Although fall-related injuries aren’t talked about as frequently as smoking or obesity-related illnesses, they are at epidemic proportions. In the US alone, almost 1 in 3 adults over 65 years old falls each year. Of these older adults who fall, 37.5% report sustaining an injury in the fall.* And most tragically, many of these injuries, such as a head trauma or hip fracture become fatal. In fact, if deaths from falls continue to increase at the same rate, the U.S. can expect 59,000 deaths because of a fall in 2030.**

Yet, it’s not just older adults who get hurt when falling down. Pause and think for a second. There is a good chance you know someone who broke a wrist or twisted an ankle when crashing to the ground. Maybe you’ve suffered your own fall-related battery?

It’s time that we stop talking about falls mainly from a preventative point of view. Not all falls are avoidable. Instead, let’s change the discussion to how to minimize injury when the inevitable happens.

Listed below are seven ways to help you avoid an injury during a fall. These are hard won insights, born from martial artists, skateboarders, and parkour athletes. These individuals routinely drop to the ground, and yet they get up again and again without injury. How they fall and interact with the ground is a curious feat, and a great starting point to the topic of injury prevention.

Be aware of your environment

Athletes who fall down frequently have a heightened awareness of the space around them. Why? Because if you know that a fall is inevitable, you want to drop in such a way that you avoid hitting an unforgiving surface. Slamming your head on a cinderblock is much less pleasant then landing in a soft bush. Likewise, the concrete sidewalk is a much less welcoming landing pad than the patch of grass off to your side.

By scanning the environment and being aware of the world around you, you are better prepared to steer your fall away from danger. Now, you might not always have much leeway to direct your fall, but it is a good aspiration to have.

Incidentally, if you are reading this on your smartphone while you’re walking down the street: Please put your device down. As with texting and driving, distracted walking makes you much more likely to careen into danger.

Don’t freeze!

A common theme in self-defense seminars, is that if you freeze you die. If someone is intent on causing you bodily harm and you don’t respond accordingly, well, harm happens. The same thing applies during a fall.

If you have ever been to a self-defense course, recall how you practiced deflecting and responding to an attacker. You practiced your blocks and strikes over and over again to build your muscle memory. The repetition strengthened your neural pathways to make sure that you would not freeze in the face of danger.

In a similar way, martial artists, skaters, and parkour athletes train themselves to recognize and respond to a fall as quickly as possible. The faster you can recognize that you are going down, the faster you can respond and avoid injury.

Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine that you were ten feet above the ground, walking across the narrow metal beam of a playground swing set. Don’t bother yourself with how you got there – just play along here.

You take one step, a second step, and on the third step you lose your footing. You are starting to FALL.

In this moment, you have two options. Option A: you can do nothing and let the ground rush towards you, as you brace for impact. Or, option B: you scramble and claw to grab the metal beam so that you can drop in a more controlled manner.

Let go and do nothing. Or, react and take control. Those are your options.

Which one do you think has a better chance of avoiding injury?

However improbable that scenario might seem, the same thing applies every time you fall on flat ground. Do nothing. Or, respond and take action.

If you are wondering what type of response and action to take, keep reading. Athletes who fall down a lot cultivate a style of falling that helps keep them from getting hurt. Copy their style and you too can fall without injury.

Avoid straight lines

During a fall, your straight limbs might as well be broken limbs. Don’t believe that? Go watch a few “fail” videos. Striking the ground with outstretched limbs often leads to a broken bone.

Thus, athletes who fall down a lot try to make impact with rounded limbs. They stay loose and lightly flexed across their major joints. From the spine, legs, and arms, their major body segments form into relaxed semicircles.

Consider tipping a kitchen chair backward and then letting it drop back onto all four legs. That leads to a pretty rough landing, right?

Now, imagine tipping a rocking chair backward and letting it rock forward. The curved support of the rocker makes for a much softer landing.

Your goal when learning to fall should be to transform yourself from a rigid kitchen chair into a rounded rocking chair. Harness your inner rocking chair

As another example of what it means to avoid straight lines, place your arms out to your side, and then point your hands back toward your waist. Pretend you were demonstrating to someone the shape of your body as if you were wearing a blow-up sumo wrestler suit. Now, flex your spine a little and go loose in your legs crouching toward the ground a few inches.

