This is the second in a series of three articles on the subject of Falling and the Floor.  These were originally published three years ago when this blog post was a PDF Newsletter.

FALLING, PART 2
MAKE THE FLOOR YOUR FRIEND
by Bob McMillan

When we fall, unless we recover immediately, we will end up on the floor or ground. As I mentioned last time, gravity and momentum are the prime movers that determine where we fall and how fast we get to the ground.

It makes sense, then, to get used to the floor and to make it your friend. In this article, I’ll discuss ways to get down and up from the floor and some things you can do while you’re there.

The easiest way for most of us to get down is to ease down onto one knee while (holding onto a chair if you’re more comfortable with that), putting your other knee on the floor, then putting your hands down and ending up on your hands and knees.

From your hands and knees, there are plenty of moves you can make to end up on your stomach, your back, or a sitting position.  Most active, healthy seniors are quite capable of doing this.

To get up, the easiest way is to rise to one knee either holding onto a chair for support, or not, and, using the strength in your legs, simply standing up from there.

This all presupposes a certain degree of strength in your legs. But if you can stand up from a sitting position in a chair without using your hands, you should have enough leg strength to get up and down directly from the floor without a problem.  Most active seniors are perfectly capable of doing this.

There are plenty of things you can do while you’re on the floor to get used to being there.

1. Crawl around on your hands and knees. This will not only give you a feel for the floor, but will help you build some strength in your arms and shoulders.  It can be useful too. When my mother in law was in her late eighties, she would drop her hearing aid batteries on the floor of her independent living apartment. She would order her “boyfriend”, same age, to get down on the floor to retrieve the batteries. He would get down on his hands and knees and crawl around until he found them (usually under the couch). It was a struggle but he could do it.
2.  Roll around like a 12 month baby. Notice how the floor feels on your front and yourback. Notice what it feels like against your body. Where are the pressure points.  Practice rolling around for a while before you get up. Move your arms and legs all around while you are down there. Yes, it does take a little effort.
3. “Scrunch” around in various directions both on your stomach or on your back. Use your back, shoulders, elbows and legs as pivot points to “push” yourself around on the floor. If you fall and are injured, this may be the best way to reach a phone to call for help. Plus you’ll build some core strength and flexibility at the same time.

The point of all this is, the floor, or the ground, is where you will end up if you fall.  If you get used to it and make it your friend, the aftermath of a fall may be a little less traumatic.  I recommend that you use the floor as a regular part of a regular exercise routine. By the time you do floor exercises as a regular part of your routine, getting up and down will be one more injury prevention tool at the ready.

There are numerous excellent floor exercises that are done as part of other disciplines that are excellent for seniors. I will mention “Ginastica” a series of exercises that are derived from the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu martial art, the Feldenkrais Method of body movement dynamics which are a rather benign series of floor exercises and body movements that should be very useful for seniors, and contemporary dance floor exercises.   These can be useful for seniors as flexibility and mobility movements requiring a certain amount of effort. Remember, without effort, the movements are relatively useless.  Google the names to get information on the methods I named.

So, in summary, it is important that seniors make friends with the floor. Whether it is because you may drop your hearing aid batteries and have to crawl around on the floor looking for them (and retrieving them), or whether you just want some excellent exercises for flexibility and mobility. Most importantly, for now, your familiarity with the floor will help dissipate the fear that many seniors have of the floor and may reduce susceptibility to falling. Do the movements I have discussed, and strengthen your legs and core, and falling should become much less of the nightmare that many seniors experience.

Next issue, I will discuss balance, the relationship of balance to falling, and suggest some exercises that you can do to improve your balance.

Thank You for reading.

The number one reason that adults over 60 end up in a Hospital Emergency Room is as a result of falling. This recently happened to a 74 year old family member of mine, who ended up in the Emergency Room after breaking a hip from a fall. 

The third, fourth and fifth issues of Energy Bites go back three years and cover falling and recovery.  I thought I would go back to those early editions and repeat and update them for this blog post, as well as the next two.  They were a three part series on falling and recovery, the floor, and balance.  This first article is about Gravity and Momentum.

FALLING, PART 1
GRAVITY AND MOMENTUM

By Bob McMillan

If you are entering your 60s, you’ve probably fallen or almost fallen numerous times throughout your life.  But when you get older falling can be dangerous.  Bones weaken and become more brittle with age so, a fall can easily mean a broken hip, arm or leg.

Falls also hurt.  We don’t usually have the luxury of deciding where and when we will fall.  Floors are hard.  So is ice.  So are sidewalks.  So is dirt on a hot, dry day.  For the purpose of this article, the kind of falls I am talking about generally are from a standing, walking or running position to the floor or ground, not a fall from a two story building.

This article is the first in a series of three, relating to Falling, the Floor, and Balance.

There are two major forces involved in falling:  Gravity and momentum.  Gravity is the force that creates the downward pull to the ground.  Momentum is the speed times mass with which you fall. Together they dictate how hard you will hit the ground as well as the angle and  direction you will be going when you hit.

