Physical resilience is our ability to bounce back following a negative health stressor. Whether it’s stress-related or a physical injury, building a reservoir of resilience allows room for setbacks in life.
Health stressors come in many different shapes and sizes. They could be the emotional toll of taking care of your spouse, they could be an acute injury or even cancer treatment. These setbacks are unavoidable and often unpredictable. So how do we physically bounce back from events we can’t even prepare for?
We become a rubber band. The strongest most, flexible rubber band we can.
A rubber band encapsulates our collective strength flexibility endurance and overall fitness the more we can pull our bodies safely in each direction, the less likely we are to encounter a pulled hamstring, back pain, or hip bursitis. Your resilience can either be a bucket from a well or a reservoir to pull from. For instance, one might start a strength program to build the endurance necessary to garden for six hours at a time instead of four. Each muscle, joint, and nerve has a supply and demand associated with it.
I have both 65-year-olds and 85-year-olds that come to my office following a fall. In every case, the larger the resiliency reserve, the faster the recovery. Whether your goal is to play on the ground with your grandkids or to hike six miles on rocky terrain, there’s going to be a fitness plan for you.
I’m happy to get you started on your way.
– Patrick Donovan
