Lower Abdominal Exercises for Seniors

Video transcription

Hi, my name is Leslie Mueller, from TriAlign, and today I'm going to show you how to do lower abdominal exercises for seniors. All you need is a comfortable space to lie down on the floor, and if you are not comfortable getting on the floor, you can actually do this on your bed. And if your neck is uncomfortable when you lie on a flat surface, then you can go ahead and use a thin pillow or a rolled up towel like we're using today, just to give a little bit more support, but you want that to be as thin as you can tolerate. Next, make sure that you are relaxed in your upper body, and you want to turn your palms up toward the ceiling, and you should have about a 45 degree angle at your shoulder joints. And then, your feet should be hip-width apart, and hip-width apart is only about six inches for most people. So, then you'll go ahead and lift on of your heels off the floor, leaving the ball of your foot down, and you want that leg to remain straight, and then your other leg, you'll go ahead and lift it, there you go, and lower all the way down and repeat. And you're moving from your hip joint on that side. This exercise is strengthening your hip flexors and your lower abdominal muscles or the transverse abdominis, and both of those muscles are really important in the prevention of lower back pain and also in the lower maintenance of healthy posture. After you've done about 20 on this side, you'll go ahead and switch and do the other side. Make sure you've got that heel up, there you go. Then you want to repeat that three times, three sets of 20 on each side. I hope this has been helpful. My name is Leslie Mueller, from TriAlign, and this has been lower abdominal exercises for seniors.