Once you are in this position, feel what it is like to be in this ball shape. The more ball-like with rounded surfaces you can become during a fall, the better you can avoid injury.

Spread your impact across multiple body segments

It follows from the last point that dropping entirely onto your wrist, hip, or shoulder without spreading out your impact is a recipe for disaster. The solution is to dissipate your contact across multiple body parts. The ideal strategy is to have a light contact with the distal (far) point of your limbs, with greater absorption happening close to your larger joints and torso.

Think of how an airplane comes in for a landing. The pilot doesn’t drop the plane onto the tarmac all at once. First the rear wheels touch down, then the front of the plane eases onto the ground. The analogy isn’t perfect, but that image of spreading out your contact should be helpful.

Stop thinking of your hands and arms as your main shock absorbers. Instead, consider them as insect-like feelers to contact the ground and re-orient your impact. Strike lightly with your hands, then quickly transition up the chain to your forearm, shoulder, and backside.  Even if your arms are out of the picture for some reason, the same sequencing applies elsewhere on your body. If you are dropping onto your bottom, spread the force across your hip, back, and shoulder.

Stay away from your bony bits

After training yourself to spread out your impact and avoid straight limb-lines, the next thing to work on is avoiding hitting the bony parts of your body. In the medical world, we call these your bony prominences and you have them wherever your bones extend close to the surface of your skin.

Starting from the ground up, here are the main bony prominences to avoid during a fall:

• The side of your ankle (lateral malleolous)
• Your kneecap (patella)
• The side of your hip (greater trochanter)
• The bones of your pelvis, tailbone, and sacrum
• The bony extensions of your vertebrae (spinous processes)
• Your shoulder blade (scapula) and the tip of your shoulder (acromion process)
• Your elbow (olecranon process) and the small bones of your wrist and hand
• And of course, the biggest bony prominence of all: YOUR HEAD!

Training yourself to avoid impact with these bony landmarks takes some practice, but it’s worth it. After 17 years as a physical therapist, I know of numerous cases where a fall onto an elbow or knee led to a fracture. Since they are so close to the surface of your body, these prominences are not well protected and cannot take much impact.

So, how do avoid hitting these tender points? Part of it comes down to spatial awareness and knowing how to tuck your body to provide them with extra protection. The other part revolves on training yourself to avoid falling along the cardinal motions – forward, backward, or sideways. Instead of dropping along these four directions you should become familiar with diagonal paths, 30 to 45-degrees off your main axis. Falling along these diagonal paths provides some protection to your bony parts, and it also uses your body’s padding more effectively.

Wear your muscle as padding

During a fall, the big muscle groups of your body can act as a coat of armor to help keep you safe. By learning how fall in a way that maximizes impact along these muscle groups, your contact with the ground becomes much less disastrous.

In your lower body, we are mainly talking about using your glutes as padding. This means falling along a diagonal path that brings your impact onto one cheek at a time. Of course, this is really only beneficial if you can orient yourself so that your backside strikes the ground first.

Luckily, your upper body is a bit better armored for impact. You have the large muscle wad of your forearm that can help dissipate force. Even your triceps and deltoids can be used to your advantage during fall. Similarly, the wide breadth of your lats (latissimus dorsi) can provide key protection to your trunk.

What should you do if you don’t have that much muscular padding? Consider it one more reason to develop and stick to a strength training regimen. Aging naturally results in the loss of muscle mass over the years, thus you need to be extra diligent to maintain and build muscle as you get older.

Use a roll when appropriate

Lastly, there are certain times when rolling across the ground is the best solution to avoiding a fall-related injury. Over the years, I have fallen and rolled across concrete multiple times without getting hurt. It has happened when skating at the skatepark, training parkour, and even running my dog on a leash. Without the rolls, I’m convinced that either of the falls could have resulted in a trip to the hospital.

Mind you, these were legit, hard falls on concrete with speed involved. Using a roll is so effective, that each time I popped up to my feet with a look of bewilderment:  How I was I not hurt?!

Note though, that the type of roll you do is of huge importance. We aren’t talking about an over-the-neck gymnastics roll. It’s closer to a martial artist’s shoulder roll, but with some slight tweaks. Parkour athletes have perfected this roll for the real world, since they regularly train without the pads or crash mats.

