Saving Yourself for Retirement
We save our $$ for retirement,
Why don’t we save our bodies too?
photo by Liz Stubbs Photography
We should approach our physical health as we have learned to approach our financial health.
But we don't seem to implement that approach well.…yet.
We know we need to start early and save regularly for retirement. This has been drilled into us by millions of advertisements from investment firms and widely recommended as true financial advice. It is also made easy if you work for a corporation offering 401k (or similar) plans.
They have made it so easy to set up automated withdrawals every pay period. Essentially daily and weekly, part of your income is allocated toward retirement, so that you are consistently saving money, don’t have to think about it much, and are prepared to live the lifestyle you want to live when you retire.
What if we took this same strategy toward our personal physical health?!
Allocate time daily and weekly to save and prepare your body for the lifestyle you want to live in retirement.
Pause for a moment and answer this question:
When you think about your future, what are you doing and how do you see yourself living in your retirement?
Fill in the blank, “When I retire, I want to _____________________”
Did you say you wanted to:
travel, hike, explore in an RV or take road trips, spend more time with family, volunteer, mission trips, learn new skills?
That sounds awesome! (I want to do that too.)
Have you thought about what those retirement dreams require physically? As far as activity, movement, endurance, strength?
Like walking and carrying bags through airports or cities, walking miles on unlevel ground with steep grades or large rock steps to gorgeous vistas, bending and tugging to set up camp, carrying or keeping up with grandkids, sorting items or lifting boxes of donated goods at a warehouse, helping build or repair structures, or heavy hand-use hobbies like: woodworking, pottery, gardening, cooking, stained glass, welding, fiber arts, etc.
Physical therapists are great at breaking down tasks into more specific parts so that we can initiate appropriate task-specific training. What other tasks will you need to be able to do?
In your future dream, do you see yourself having aches, pain, or soreness with doing these things?
I’m guessing it’s a no to this one. And if you’re not prepping or saving your body now to maintain or build toward being able to do those activities, then they may be sore, or painful, or very challenging come retirement.
So how do you save your body for retirement?
Apply the same strategies that work for financial savings.
Start Early = Now!
Save Regularly = Be Consistent
Make the System Easy = Automate
Stay Up to Date on Best Practices = Utilize Content & Chat with Advisors
How do you apply that to your physical health?
Think exercise and physical activity, probably task specific,
but don’t forget what you fuel your body and support it with matters too.
"Starting now is better than never starting."
Starting exercise habits early, like starting retirement savings habits early - just makes sense. Financially: if you don't invest money, you're losing it (because you are spending it or it’s not gaining interest nor growing with inflation). Physically: the musculoskeletal system of our body - if you don't use it, you lose it. Youth gives us flexibility, muscle strength & adaptability, and well lubricated joints. We can keep that if we make sure to use it regularly. We start to lose it, with increasing weeks to years that we don't use it. Why?
Wolff’s Law: Our body reacts to the demands placed upon it. If the demands are very low - then we lose bone density, cartilage lubrication, flexibility, AND muscle mass, recruitment, and strength. If the demands are appropriate - then we will maintain or build all of those. If the demands are too high - that's when we may have injury. A physical therapist will know what demands are appropriate after performing an assessment of your current abilities. They can start, build, and progress a program for you based on your goals (remember those retirement dreams?).
"Our body reacts to the demands placed upon it - if you don't use it you lose it."
Exercise Regularly: The current 2018 physical activity recommendations are minimum 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise per week, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, or a combination. In case you don’t just like to meet minimums, greater health benefits ARE scientifically seen up to and beyond 300 minutes/week. Muscle strengthening through moving weights at moderate intensity or greater 2 days per week offers additional health benefits. For instance, 3 45-minute group fitness classes and 1 25-30 minute run each week meets the moderate intensity time minimum. Perhaps your intensity is more vigorous during half of the classes and/or the run – excellent! If this regularity sounds like a big jump for you, try adding activity slowly, one or two days, then once you become consistent with that, add another day. What’s important is: find a way to be consistent, that works for you. This is where making it easy, may help in making it consistent.
“Minimum exercise recommendation: 150 minutes per week at a moderate intensity.”
Make it Easy: For some of us we may allocate money to make it easy, via membership to your favorite workout genre, whether at home, a classic gym, or other group fitness. Having a class to tune into or workout programming helps to automate the exercise process and reduce the brain effort of figuring out what to do each day. You can also automate for free by spending a little time on youtube, instagram, pinterest, blogs, etc to find a few workouts that look interesting to you. Save them - links, screenshots, etc so they are easy to access at workout time. If you are externally motivated, having a community or groups can hold you accountable, support you, and cheer you on. This accountability can be important for making it easier. You’ve noticed that make it easy, does not mean make the actual activity easy, remember, you need moderate to vigorous effort to see the best health benefits.
“Any exercise or workout is better than no exercise or workout.”
That’s rule #1. However, if you do have specific goals for the things you want to be able to do now or in retirement, then you should have a more activity specific approach. You could take the time to try to figure this out yourself, OR you could enlist the help of a physical therapist to assess where you are currently at, understand your goals, and create an exercise plan to address all areas with specific progressions. This is what I offer with my Annual PT Wellness Visit. With your new plan and understanding of your body, it will be easy on your brain: you’ll have automated workouts to meet physical activity guidelines and you’ll be confident that the work you are doing is helping you live the life of your dreams.
Staying Up to Date can be a daunting task. There’s so many outlets to read, listen, watch, and consume. Follow a few health & wellness accounts that interest you, get on their mailing lists, and check in with their posts/emails/videos weekly or maybe only monthly when you can. (Are you getting our monthly wellness newsletter or social content on Facebook or Instagram?)
Current Best Practice – prevention and proactive health responsibility through lifestyle behaviors that include physical activity, strengthening, daily movement & less sitting, eating whole grains and vegetables to increase fiber and reduce refined and added sugars, reducing stress, and improving sleep.
Many physical therapists, including myself, would much rather play a strong role in prevention of injury and in proactive healthcare, than being purely seen as a rehabilitation professional post injury or surgery. So even if something is just stiff or a nagging pain - have it assessed today and get a plan to correct it before it becomes chronic or more intense. Retirement-you will thank current-you – because its true: it is easier and faster to heal or eliminate pain the earlier you treat it.
"PT plays a strong role in prevention of injury and proactive healthcare."
So, to sum up, how to save your body for retirement and the lifestyle you want to have:
Start Early - start now!
Stay Regular - weekly consistency
Automate It - make it easy so you are more likely to do it
Make it Specific to your current & long-term goals
Stay Up To Date - find what interests you and educate yourself
Ask a PT for help with current pains or schedule an Annual PT Wellness Visit - to create a plan based on your goals and current abilities