Move Better, Age Stronger: Yoga Expert Jennifer Parker on Flexibility, Agility, and the Stretching Habits That Transform How We Age

Let’s be honest, most of us hit a certain age and start noticing things. The morning stiffness that takes a little longer to shake off. The balance that isn’t quite as steady as it used to be. The body that just doesn’t bounce back the way it once did. I’ve been there, and I know so many of you have too. That’s exactly why I was so excited to sit down with Jennifer Parker, a longtime reader of Cindy Hattersley Design, and a yoga practitioner and instructor with decades of experience helping people move better, feel better, and age with a whole lot more grace. She’s the real deal, and what she shared about flexibility, agility, and the power of consistent stretching as we age? It’s the kind of advice I wish someone had given me years ago. Let’s chat about how we need to “Move Better, Age Stronger: Yoga Expert Jennifer Parker on Flexibility, Agility, and the Stretching Habits That Transform How We Age”

This is the sixth post in my all-new Self-Care Series. Let’s chat about why is flexibility is so important as we age? Yoga veteran Jennifer Parker has the answers.

“Move Better, Age Stronger: Yoga Expert Jennifer Parker on Flexibility, Agility, and the Stretching Habits That Transform How We Age”

Jennifer – tell us a bit about yourself, and how you went from practicing to teaching yoga.

I discovered yoga when I was in my 40’s. It gave me something positive to focus on as my first marriage was ending and I was stuck and suffering in a prolonged depressed state. I had never been an athletic person and definitely didn’t think of myself as a very strong person, either physically or emotionally, but working with my body in yoga felt good and as I gained strength in my body, I also felt emotionally stronger and more balanced. Eventually I found my niche in the style of yoga taught by BKS Iyengar, which emphasizes learning the most beneficial alignment of the body in each pose and developing the ability to hold the pose and feel its effects on the body. After a few years, my teacher asked me if I would be interested in teaching under his guidance, and I started out with just one class. Several years later my teacher was working with a local cardiologist who was doing a clinical trial testing whether yoga could be an effective adjunct therapy for folks living with atrial fibrillation and he asked me to assist him. The study was published under the title “Yoga My Heart.” That was my introduction to yoga therapy, and I was immediately captivated! I completed a rigorous program of training to become certified as a yoga therapist by the International Association of Yoga Therapists. By then I was turning 60! At 62 I retired from my full-time job as a paralegal and opened my own yoga studio where I taught regular group classes and one-on-one yoga therapy clients. I closed the studio 2 years ago, but now, at age 75, I still teach classes and provide yoga therapy online or in person.

“Move Better, Age Stronger: Yoga Expert Jennifer Parker on Flexibility, Agility, and the Stretching Habits That Transform How We Age”

What do you find are the most important benefits of yoga as we age – including balance, flexibility, and strength.

People often associate yoga with flexibility, and many think it is a prerequisite for starting a yoga practice. But especially as we get older, maintaining both muscular and bone strength is primary if we wish to live independently. Without strong bones and muscles, we lose the ability to move at all: to sit and stand; to walk; to get into and out of bed, chairs and cars; to do all the tasks of daily living and the activities we enjoy. We can remain active without being very flexible or having great balance, but we cannot remain active without strength. Moreover, maintaining adequate lower body and core strength provides a foundation for working on balance and flexibility.

Any poses in which we are contracting muscles and lifting and holding body parts against the pull of gravity are strengthening. But many yoga poses fulfill more than just one function, so you can work on strength, flexibility and balance all at the same time. In a simple pose like Hunting Dog Pose, we are building muscle strength by lifting and holding one leg, the opposite arm and the head against the pull of gravity; we are building bone strength by putting stress on the bones of the supporting leg, arm and wrist; we are engaging the abdominal core muscles to support the spine; we are improving balance by removing part of our usual two-legged support system; we are building coordination by working diagonally and we are honing our ability to concentrate because we have to remember which limbs to lift when. I have recently added hand weights to my yoga practice and will probably add ankle weights too. Some folks use resistance bands in creative ways to enhance the strengthening properties of their yoga practice.

