Elderly people should exercise in moderation, otherwise it will harm their bodies

The dangers of excessive exercise for the elderly

Exercise is a health care method that is advocated by everyone, and exercise can enhance immunity, regulate physical fitness, and make people less prone to disease. However, extreme things have their opposites, so even if you exercise, you need to pay attention to the appropriate amount, otherwise harmful situations will occur. So what harm does excessive exercise do to the elderly?

Exercise is an important means for elderly to improve health and prolong life. However, for the elderly, the greater the amount of exercise, the better. Excessive exercise can damage the body's immune function and affect health.

Because when the elderly exercise strenuously, their bodies will produce more hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. When these hormones increase to a certain amount, the ability of the spleen in the immune organ to produce white blood cells will be greatly reduced, resulting in a greatly reduced activity of A cells and B cells in lymphocytes.

Generally speaking, the decrease in immunity after strenuous exercise lasts for about 1 hour, and it takes 24 hours to return to the original level. Encountering illness at this time

Bacteria and viruses can easily lead to colds, pneumonia, and gastrointestinal infectious diseases. Therefore, physical exercise for the elderly should be moderate, and the standard should be to feel full of energy and not feel tired after exercise.

It is best to avoid these sports for the elderly

1. Turn your head quickly

When you hear someone calling you, if you turn your head quickly at this time, it can easily cause headaches and dizziness. In severe cases, it may even induce acute attacks of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, neck fractures, etc. Middle-aged and elderly people with high blood pressure, cervical spondylosis, osteoporosis and other diseases should especially avoid turning their heads quickly.

Recommendation: Turning the head is mainly a movement of the neck. The cervical arteries supply more than 80% of the blood to the brain. The signals sent by the brain must go down through the neck. The neck is an important "lifeline". The cervical vertebrae of the elderly are extremely fragile, so they should slow down when turning their heads, or turn slowly instead.

2. Sit-ups

Most middle-aged and elderly people have more or less problems with their cervical and lumbar spine. Coupled with osteoporosis, doing sit-ups can easily cause irreversible damage to the cervical and lumbar spine. In addition, this exercise causes great changes to the head, which can easily lead to increased blood pressure and accidents for people with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.

Recommendation: This type of exercise is not suitable for middle-aged and elderly people. It is recommended to choose some exercises with a smaller range of motion. Health preservation starts from the little things in life, rather than being achieved overnight.

3. Climb the stairs

For people after the age of 50, body muscles decrease by 3% to 5%, and the corresponding balance becomes worse. Among elderly people who fall, more than 51% are related to stair climbing, which kills 20,000 people every year. As we age, our joints degenerate. When going up and down stairs or climbing mountains, the knee joints bear 3 to 5 times the usual weight, which accelerates joint aging.

Recommendation: If the elderly need to go up or down stairs, they must hold on to the handrails.

4. Bend down to pick up heavy objects

Regarding the exercise of bending down to pick up heavy objects, it is actually harmful to anyone. If the strength is not in place, it is easy to slip to the waist, and even the blood pressure rises suddenly. Especially for middle-aged and elderly people, this exercise should be avoided.

Suggestion: When picking up a heavy object, you should take a "three-step walk": the first step is to move the body closer to the heavy object; the second step is to bend the knees and hips to hold the object steadily with both hands; the third step is to extend the knees and hips to pick up the object.