Avoiding bungalow legs in body and brain

Warning: this is going to feel like a post from an exercise guru. It’s not! Physical activity and strength - whatever each of us can manage - are intensely linked to good mental health and strength, though. My underlying aim in this article, as with almost everything I write, is to build mental strength, wellbeing and zest for life. But I am saying quite a bit about physical activity and effort. Please read on!

Also, please note that I may sometimes talk about physical activity without explicitly catering for those with physical disabilities. But I am only asking you to do what you can and to avoid what is not right for you. Please just ignore what doesn’t apply and please accept my apology in advance.

Finally, this might not seem to be about adolescents. It is. It’s about everyone old enough to make choices about what they will or won’t spend effort on.

Bungalow legs

For the last nearly nine years, I have lived in a ground-floor-only house. It’s not exactly a bungalow, but a barn conversion that happens to have no stairs. (In my search for a definition to explain why my house is not exactly a bungalow, I came across the following definition from Investopedia (which I had not heard of. I’m learning a lot today…): “The name derives from a Hindi word meaning “a house in the Bengali style” and came into English during the era of the British administration of India.” So we might want to think even more carefully before using the word and certainly I don’t think my house is “in the Bengali style”.) Anyway, the point is it has no stairs.

After a few months of living here, I travelled to London and went on the underground, where there are many stairs, especially if you are like me and a bit obsessed about getting plenty of “steps” in every day. And I felt my legs were weaker. My husband observed the same. (About his legs, not mine.)

This was when I came across the phrase “bungalow legs” to describe the observation that, when a person moves to a bungalow and stops using stairs on a daily basis, their legs become weaker.

Not long after this, I became 60ish and discovered what everyone discovers: my legs became weaker still. Not just bungalow legs, older bungalow legs. This was evidenced by reduced speeds on my runs and the difficulty with which I ran the same distances as only a couple of years before.

It’s also evidenced by facts from the sporting world (which I do not inhabit) and science, which gives us the term “sarcopenia”. Elite athletes in sports that depend on strength (necessary for speed) peak in their 30s and power and speed decrease during this time. This article in the National Library of Medicine (US) includes: “One of the most striking effects of age is the involuntary loss of muscle mass, strength, and function, termed sarcopenia. Muscle mass decreases approximately 3–8% per decade after the age of 30 and this rate of decline is even higher after the age of 60.”

Three ways in which a person might react to sarcopenia:

(Disclaimer: I am about to be jokey about older people but note that I am exactly the type of dodgy-kneed, sarcopenic “older” person in a bungalow that I am being light-hearted about. I have the lived experience. By “older” I mean a person probably in the last third of their predicted life - around or over 60. Ish. Proudly mature. Many of us are still running marathons, even if I’m not, and many of our brains work at least as well as they ever did. And many of us are stronger than many people younger than us. I’m generalising.)

1. They might not think about it because they haven’t heard of sarcopenia but subconsciously find everything a bit more of an effort so they make less effort. Or, rather, they make the same effort they were making before but they still get gradually weaker. They might even move to a bungalow, just because it sounds like an easy life, which it is (unless you live in my type of bungalow with immense ceilings and immensely dusty beams with immense spiders and a moderately immense garden.)

2. They might be aware of sarcopenia and see it as a happy excuse to stop doing whatever exercise they were doing. They will sit down to tie their laces - or even avoid shoes with laces at all. They will almost definitely move to a bungalow sooner rather than later and it won’t have immense dusty beams etc because why would they want to push their sarcopenic muscles when they deserve to stop dusting and gardening and running etc? If they have grandchildren they will quite soon find it very difficult to kneel on duplo. Because what we do less we can do less.

3. They might know about sarcopenia and decide that the way to address it is to work harder - which, thankfully, does not necessarily mean running further or more often but running (or whatever cardio exercise you do) cleverer and mixing it up with some other strength building exercise, great diet and general healthy living. If they find themselves buying a Bengali-style house, they will counteract the onset of bungalow-legs by actively seeking out stairs, steps or climbing exercises.

No 3 is what I’m doing.

BUT this is not an article about exercise! I am not about to become a personal trainer. This is an article about an approach to mental and physical health which recognises that some things are hard and those things should not usually be avoided. Because when we avoid hard things they become harder.

Physical and mental strength both grow when you put in the (physical and/or mental) effort. And when you stop making an effort, strength decreases. (You are allowed a break - I’ll come to that later! In fact, you must take breaks.)

Use it or lose it

This phrase applies to the brain - because things that we do less of become things we are less good at. This is because being “good at” something is about the number and strength of relevant neural connections. The number and strength fluctuate according got how much time and effort are spent on them.