When we think of yoga, we usually think of its benefits on the body – how does it impact mental health along with memory and emotional health as well?

I actually think that flexibility and balance are more important in the mental and emotional realm than they are in the physical realm. This is where breathing and meditation practices are helpful. There are simple breathing practices that stimulate a sluggish mind and others that calm an anxious mind. Once you enliven a stuck, ruminating mind (depression) or soothe an overactive, fearful one (anxiety), and guide your mind into a more balanced state, then you can take a step back from being ruled by your depressed or anxious thoughts and begin to observe them instead. It’s like stepping out of a swiftly moving stream and watching it go by instead of being carried along by it. When you are caught up in the stream, you are at its mercy and will be taken in the direction that it is going, perhaps at your peril! But standing on the bank of the stream, you can see the water and the rocks in the streambed; you can see what’s happening on your side of the stream and what it looks like on the other side; you can look inside yourself and decide if the stream is what you really want. Now that you can see what’s going on around you and within you, you are in a better place to consider what other options might be available to you. You can get back in the water, if that seems wise, or you can go in another direction that seems more promising.

“Move Better, Age Stronger: Yoga Expert Jennifer Parker on Flexibility, Agility, and the Stretching Habits That Transform How We Age”

You currently teach private yoga lessons – tell us how you approach pain management and what exercises have you found help the most when it comes to joint pain, stiffness, and chronic mobility issues in your clients?

Pain is the signal your body sends you when it wants you to pay attention to it. Maybe you have really injured something – at least that’s the conclusion we usually jump to. But maybe you have been sitting with your back rounded and your shoulders hunched forward for longer than your body wants to tolerate and it’s telling you to get up and do something different. Maybe you are feeling an intense pull in the back of your legs when you bend forward and stretch some tissue that hasn’t been stretched in a while and it’s asking you to slow down and be gentle. Or maybe it’s chronic pain, which is even more mystifying to treat and challenging to live with. In any case, the yogi’s task is not to ignore it and hope it goes away. The task is to pay attention to your pain, to feel it and try to decipher the message that is being sent to you. If it seems to signal potential injury then, by all means, stop and attend to it immediately. If it is “get up and move” pain, or “be careful” pain or “oh – you again” pain, then you survey the options that are available to you and go in the direction that seems to be most beneficial. My pain mantra is “teach yourself to tolerate unpleasant sensations that are pointing toward a desirable outcome, but don’t practice pain!” Discerning the difference makes all the difference!

Mindfulness, certain breathing practices and gentle yoga can be very helpful in managing pain. I highly recommend that anyone who wants to use these yogic tools for pain management read Jon Kabat-Zinn’s groundbreaking book “Full Catastrophe Living.” Dr. Kabat-Zinn created his Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program, a non-religious synthesis of Eastern meditation and yoga practices with scientific findings, to help his patients cope with stress, illness and pain.

Move Better, Age Stronger: Yoga Expert Jennifer Parker on Flexibility, Agility, and the Stretching Habits That Transform How We Age

Are there situations where you would recommend modified movements or even exercises you would completely avoid for your clients and what might those be?

Yoga therapy is all about modifying poses and practices to accommodate individual needs. Once we are in our 50’s and beyond, or whenever there are health challenges, a yoga practice needs to be less performative and more functional. We need to shift from a focus on “how well am I doing this pose?” to being attentive to “how does this pose make me feel? How is this practice enhancing my daily life?” If a pose doesn’t feel great, or if something is preventing you from doing it at all, then using one or more props or modifying how you work with it may make it accessible. Mr. Iyengar was famous for pioneering the use of props to help people gradually ease themselves into the postures he was teaching them. I have always used props in my personal practice, and I couldn’t be a yoga therapy practitioner without using them. A stretch of empty wall can help you discover what good alignment is and how it feels. It can steady you when you are feeling wobbly. When sore wrists or weak arms prevent you from practicing a plank pose on the floor, you can do it against a wall. A sturdy chair, such as a metal folding chair, can be used in any number of supportive ways, as can yoga straps, blocks and folded blankets.

