Yoga for Healthy Neuromuscular Aging - Keys to Fracture Prevention, Mobility and Balance

Most women are concerned about preventing the thinning bones of osteoporosis to lower fracture risk as we get older.

But did you know that there is one factor that is an even greater risk factor for fractures than osteoporosis?

We are talking about falls. 

“Numerous studies show that among older people falling, not osteoporosis, is the strongest risk factor for fracture,” writes researchers Teppo L N Järvinen, and colleagues in a study entitled Shifting the Focus in Fracture Prevention from Osteoporosis to Falls. 

Not only that, they note. The severity of the fall plays a key role in whether or not a fracture results.

“When a person falls, the type and severity of the fall (including fall height, energy, and direction) largely determine whether a fracture occurs.”

How many times have you tripped, and caught yourself before you fell? For most of us it happens easily at least once a month.

The problem is that with age, we tend to lose this kind of neuromuscular integration, which enables us to catch ourselves before we fall - or reduce the severity of the impact if we do fall.

 In this 3-part online course, yoga therapist Lynn Crimando will show how we can use yoga to enhance neuromuscular integration and agility to help prevent severe falls over time.

“Healthy neuromuscular aging is a multidimensional affair,” explains Lynn. “Slowing neuromuscular aging is less about static postures and more about training ourselves to maintain balance within the framework of the functional movements.” 
 
Yoga has the ideal tools to help in this process, Lynn notes.
 
In the course, we will examine how the brain integrates and processes information and input from the so-called SEE (visual), FEEL (sensory), and HEAR (vestibular), systems and how yoga can help us enhance neuromuscular integration to maintain stability and mobility throughout our lives.

 We’ll experiment with balance in new and unexpected ways to play with balance in the body using props, mudra, breath, and other proprioceptive and resistance tools.

What You Will Learn:

• How our sensory faculties work in concert to create efficient neuromuscular movement, sensorimotor integration, and musculoskeletal activation.

• The importance of proprioception, especially how the proprioceptively rich palms of the hands and soles of the feet play a key role in establishing better balance in both stillness and movement.

• How to enhance proprioceptive awareness through asana practice.

• How to work with breath-based asana practice to progressively build better balance and stabilize your system from the core outward

• The key role of the foot in maintaining postural equilibrium as the foot moves from static placement to shifting balance in the activities of daily living, such as walking, stair climbing, reaching 

• Surprising new research about proprioception that may help restore balance in cases of stroke, Parkinson’s, and other chronic conditions that affect walking.

• Simple steps you can take throughout the day to improve your balance.