The Importance of Movement

Okay, so Sally, lovely to see you and thank you very much for joining us for this chat for VeinWeek. Perhaps you'd like to start off by telling us a little bit about your background. Right, yeah, hi, hi Carol, lovely to see you again. Yeah, so I'm a personal trainer and you know just I help people with their fitness and health. I'm mainly working with ladies at at the moment, but I do have, I'm quite passionate about helping older adults as well. So yeah, sort of passionate about, you know helping everybody to become more mobile. I do work with an older ladies here in Western-Super-Mare. She is over 70 and we are gonna get her back playing tennis, hopefully this year. That was the goal last year, but, oh, it was previous year but that's the goal this year to get her back playing tennis. So yeah, have a, work with a range of clients, but it's all around mobility and helping people as they age because, you know, we need to look after our body. So yeah. We could all do with a bit of that, I'm sure. So when you came to Nailsy Leg Club as part of the project, which we had funded through the North Somerset Council and the Nailsie Town Council. And the idea was that you would come and encourage our members and also our volunteers to do a little bit more movement. Could you tell me how you started off by engaging people? Yeah, yeah. So quite, I had to think about the approach. So I tried to find out more about individuals. try to try to find out more about uh individuals so i'd go and sit with them and talk to them and try and get to know them just ask them about themselves ask them um about their sort of current state of health and their sort of any sort of fitness experience or what they used to do in their younger younger days because it was quite amazing how it came out some some of them were very active. For example, I remember there was one guy that used to play rugby. So it's just getting to know them, which took a few weeks. And then of course, I wouldn't see them every time that I came. So it was a slow process. But yeah, it's talking to them, them, um, tell them a bit about what I do and I'm there to help them and it's, yeah, it's, and it's, it's just sort of a, a, a, a softly, softly approach. Okay. That's great. Cause we see people with all sorts of problems with their lower limb, varicose veins, rashes, leg ulcers. Um, could you tell me a little bit about why it's so important for people with lower limb problems to, um, move more, to have some exercise? Yeah, so, really important with the movement of the legs, lower limbs. So, if they can get their blood flowing, because inherently, they're probably seated and sedentary, most of the day or some people are and that's, that's, that's just not going to going to be beneficial for them. So if they can start moving their body, their legs, get the blood flowing, that will help with the circulation and help with healing as well. So it's something as simple as just walking. If you can walk, that's perfect. If you can just walk. So it's just encouraging them to get the blood flowing OK. And did you experience very much in the way of resistance when you first arrived? I wouldn't say resistance. I think some people just were quite quiet. And then, you know, I'm not quite sure what they thought of me or thought of the project. But no, no resistance as such. Yeah, and people buried with how enthusiastic they were about taking on the new information or listening to me. But can I tell you about a success, a little success story that I had? So I was talking to a lady one week And then when I saw her again, it may have been two or four weeks later, she was telling me about her friend because so she'd gone away and spoken to a friend of hers who was wanted to improve her movement and things like that. So through the Lead Club and the work I've done, I've helped this other lady hopefully become more active because I'd sent her some information about some local classes that were just some options that she could have a look at in her local area because she wanted to move a bit more. So that was really nice that the lady that I saw face-to-face spoke about me to a friend of hers. So if, if I can help help one person, that's really good. And in terms of those who have reduced mobility of which we have a number of members in our club with reduced mobility, what can they do? Is there anything they can do to help increase their movement? Yes. So you can do a lot of chair based exercises. So you can, you can, you can be seated. Um, you can do, you can do some marching on the spot, raising, raising your knees up. And also then lifting, lifting your legs out alternately. Yeah. You can, you can move your legs while you're seated. Yeah, definitely. Okay. And what about you? What exercise do you like to do? So, I do like weight training. Um, so, um, I, I just think it's so important as we age, especially particularly women. Um, I like, so I've got a few things I like, I like, um, I like body weight, which is great because you can do that at home and you don't need any equipment. that's great for particularly at the moment, if you can't get out and haven't got any equipment. But I've also got some suspension training that I like doing, which is, so they're straps that you can put on the back of a door and you suspend yourself. So you're using gravity and also your weight, but they're just so adaptable, even young, old people can use it. They just work to their ability. And I really liked that way of training. So yeah, I love a bit of weight training. Um, yeah, just to keep us fit and healthy. That's great. Well, of course, we're all looking forward to the end of lockdown and we're really looking forward to reopening leg club and welcoming you back. It's going to be tricky in a way because I think we're going to have to start from scratch. You might approach it when you first arrive. Yeah, so it will actually be quite good doing it a second time around because I've done that the first time around, I'll know kind of what to expect. And yeah, same same kind of approach, chat to people, they need to they need to sort of get to know me get to Trust, trust me and yeah. So, but it'd be nice, great to come back and great to have a second, you know, a second go at helping people with their health and their leg health. So yeah, really looking forward to coming back and seeing everyone. Excellent. Thank you, Sally. It's been really lovely to chat to you today. And we hope that lots of people will be watching Bain Week in April and we're just going to do our special sign and say Bain Week! Bain Week! Let's go!