It’s not within the scope of this piece to go into the details of a parkour roll here. Instead, please go meet with a local parkour coach to learn how. If you live in a major US city, the chances are high that there is a parkour gym awaiting your visit.

The main thing is to know that rolling is a movement skill that everyone should to master. Maybe you will need it someday, maybe not. Either way, it is best to be prepared.

Conclusion

Falling down IS a part of life. It’s time health care workers and the public health community recognize that not every fall can be prevented. As someone who wants to stay healthy and whole, make it your mission to learn how to fall without getting hurt. Furthermore, please help spread the knowledge to your loved ones, neighbors, and colleagues.

If you want to learn more about the falling techniques used by parkour athletes, you are in luck. ParkourEDU recently released an online course titled the Art of Falling. This is the first time I have put an affiliate product on the website, and it is because this team puts out such high-caliber material. Amos, the course instructor, is a wonderful coach and a riot to watch. You should check it out.

DISCLAIMER | word to the wise: Please don’t start throwing yourself on the ground willy-nilly because of this article. It’s not a substitute for one-on-one instruction. A good teacher will use appropriate padding and will make other adjustments to minimize your impact. Likewise, people with certain bone disorders, blood disorders, on certain meds, or with other health concerns should definitely talk with their doctor before beginning this type of training.

*CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: Falls and Fall Injuries Among Adults Aged ≥65 Years — United States, 2014

**CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: Deaths from Falls Among Persons Aged >= 65 years – United States 2007- 2016

Do you have a great story to share about falling down or injury prevention? Please leave a comment below.

What criteria do you use to judge the quality of a day?

For me, it’s a simple question: Did I do three fun physical activities today?

I call it my Principle of 3 Fun Things. And, it was something that I stumbled upon in my early twenties.

No matter what other circumstances are going on, if I can tally doing three different types of exercise, than it was a stellar day.

We’re not talking, crazy off-the-wall activities either. I’m not living the Point Break lifestyle out here in Portland. BASE jumping, motorcycle racing, and big wave surfing, aren’t my thing.

It’s much more mundane than that.

Did I walk the dogs with my wife? Did I hang on my gymnastics rings? Did I kick about on my skateboard?

Any combo of movement will do the trick.

It could be going for a morning jog, hitting the bouldering gym after lunch, and then doing some yoga at night. Biking to the store for groceries, messing around on the parallettes, and then stretching during a movie could work too. Often, it’s jamming through a garage workout, walking through the neighborhood, and then doing mobility drills after dinner.

Of course, the Principle of 3 Fun Things doesn’t rely on any sensors or digital counters to log the movement. It’s 100% analog.

The activities are never planned out strictly. They just happen organically. How I’m feeling that day, and what else is going on in life generally determines what type of movement occurs.

To be honest, hitting the goal of three fun things rarely happens on a daily basis. In fact, it probably only occurs a handful of times per month. I end up doing at least one, often two, different types of movement or exercise each day, but three is often a stretch.

If I’ve done two different activities, and there is still time in the day, a little mental alarm goes off:

You still have time! Jam over to the park to train some plyometics. Work on your front lever progression. Do some kettlebell swings.

Squeeze in ONE MORE type movement, and TODAY WILL HAVE BEEN A KICK-BUTT DAY!

I know it probably sounds like I’m an obsessive exerciser, but it’s not like that.

Like many of you, I simply love to move.

Life presents so many barriers to how and when you use your body. You get trapped behind a desk. You get stuck in traffic.

Before you know it, you’re suffering from movement poverty.

Don’t think about the Principle of 3 Fun Things as a fitness ultimatum. It’s not meant to help you lose weight or get in better shape. There is no shame in failure for this one.

Think of it as a lifestyle goal. Our bodies crave movement. Giving in to this craving is one of the best pleasures we can enjoy.

There are already so many other exercise guidelines out there, and there is no need for you to be bogged down by another one. Instead, let the Principle of 3 Fun Things sit on a shelf in the back of your mind. Let it whisper to you, encouraging a diverse and entertaining take on fitness.

Let’s see if we can do 3 fun physical activities today.

With that in mind, take minute to think about the definition of parkour.

Parkour is the discipline of overcoming obstacles with speed and efficiency. Most people associate it with teenagers and young adults. However, there is no reason you can’t apply it to the entire human lifespan.

