Don’t diss yoga, it’s sick

I am a woman in my 50s and the thought of pulling on tights and joining the hoards of Millennials and Gen Zs at the local gym turns my stomach. I enjoy doing yoga in my lounge, do I really need more?

I’m a man in my 40s and the thought of pulling on tights and joining the hoards of Millennials and Gen Zs at the local gym turns my stomach too! But, rather than “hate on” (how’s that for a young, trendy bastardisation of English) the two most influential generations alive, let’s try to live in peace.

Yes, I can say things like hate on and crush on and diss, call things sick when they’re great or level up when I need to because I am a grey-area baby. Born precisely in the gap between where one generation ends and another begins, never quite knowing whether I should wear plaid tops because they denote hipsterdom or because they’re practically warm enough for our not-so-cold winters. Some resources call me the last Gen X, while others call me the first millennial. God help me.

Congratulations on doing yoga in your lounge, and one would hope you do it regularly and not once every three months when there’s load-shedding and you remember to exercise. Yoga, which I am terrible at, is fantastic. Reputable resources all reference stress management, heart health, calm and, importantly, improved strength, balance and flexibility.

Those last three are very important, but we will get to that in a minute. What people who only do yoga fail to understand is that, yes, downward dog does demand strength, balance and flexibility, but — and cue the hate mail — it’s not nearly as demanding or effective as weight-bearing exercise in core movement patterns such as squats, hinges, pushes and pulls. This is not a Water Cooler opinion, it is fact.

Just this past week a bunch of Aussies released the findings of a study in the journal PLOS Medicine that followed middle-aged women for 15 years, starting between the ages of 47 and 52. The women were categorised into those who met the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) exercise guidelines and those who didn’t, as well as those who didn’t at first but started to meet them at the age of 55, 60 and 65.

They set out to measure quality of life related to the health of the women using a physical health composite score. The participants were asked 36 questions about their functional health and wellbeing. Remember, it is one thing to live long but another altogether to live well. You’ve been reading the Water Cooler long enough to know the results without needing to be told.

The women who exercised enough, including the women who started meeting the WHO guidelines only by the age of 55, had a significant three-point higher physical composite score than those who didn’t exercise or who exercised too little. The authors concluded that: “Women should be active throughout mid-age, ideally increasing activity levels to meet the guidelines by age 55, to gain the most benefits for physical health in later life”.

Now, back to your yoga and the strength, stability and flexibility. The authors said there are four pillars of wellbeing that, when we lose them, we start to lose quality of life. In fact, many see them as predictors of independent living later in life. They are strength, endurance, stability and flexibility.

To attain these, the authors suggest exercising according to the WHO guidelines, which are: 150-300 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity or 75-150 minutes of vigorous intensity physical activity, or a hybrid of both, and muscle strengthening workouts two or more days a week.

Build up towards this. Numerous resources speak about the need for peri- and menopausal women to gradually work towards more exercise. You are already doing well with your yoga. You’d do even better if you added walking or a light run and some basic but fundamental strength training. Picking up the phone and calling a good trainer — especially one who understands middle-aged women — will quite literally change your life for the better.

You don’t need to do this in the company of Gen Z and millennials, but if you do, rather than judge you, I’d bet my last dollar, and I only own one, that they’d admire you and hope to emulate you one day.

BDLive