Training these six fundamental movements — hinge, squat, lunge, push, pull and rotation — can help you accomplish daily tasks more easily and without pain as you age. Through procedural memory, you learn and store movements to perform them without thinking about each step.
Overview
Time: 12 minutes Intensity: Low
What You’ll Need
- Light or medium resistance band
- A light dumbbell or kettlebell (choose a weight that feels challenging for the last 15 seconds of each exercise, but you should still be able to maintain your form)
How Often
If you don’t currently do any strength training, begin with three days per week and progress to daily over time. You can also complete one set of this routine as a warm-up for other forms of exercise.
Adjust For You
Beginner: Chris Flores, a trainer based in New Jersey, recommends doing each movement for 45 seconds with 20 to 30 seconds of rest between each set, focusing on maintaining proper form.
Advanced: Once that feels easy, you can progress to three to four sets of each exercise for 45 seconds.
To see videos ≠ photos, go to original post: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/well/move/range-of-motion-exercises.html
Exercise: Body weight good morning
Your hips are a ball-and-socket joint, allowing for a wide range of motion while providing stability. That’s important for daily tasks.
Targets: Hamstrings, quads, glutes and core muscles Duration: 45 seconds
Stand with your feet hip-width apart and gently rest your hands on the back of your head. Maintaining a flat back, push your hips back, allowing your knees to bend slightly, and lower your torso until it is nearly parallel to the ground. Pause, then slowly rise back to standing.
Advanced: Hold a dumbbell or kettlebell against your chest. If you tend to arch your spine, the weight will pull your shoulders forward at the start of the movement. Use that feedback to pull your shoulders back and maintain a flat back.
Exercise: Counterbalance squat
Targets: Quads, hamstrings, glutes, adductors and core Duration: 45 seconds
This squat variation helps you maintain an upright torso, which takes pressure off your lower back. Hold any light weight (a dumbbell, kettlebell or even a heavy pan held vertically) with your arms outstretched at shoulder height. Slowly lower into a squat, keeping your heels in contact with the floor for the entire movement. Hold for a moment at the bottom before standing.
Advanced: Hug the weight to your chest.
Exercise: Step-Up
Targets: Glutes, hamstrings, quads and calves Duration: 45 seconds
Step onto a six-inch platform (or a stair) with one foot, allowing the trailing foot to hover slightly behind the lead foot. Hold that balanced position for three to five seconds before lowering slowly to the ground.
Exercise: Modified push-up
Pushing a door open, placing something on a shelf and rising from lying in bed all require proper horizontal and vertical push movements.
Targets: Shoulders, chest and triceps Duration: 45 seconds
Begin in a kneeling position and place your hands on the floor, shoulder-width apart and under your shoulders. Keep your torso straight as you bend your elbows and lower your chest toward the floor. Push back up to the starting position.
If this position causes discomfort in your knees, you can also try a standing push-up against a wall, or place your hands on a bench.
Advanced: Once you can perform these variations without allowing your back to arch, your butt to rise or your shoulders to hunch, progress to a standard push-up.
Exercise: Resistance band row
When you lift a load of laundry out of the machine or pull open a door, you’re performing the pull pattern.
Targets: Back muscles, biceps, forearms and core Duration: 45 seconds
Place a light or medium resistance band under your feet. Grip the opposite ends of the band with your hands just outside your hips. Hinge at your hips and draw your elbows up and back, squeezing your shoulder blades together. Hold for a moment before slowly returning to the starting position.
Advanced: Add more tension by gripping the resistance band at a lower point, or by using a heavier band.
Rotation/Anti-rotation
Exercise: Tall kneeling Pallof press
A lack of core and spinal stability can limit your range of motion, leading you to hinge your lower back instead, which can lead to pain or injury.
Targets: Core and oblique muscles Duration: 45 seconds
Attach a light resistance band to an anchor point between waist and shoulder height (you can use the leg of a table, a bed frame or a door handle). With your body sideways to the anchor point, grip the end of the resistance band with both hands against your chest, then shuffle away from the anchor point so the band offers some resistance. Keeping your
torso and lower body still, slowly press the band out in front of you until your arms are fully extended. Return slowly.
Advanced: You can do this with a cable machine at the gym and slowly add weight.
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