible.
It isn’t about taking some magic pill or buying a complicated fitness device, either. It’s all about regaining the stability and control you had and then building on that foundation. Eventually, you get your strength back, and you can lift your kids in the air, or crawl around with them on the ground, all without ANY PAIN WHATSOEVER!
I recently worked with two clients complaining of similar issues in their wrists and elbows, and they’re far from alone. I surveyed my audience and found that wrist and elbow issues are a common complaint once someone reaches middle age.
Rebecca and Gary are both in their 40s with young children, and both thought they had to give up playing with their kids forever.
Before I worked with Rebecca, she had trouble brushing her hair and completing pushups due to issues in her elbow. This also made her unable to crawl around on the ground with her 1-year-old child. Gary is the father of two young kids who are active in sports. He used to be more athletic, but in recent years, he could no longer keep up with them. Both of them came to me for help.
In Their 40s, Gary and Rebecca Can Keep Up with Their Children and Engage in Physical Play Again
Many of the problems are linked to Gary and Rebecca’s everyday lifestyle. Whether you realize it or not, your muscles work using 'instructions' you gave them years ago. When you complete a task for the first time, your brain starts to remember the pattern of motion. This creates a neuropath, or set of instructions, which slowly gets stronger over time. Eventually, the neuropath is always repeated for the motion, unless you stay actively aware of what your muscles are doing, we can create faulty neuropaths.
Problems arise when we learn the wrong motions and hurt our wrists, elbows, and shoulders over time.
Gary works at a desk most of the time. When typing, he would often bend backward, shorten his wrists, and bow his elbows out to the side. This is a common posture people take when sitting at a computer… which creates strain on your wrists and elbows.
Part of Rebecca’s issue came because she was gripping everyday objects, like grocery bags, incorrectly. She put too much pressure on her wrists, and that radiated outward to her elbows and shoulders.
The same goes for most of us. You’d be surprised to learn how many common movements we perform incorrectly because we learned it improperly and the neuropath stuck. It may not hurt at the time, but over the course of decades, it catches up to us. Given the right circumstances or put under great enough strain from weight or long strain from sustained strain; the faulty mechanic reveals itself through pain signals. "Nowadays, there are more and more computer typists and TV game
addicts undergo wrist pain because of repetitive strain injury." (Chang, Jer-Hao, and Hsiu-Yun Hsu)
To help give Rebecca and Gary their mobility back, I taught them how to perform basic movements like typing and carrying in a way that properly used their muscles. Because the movements were new, they were unstable, like when you learn to ride a bike and wobble around during the first few tries.
Over time, Gary and Rebecca learned proper motions and made better neuropaths. From there, we built their strength and endurance.
After training with me, Gary can keep up with his kids! He even said our work together helped him in areas he didn’t expect, which fixed problems he didn’t know he even had.
Similarly, Rebecca now has no trouble doing push-ups, hair, or crawling around on the ground with her niece. She knows that even as her child gets older, she’ll be able to crawl around, lift and play.
4 Steps to Getting Results like Rebecca and Gary
If you have a similar issue to Rebecca and Gary and want to correct it, follow these steps:
#1 Realize Everything is Connected
Though many trainers focus on isolating and building certain muscles, I don’t. Your joints and muscles are too interconnected to try to isolate them. No matter how hard you try, you will end up affecting other parts of your body.
For example, to get on the floor to play, you have to brace yourself with your arm. This engages your wrist first, then elbow, then shoulder. Your core ends up doing a lot of the work to hold you steady while you descend.
The same goes for when you perform a basic exercise like a pushup. You can’t stabilize your elbows and wrists unless you stabilize your shoulders.
Rebecca came to me with elbow issues… so we started working on her wrists and forearms. Seems weird, right? We also addressed her shoulder, and elbow, but because everything is connected, our work with her wrists helped eliminate her elbow pain.
The same goes for Gary. Because everything’s connected, our work in one area began to benefit seemingly unrelated areas.
#2 Remember that “Better” ... is Better
When clients come to me, it’s often with a specific problem to solve or a result to achieve. They often want to achieve some sort of fitness goal, and don't want their achy wrists to stop them.
I have to remind them that it’s all about the process first, then the result. Their joint problem did not begin overnight, and they won’t get out of it overnight either. That’s why instead of aiming for immediate results, we just aim to get a little bit better. After all, better is better.
During their health journey, a client will often get discouraged because they haven’t reached their end result yet. I always ask them, “Are you better than you were when we started?”
#3 Rethink the Basics
While other coaches start with strength training, I put strength last. Why? Because your muscles will always take the path of least resistance, even if it damages you in the long run. So if you start with strength training, you end up reinforcing bad habits.
Over time, you might have to resort to things like medication, braces, and surgery to manage your pain.
Your muscles don’t have brains, so you have to do the thinking. You have to consciously and intentionally relearn how to move. When I first started working with Rebecca and Gary, I taught them some of the basic exercises in that video. We focused on stability first, so that everything had a proper foundation.
This led to MIRACULOUS results, like the ability to do more than they could when they were younger, all while living PAIN-FREE.
What others call miraculous; I call “no-nonsense” training for everyday living.
#4 Retake Control of Your Health
The last piece is something I can’t do for you… I can only encourage you in the right direction. To see results like Gary and Rebecca’s you have to make the decision to retake control of your health. Instead of letting things happen to you, you must decide to take back control.
I want to share some of the basics of the method with you, absolutely free. As you go back to the basics and master them, you’ll soon find you can do the same things you used to, without pain.
I believe that you’ll be able to hold, lift up, swing around, and crawl with your grandchildren and great-grandchildren as you get older! If you’re ready for practical results like that, please follow this link to get started.
Disclaimer: The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Sources
Chang, Jer-Hao, and Hsiu-Yun Hsu. “(PDF) Biomechanical Measurement of Painful Wrist by Flexible Electro-Goniometry.” ResearchGate, Journal of Medical and Biological Engineering, Mar. 2005, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281579814_Biomechanical_measurement_of_painful_wrist_by_flexible_electro-goniometry. (Accessed January 12, 2022)
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