Keep Fit with Ableworld - Strength 

This entry was posted in March 3, 2023

Our fitness is an important factor in determining the quality of life, that we get to enjoy in our old age. One aspect of our fitness that is essential to our mobility and independence is our strength. It is clear to everyone that when we start to age our strength starts to decline, so why isn't there a bigger conversation around this?

As previously discussed, strength like muscle mass are terms usually affiliated with athletes or bodybuilders, not enough effort is put into the discussion around everyday strength. However, I wish to explore this throughout a series of blogs concentrating on strength.

The truth is, maintaining your strength is fundamental to your wellbeing later on in life. Your level of strength can impact your balance and coordination, which in turn plays a vital role in the outcome of falls taken in later life.

Your strength doesn’t just determine the results of a fall, but we use strength in everyday life. Ask yourself, what do you use when opening a jar? What helps you pick up an object that is in your way? Or, even something so trivial as standing up from a seated position, it's all thanks to your strength!

A determining factor of your strength is your grip. As we age the rate at which our grip strength decreases is significant and comes with a manner of health risks. A weak grip strength has been linked to increases of diseases such as strokes, arthritis and heart attacks, the latter of which increases up to 17%.

Understanding the risk of suffering from these diseases increases with age, due to a multitude of reasons not just our strength. It however, still doesn't detract from the important role our strength plays in maintaining our muscle mass meaning we stay active for longer!

Training your grip strength is particularly effective at combatting Arthritis. Arthritis is a debilitating disease that is common among people in their mid 40s or above, or can occur in younger people especially if they have experienced a severe injury. Arthritis of the hands can really deter us from completing everyday tasks, as our thumbs become unable to move our ability to grip objects becomes nearly impossible. 

Ableworld recommend our Hand Grip Exerciser which you can purchase from the Ableworld online shop. Hand Grip exercises can help reduce the symptoms and pain associated with arthritis, as well as increasing your everyday strength. The muscles in your hands are like any other, they can be trained to become stronger and more durable.  

A simple training protocol that anyone can follow is completing 8 repetitions of the exercise for a total of 4 sets, when you close your hand around the hand gripper and squeeze hold this form for 10 seconds. As you get progressively better at the exercise, you can start to increase the amount of time. Rest between each set for approximately 60-90 second.

The hand grip exerciser can be used anywhere, it is effective, efficient and easy to use. It’s a simple way for anyone to increase or maintain their strength, especially for everyday activities.

This is just one aspect of your fitness that needs attention to help maintain an active and healthy lifestyle. We hope you have managed to learn some interesting facts around strength, more importantly we hope you get to improve it!

Keep an eye out for the next blog on the first Friday of each month, where we shall discuss other protocols you can follow to help improve your strength.

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