http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100421/thl-martial-arts-could-help-oaps-d831572.html Wow could be an entire new group of students out there.
i actually did a research paper on this in college and i found all kinds of evidence that martial arts are extremely beneficial for the elderly
Aye, me too. Apart from just being able to fall with less likelihood of injury, since BBT -- if learned and performed correctly -- places much the same sort of emphasis on proper weight transference, structural alignment, sequencing of muscle groups in movement, etc. as tai chi, it might be worth looking at a couple of recent articles mentioning that art in this context: http://www.newschief.com/article/20100422/NEWS/4225041/1011 http://www.empowher.com/news/herarticle/2010/04/10/why-old-people-should-not-lift-weights The second article mentions, "Without stretching, the joints break down. They progressively stiffen out of alignment because some ligaments lengthen abnormally while others shorten. This wears the cartilage, causing arthritis, pain and reduced mobilization." While true enough, that should not be taken to mean that if you're stretching and moving properly you will NOT get, for instance, osteoarthritis. That appears to be more a matter of genetics. By age 40, 90% of people have symptoms of osteoarthritis sufficient to be seen via x-ray. So if you're around that age or older and you're not gobbling glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM, and fish oil to keep the nutrients coming in that your joints need, you probably should be.
well there was already evidence that soft styles of martial arts were beneficial to the elderly so i researched the effects of hard martial arts on physical health. Basically senior citizens went through 17 weeks of tkd training and the number of pushups, trunk flexion, and balance time on each foot were measured and compared to the numbers from before training, and the results were pretty astounding considering the participants only attended training once per week.