Here are five parkour concepts that relate to healthy aging:

Scaling of Abilities

Vaulting a waist-high wall can seem out-of-reach to parkour beginners. However, by training a series of precursor movements, even the most fearful student will be able to get over the obstacle.

You might need to start by hoisting yourself onto the wall, sitting on it, and then swinging your legs over. From there, you might transition to arms and both feet, but no contact with your butt. As you get stronger your level of support decreases, from two feet to one foot, and then no feet. After enough training, you can eventually vault the wall with only one hand in contact.

Scaling is the term used to describe the process above, wherein you work through a series preliminary movements tailored to the level of the athlete. Parkour coaches use scaling to help their students build strength and confidence. The same framework can also be used to help older adults improve their level of functional mobility.

Take for example the difficulty many elderly have with getting out of a chair. It’s not uncommon for some people to be so weak in their lower body that they need to use both hands to push themselves out of a chair. Sometimes they actually need physical assist, like a mechanized lift or the help of a caregiver.

Regardless of the level of impairment, scaling can be used to improve a one’s abilities. In terms of getting out of a chair, a first step can be to raise the height of the seat with one or more pillows. Once the person can confidently stand up from the new position, the seat is height is gradually lowered (over days or weeks) until returning to the starting level.

It might take time, but this strategy is a great way to build the muscle to accomplish any number of challenging tasks. You can scale your way into climbing a flight of stairs, doing yardwork, or even unloading the dishwasher.

Understanding Falls

Falling down is part of life. In parkour, athletes tend to fall when they miss a jump, slip on an obstacle, or simply lose their balance. It is such a common occurrence, that coaches always train their students how to fall without getting hurt.

Beginners are taught to disperse the impact, favor rounded body shapes, and roll when necessary. By understanding when to anticipate a fall, and how to recover without injury, parkour athletes condition themselves for a lifetime of safe training.

Now, compared to younger athletes, when seniors fall down it can often be a matter of life or death. In fact, according to the CDC, falls are the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries in adults over 65-years old. Many factors contribute to an older adult’s fall risk, including poor vision, neuropathy, generalized weakness, and drug interactions.

As a society we have done a poor job of protecting our older citizens from fall-related injuries. Yet, by identifying what factors put an adult at risk of falling, he or she becomes better prepared for the world.

Thus, like parkour athletes, older adults need to understand when and how they are at risk for falling. Once the factors are understood,  steps toward fall prevention can be taken. Likewise, with the help of an experienced practitioner, older adults can be taught to recover from, and avoid an injury when a fall does happen.

Environmental Awareness

Experienced parkour practitioners always perform a safety check of their environment before starting to train. They know that wet concrete, dusty surfaces, and loose obstacles all contribute to the risk of injury. By understanding the hazards around them, they minimize their risk.

This same habit is useful for older adults. By taking a few moments each day to identify the risk factors in your environment, you become much safer. Is the sidewalk in front of your house covered in wet leaves or ice? Could you trip on the many throw rugs or extension cords in your living room? The more you understand the external factors affecting your mobility, the more secure you become in the world.

The Importance of Balance

Tiptoeing across an overhead beam might be terrifying to some people, but it’s childs play to a veteran parkour athlete. That’s because a refined sense of balance is crucial in parkour.

Without good balance, landing jumps, crawling across railings, and scaling high obstacles would be impossible. But note though, that balance is a skill that is cultivated through practice. From low to high surfaces, and simple to complex movements, parkour athletes are always working to improve their stability.

Aging gracefully also demands that you continually work on your balance. For some older adults, simply turning around to see what is over one’s shoulder can lead to a fall. Standing on one leg to put on a shoe can be another tremendous challenge. Fortunately, when you put in the time and effort to improve your balance, the results can be astounding.

Over my 15-year career in physical therapy, I have spent thousands of hours helping 70, 80, and even 90 year olds improve their stability. And guess what, either you use it or you lose it.

I once worked with a 99-year-old woman who, after some training, could balance on one leg for over a minute!

Start working on your balance today, and make it a lifelong habit.