The phrase also applies to muscles - because muscles get stronger through use (though not through over-use, so you do have to have the right amount of rest and you do have to use the muscles correctly.) Every body’s abilities are different - this is not about doing what is not possible or advisable for you: it’s about pushing yourself a bit. Just a bit.

So, to maintain optimal brain and body strength, we need to keep doing difficult things - but also balance that with breaks. We need to notice what things we are finding difficult, think about whether they important and, if they are, do them more. Put in some effort. But not too much.

How to keep doing things that are difficult

Warnings:

• Know your limitations. My suggestions are examples for you to adapt, not instructions. If there is a reason you can’t do a particular thing or shouldn’t do it, don’t. Obviously, my suggestions do not replace medical advice. I respect you enough to trust you to look after yourself.

• Do not do things that cause you physical pain. Stop as soon as (or before if possible) pain starts. But try the thing again later and you might find this time there is no pain. Hooray - you just won at this challenge! The idea is eventually to be able to do more difficult things without pain.

Pick whichever of these things will work for you or are worth trying

Physical things

• When you find stairs, use them - not the lift or escalator

• Finding it hard to touch your toes with almost straight legs? Aim towards that stretch morning and evening, holding until for several seconds and pushing it gently a little more each time.

• Can’t sit cross-legged? Again, just move towards being able to do it. You could do this when you were a toddler but in adulthood you (probably) stopped doing it and that’s the only reason you can’t do it now (unless you have an injury or disability).

• Do squats while brushing your teeth or waiting for the kettle to boil. Do sets of 8-12 and when that’s easy, add in another set after a pause.

• Do a few lunges - here’s a nice video showing easy lunges and harder ones. once you can do the easy ones easily, move onto harder ones.

• Try any of these exercises to improve muscle in arms.

• The plank is a famously useful exercise and is easy to measure so that you can push yourself to a few more seconds.

• If you run, even at the very unimpressive level that I do, try inserting a couple of short sprints into your run. this will build your muscle and improve stamina. When you walk, include some fast walking sections.

My personal extras just now:

• I tie my laces while standing on one leg. I don’t always manage but it’s getting easier.

• Every day (when I remember) I practise this sit-rising test.

Mental things

• ALL those physical things will improve your mental strength! Physical activity is GREAT for the brain. That’s why this article has been so heavy on that side.

• Do puzzles: crosswords, sudoku, logic puzzles, jigsaws. Anything that you have to concentrate on and solve is working your brain.

• Read deeply. Read for pleasure or purpose - and the purpose could be pleasure, which is often a very good purpose. I recently promised that I’d write about the science of reading for pleasure, and I will. But today I want to suggest that sometimes you also push yourself to read an in-depth article about something. Make it something you want to know about, something that interests you.

• Practise your memory. There are many sorts of memory and you might find one sort is harder for you. One thing you could do is, after reading your in-depth article, write down some facts from memory. Or just google “memory games” and see what you like. Just by trying you’ll improve.

• Get in “flow”. Flow, a term coined by Mihaly Csiksentmihalyi, describes the state of absorption when we are so fully engaged on a task that we become less aware of our surroundings. There are lots of ways you can do this: reading, puzzling, many hobbies, almost anything you have to concentrate hard on. It can be difficult because it’s too easy to be distracted, which is the opposite of flow. But with effort and practice it can be done and it is very good for you - and enjoyable.

This is not about being hard on yourself

I’m not asking you (or me) to overdo it, either physically or mentally. We need to know when to stop and rest, both physically and mentally. Otherwise we become obsessive and that isn’t generally a healthy way to be.

This is about knowing what you can do, knowing what you’d like to be able to do, and pushing a little way towards that. And then, if you like and if you can, a little bit more. But always knowing when to stop and rest.

Humans are programmed to seek the easy way. In brain and body terms, this is sensible because it avoids wasting energy or occupying our brains on decisions and problem-solving when there’s an alternative to the problem. But this brain wiring dates from many thousands of years ago, when energy (food) was scarce and needed to be conserved. Doing things the easy way meant we had energy and brain capacity for important things - survival. But now, this is less often necessary. We can usually afford to use some energy and attention span on pushing ourselves physically or mentally. And often, we should as this strengthens us.

In short

If you find something difficult but you think it would be valuable for you, push yourself to do it. And don’t forget to feel proud of yourself afterwards.

This applies to teenagers, adults in their 20s-40s, as well as those of us experiencing sarcopenia! Notice your weaknesses and push them gently but firmly towards greater strength. It’s nothing more than growth mindset: we get better at things through a little bit effort.

Then we enjoy our resting times even more. We become strong, balanced, ready for anything.

Now, time to get up from my desk and see what muscles would like a bit of a workout before lunch…

I’d love your comments.