Typically, there are two major causes of falling:  Slipping or Tripping.  Slipping usually occurs when you fall on a patch of ice or a wet floor.  Your feet usually go out from under you and your direction of fall is usually straight down, landing on your hip or back.  Tripping, on the other hand, usually occurs when you don’t pick up your feet and trip over a loose light cord, or a tree root if you’re outside. The direction of your “tripping” fall is usually forward.  In both cases, the impact force is usually determined by the rate of movement in one direction (forward or sideways), combined with the rate of movement downward as a result of gravity.

There are two ways to stop or recover from a fall.  First is to stop the fall before it really gets going.  The second is to take one of several possible actions to lessen the impact of the fall.

1. Stop the fall before it really gets going.
   1. Bend your legs fast to lower your center of gravity and reduce the distance to the ground.
   2. Use the strength in your legs and your core combined to slow or stop the downward momentum.
2. Lessen the impact:
   1. Lower your center of gravity as in number one above
   2. Tuck and roll.  If you trip while moving forward fast, you may not have time for this.  I will admit this method saved me from serious injury when I tripped after catching a football from my eldest grandson while running at full speed (not all that fast, I must admit), at age 67.
   3. Change the direction of movement by twisting, spiraling or rolling sideways.
   4. “Breakfall” using your forearm and or your forearm and upper arm combined to hit first and dissipate some of the impact.  Of course you can bruise or more seriously injure your arm doing this, so it might be the lesser of two evils.

You must have developed the qualities of strength and agility to really be able to recover from a fall.  Generally leg strength is most important.  You can develop leg strength through movements you do every day as part of your daily life.   Walking.  Getting up and down from a chair (or other forms of squat).  The more strength you have, the easier it is to stay up.  Your abdominal and other core strength is also critical during a fall.  The first reaction to the beginning of a fall is a natural “bracing” of your abdominal muscles.  The stronger the “bracing action”, the easier it is to stop or control the fall.

Stay tuned to Parts 2 and 3 of this series where you will learn “How to Make Friends with the Floor” and “Balance”.

Thanks for reading.

______________________

What are Energy Bites?  Energy Bites are a series of articles, essays and other material, filled with useful information for independent and active men and women age 60 and up.  The purpose is (1) to inspire, motivate, educate and activate seniors to move, exercise and properly fuel their physical bodies, and (2) to “power-up” and cultivate a Come Alive attitude – all with the end goal of preventing or delaying the deterioration or decay of body and mind that comes with neglect and a sedentary lifestyle.

We have two new health crises facing the world today. It must be true, I read about them both just this morning in the Washington Post.

The first crisis was emblazoned on Page E3 of the Health and Science Section of the Post. Of course I’ve been reading about it for several months now. It’s worse than Ebola. It’s worse than the Plague. And you make this crisis worse for yourself every day. What’s this new health crisis called? Sitting! Yes that’s right, sitting. Even though I’ve been reading about it for several months, it was only published in the Journal, Annals of Internal Medicine (the what?) just last week. If you sit a lot, your chance of getting all the other major lifestyle diseases is increased multi-fold.

Although I engage in a little lightheartedness in describing it, it is real. It shouldn’t take a study of other studies for us to realize that sitting without moving is not a good thing. Did I say a study of other studies? Yes. The Washington Post said that the “study” was of 47, yes 47 other studies, and apparently that is what was published in the distinguished journal cited above. Now get this. According to the Post article, “…people who sit for long periods but also exercise were one-third less likely to die during the studies than the people who reported little or no exercise, according to 10 of the 47 studies (gee, I wonder about the people in the other 37 studies. Maybe they didn’t die or something).

The moral of the first story is to exercise, and don’t sit without moving all day. Duh!

All kidding aside, there is an excellent graphic at www.wapo.st/sitting. But beware, on the same page as the graphic is a link to an article describing the second major health crisis facing us today. The headline reads:

 “ ‘Text neck’ is becoming an ‘epidemic’ and could wreck your spine”

You’re kidding, right.? Nope, there it is in graphics and text (no pun intended). Quoting the Post, which is in turn quoting someone else, you find:  “It is an epidemic or, at least, it’s very common,” Hansraj, chief of spine surgery at New York Spine Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine, told The Washington Post. “Just look around you, everyone has their heads down.”

Did the guy really say “It’s an epidemic or, at least, it’s very common”?

The article gives the angles of the neck and the weights of the head and what happens to your neck and spine and head and posture and . . . oh heck, read it yourself. Here’s the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/20/text-neck-is-becoming-an-epidemic-and-could-wreck-your-spine/

The reality is that these are both real problems. Are they epidemics? Only in the Washington Post. But the problems are real and there is a real solution to both crises. Exercise. Move your body the way nature intended. Stand up and maintain your posture in both cases. It’s a real solution.

I hope my attempt at levity isn’t taken the wrong way, but neither of the crises needed a study on top of 47 other studies to make us realize that the problems exist. Let’s just hope the Government doesn’t get involved and issue new regulations like having us wear a neck brace when we use our phones, in the name of public health or something. By the way, on the same page as the first article above, is another article, this one with the headline:

 “Neurologist demonstrates that laughter may really be the best medicine”

So take it all with a grain of salt (isn’t that bad for you too?) and enjoy life. The Post was really full of it today wasn’t it.

Thanks for reading.