Focus on Power

A high horsepower car ramps from 0-60 miles per hour much faster than a less powerful car. In the same way, a skilled parkour athlete can speed through an obstacle course much faster than an untrained beginner. Power is fundamental to parkour, and without it you wouldn’t be able to clear massive gaps or stride between distant foot placements.

That’s why the best parkour athletes continually work to improve their power generation. They work on sprinting, jumping, and the ability to move with explosiveness.

One sad fact of aging is that your ability to generate power gradually declines over time. The older you get, the longer it may take to hustle across a busy street or get up from the floor. And, the longer it takes to complete these tasks, the greater the obstacle they become.

Hence, one final aspect to successful aging is that you need to make an effort to stay powerful. Without counteracting it, it’s natural to lose muscle mass as you age. The good news is that you can still build muscle through every decade of your life. The more you work to maintain or even improve your speed with everyday skills, the healthier you remain.

Although the tug of time may be pulling on you, don’t slow down!

Conclusion

The role of parkour as it relates healthy aging has yet to be fully explored, but the opportunity is immense. If you want a glimpse of the future, watch the documentary To Be and To Last.

Life presents countless obstacles, and the older you get the more they seem to pile up. Incorporating a few parkour concepts into your routine might not be a fountain of youth, but it’ll at least help you live fully.

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By the way, do you know of other 60, 70, and 80 year olds who are redefining what healthy aging looks like? Post a link below or share your stories with me on Twitter @benmusholt. The world needs more images of older adults staying active!

The public health community uses the term “food desert” to describe neighborhoods that lacks easy access to fresh fruit, veggies, and other items that constitute a healthy diet. These are places where you can’t readily walk, drive, or take the bus to a nearby supermarket or well-stocked grocery store. If you’re hungry, you’ll have to buy food at a convenience store or a fast food chain – not your best options if you are trying watch what you eat. Not surprisingly, if you live in a food desert, your health is at risk especially due to diabetes and obesity.

The concept of a food desert is a useful tool for understanding how your environment and nutrition fit together. It’s time we apply the same framework to the intersection of the environment and your level of physical activity.

5 Signs of a Physical Activity Desert

1. Automobile dominance

   Multilane roadways and high car volume aren’t conducive to pedestrian traffic. In such places, just trying to cross the street on foot or on your bicycle can be a life or death experience. It’s hard to be active if you’re constantly worried about being run over!

2. Broken sidewalks

   Rolling your ankle or being pushed out into traffic don’t make great incentives to walking or jogging. And, in low-income neighborhoods, poor sidewalk conditions are associated with higher rates of obesity. Access to safe walkways is one foundation to frequent physical activity.

3. Lack of parks and other recreation facilities

   This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but children living in areas without access to parks or recreation facilities are less active than those in other neighborhoods. Remember food deserts. Proximity and access to safe movement opportunities are essential if you want to be more physically active.

4. Bad lighting and nowhere to sit

   The built environment might not have as profound an influence on your health as food security, employment, or other stressors, yet it’s still a piece of the puzzle. Without good lighting, exercising at night isn’t as safe. Without park benches and other places to sit, children and older adults don’t have a place to rest when they’re tired. What’s the result? Less physical activity.

5. Urban blight

   Abandoned buildings and empty lots don’t make for an attractive environment. People are drawn outside when an area is well maintained and lined with trees. It’s not just an aesthetics thing either. A street’s appearance provides clues about the safety of a neighborhood. The threat of crime is a powerful disincentive to your fitness routine.

I’m sure that you could come up with additional environmental markers, but these five categories are the big ones that stand out in the literature. Whether or not you live in a neighborhood that looks like the one described above, consider its effect on the physical activity of its residents.

Imagine what it must be like to live in an area like that, and be told over and over that a healthy lifestyle requires more frequent exercise. It would be incredibly frustrating, wouldn’t it?

We’re not just talking about how physical activity relates to diabetes and obesity either. Think about the implications on healthy aging. As a physical therapist, I often recommend that older adults establish a daily walking program. Yet, if the environment outside one’s front door isn’t conducive to walking, that’s not a reasonable goal is it?

If you work in healthcare or fitness, and you want improve the health of a population, then efforts at behavior change alone are not sufficient. You must also promote local laws that make neighborhoods safe for exercise. After enough effort, perhaps we can transform physical activity deserts into robust, movement-rich jungles. Let the work begin.