While in Utah I spent some time with my mother. I have written in the past of her progress with push-ups. She's in her 70s, but over the past year has developed some impressive upper body strength. Just over a year ago, she was in pretty good cardio-vascular shape, but was unable to push herself up off the floor. I designed a strengthening program for her with a lot of focus on the upper body. She began doing wall pushups, straight arm raises, bicep curls, and tricep extensions. At first she used very little weight, and as her strength improved, made incremental increases over time. She now does full pushups on the floor and has some tough little muscles. And exercising has become such a habit for her that she misses it if she skips it for a few days.
Mom is the perfect example of what I try to accomplish with my online clients at Life-Cise.com and my personal clients at Stay Fit Stay Strong. No matter what your starting fitness level or limitations, with a clear program and steady work, you can improve. Besides feeling better and stronger, a strengthening program can help you lead a more functional and independent life. This is especially important when we're in a weakened position because of illness or it's treatment. In my own experience, I found that keeping up some strength helped me feel more capable of lasting through all of my treatments. And however weakened any of us may be after treatment is finished, we can all get stronger - just go slow and keep with it.
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