Client Success Story: Lenora’s long walk

Today, Longevity Exercise Physiology Drummoyne, Edgecliff, Marrickville, Bella Vista, Randwick, Pymble, Neutral Bay and Balmain would like to highlight a wonderful client and their success story at our Bella Vista location!

 

Lenora* is a 61-year-old referred to Longevity Bella Vista at the beginning of February from her Doctor. She had various musculoskeletal such as shoulder and knee reconstructions, severe knee osteoarthritic pain, hip pain, plantar fasciitis, and bone spurs. As a result, she had significant deficits in her strength, balance, mobility, and her ability to meet the demands of her stressful job as a teacher.

She had a main goal of being able to walk longer distances without pain, especially as she enjoyed going on walks frequently with her family and pet dog. She also wanted to improve her physical fitness so she could climb up the stairs at work easier, improving her balance to reduce the risk of falls and improve her lower body strength to sit down on lower chairs at work.

 

EXERCISE PROGRAM

With limited prior exercise experience, Lenora began her exercise plan with us doing 2 supervised sessions a week centred around balance, cardiovascular and functional resistance training. Once she understood the aim of her exercise, became stronger and grew more confident with her movements, she was given a basic home program consisting of daily balance and cardiovascular exercises (see some examples below).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, since her schedule was quite busy, it was also important to find opportunities to make these ‘incidental’.  For example, we planned for her to walk around the school oval while on playground duty to build up her 10 000 steps a day, as well as performing balance exercises whilst she was waiting for kettle to boil during morning tea.Lenora also had an exercise-conscious family around her, which provided excellent motivation for her to adhere to her own exercise at home and provided time for them to spend together to destress.

 

“…we planned for her to walk around the school oval while on playground duty to build up her 10 000 steps a day, as well as performing balance exercises whilst she was waiting for kettle to boil during morning tea.”

GOALS

By the middle of April, Lenora was able to walk 6km without knee pain and even managed some uneven terrain around her neighbourhood. She was able to enjoy longer walks with her family and tolerate standing up all day at work as well. It was all thanks to her consistently adhering to her home exercise program and attending her sessions during the week, no matter how busy she was. Excellent work Lenora!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The most significant improvement was Lenora’s balance, which went from standing on a single leg for 18 seconds to an entire minute! On top of all this, she reported being much less stressed from work as a result of her consistently exercising. As for her strategy moving forward, we are working on improving her upper body strength to get up from the floor more easily and continue enhancing her cardiovascular fitness.

 

Keep smashing those goals Lenora!

 

If you or someone you know with and could benefit from a supervised exercise program call Longevity Exercise Physiology Edgecliff, Pymble, Marrickville, Randwick, Drummoyne, Balmain, Bella Vista and Neutral Bay on 1300 964 002 to enquire today!

*Name changed for privacy

   

Written by Jackie Cheung

*Name altered for privacy reasons.