FLEXIBILITY
Older people can live with less pain
Studies show aches go away with regular stretching routine
Associated Press -
Stretch more and you hurt less. A study of older people finds flexibility training reduces the pain that comes with aging.
``One seems to go with the other,'' said researcher Abby C. King of Stanford University Medical School. ``And seniors say pain is the single most important thing that affects quality of life.''
King and her colleagues studied 67 women and 36 men who were an average of 70 years old.
Half took part in moderate intensity aerobics such as walking and low-impact aerobic dance, plus strength-training exercises using elastic bands. The other group was assigned to stretching and flexibility exercises. Both groups met for 1 hour twice a week in class, and did similar workouts at home twice a week.
After a year, the stretching and flexibility group reported it was living with less pain, while the fitness and strength group reported slightly more pain, King said.
``Those who did three or four days a week of stretching and flexibility had significant reductions,'' she said.
Reducing pain is especially important for seniors because they ``are invariably dealing with chronic pain,'' King said. Half the people in the study had arthritis, a proportion similar to that of the general population in the age group.
Men had proportionately greater increases than women in flexibility, but that's because men had more work to do, King said.
Men were less flexible at the start, and apparently needed the exercises more. For example, men in the flexibility group had a 14 percent gain in a sit-and-reach test, while women improved 6 percent, she said.
Experts are not exactly sure why people get creakier as they get older, said Stanford colleague William L. Haskell. But much of it comes from lack of activity.
``With lack of use, muscles and tendons shorten,'' Haskell said. ``And if you exercise less, if you become more creaky, that's an impediment to further exercise.''
Differences in exercise style may contribute to this. Women historically tend to do more movement exercises, such as aerobic dancing, while men do more muscle-building exercises, such as weight training, Haskell said.
Flexibility problems, such as finding it difficult to bend down to open a drawer, might not start interfering with the quality of life until 75-80 years of age, he said. Just the same, seniors who want to stay active ought to start working early on flexibility.
``It's very important for people in their 50s to begin to think about maintaining their flexibility so they don't approach this threshold of disability,'' Haskell said. ``To restore function at an older age is a lot more difficult than to maintain it.''
However, simple stretching is still no substitute for exercise, King said.
The stretching group lost strength over the year, compared with the aerobics-weights group, which gained strength. ``If you don't use it, you lose it, even over one year,'' she said.
The study supports the idea that a comprehensive program of aerobics, strength and stretching is best, said Russell R. Pate of the University of South Carolina, who was not involved in the research.
``There's no magic bullet, no single type of exercise that provides all the benefits associated with different forms of exercise,'' he said.