One of the great things about yoga is that it can be a lifelong practice. As you get older and life changes you, you just modify your practice to suit your new circumstances. I stopped doing headstands about 5 years ago when it became apparent to me that the risk of seriously hurting myself far outweighed the pride I felt at being able to do it. I still practice shoulderstand, but I always use supportive props, and I’m very careful now about backbends. There is one common entry level pose that I never do personally, although I do teach others how to do it, because I have learned that it adversely affects one of my joints. On the other hand, I have increased attention to my breathing practice in recent years as maintaining cardiovascular health has become more important to me. I don’t worry about letting my students know about my limitations, because I believe that allows them to acknowledge their own.

What advice would you give someone who is over 50, 60, 70, and beyond who feels nervous about starting yoga?

All you really need to bring to the practice of yoga is the intention to pay attention to whatever you are doing in the present moment, whether you are putting your body into a posture, or breathing mindfully or meditating. There are no prerequisites, nothing you have to be good at before you start – you just start from wherever you are and build from there. No worries if you can’t touch your toes – you start with the forward bend that’s available to you now and look forward to seeing if you can do a little bit more tomorrow. Can’t get down to the floor? Do some poses on a chair or even in bed. The first practice I usually teach new clients is the Joint Freeing Sequence. I often recommend doing it in bed first thing in the morning or sitting in a chair. The important thing is to give yoga a try, accepting what can’t happen today while keeping open the possibilities for tomorrow.

What should our readers look for when it comes to choosing a yoga instructor?

Kindness and empathy are the primary things a mature aspiring yogi should look for in a teacher. Safety is primary! Good training, of course, and knowledge of how to use props and devise appropriate modifications. A good teacher should invite the student to report any limitations they have and any pain or ill effects from any pose or practice and then work with her to decide next steps. The website for the International Association of Yoga Therapists (International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) has a section that provides information for the general public about yoga therapy and an international listing of certified yoga therapists who have received this type of training.

Leave hot yoga, power yoga, fast vinyasa classes and extreme breathing practices to the twenty and thirty-something yogis. Look for teachers of hatha yoga, yin yoga (this style does not offer a focus on strength, but does offer flexibility, joint mobility and decompression and mindfulness) and restorative yoga. Chair yoga is always an option.

What are some positive changes your clients have seen as a result of practicing yoga? 

(I asked my current clients to respond to this, so these reflect their replies. At their request, I have changed names; ages may not be exact.)

Ed, age 81, reports that he is more flexible now than he was as a young man. He credits his improved posture, ability to walk confidently and work in his garden to his yoga practice.

Manish, age 66, used his yoga practice to prepare for knee replacement surgery and credits it with facilitating his recovery. We have modified his practice to accommodate the new knee, which doesn’t bend beyond a 90-degree angle.

Both Manish and David, age 79, have had long careers that left them with chronic back pain from rounded upper backs and forward shoulder and head positions. Both men now have lovely posture and can easily manage occasional mild back pain.

Ava, age 60, reached her goal of being able to get down to and up from the floor to play with her grandchild.

Maya, age 46, was almost immobilized after two years of pain from osteoarthritis and had grown fearful that every movement would cause more pain. After less than a year of practice she has realized that movement relieves her pain, not causes it.

Laila, age 62, a longtime asana practitioner, is now learning to breathe deeper and more slowly to see if she can slow her chronically fast heart rate. (Asana practice is the practice of poses and postures, as distinct from breath and meditation practices.)

Deidre, age 74, appreciates that her yoga practice keeps her joints fluid and mobile, which pairs well with her love of cycling.

We all know that movement, but also adequate and appropriate nutrition are extremely important as we age. Do you stick to a certain diet and if so, what does that look like for you?

I try to bring the same mindfulness practice to eating that I advocate for practicing yoga. If I discern that a certain food doesn’t serve me well, I try to banish or minimize it. I prioritize fresh, whole foods and try to minimize packaged processed foods, caffeine, sugar and simple carbs. Like many of us aging folks, wine is not kind to me but, luckily, a glass of champagne doesn’t bother me at all! I primarily drink lots of low caffeine tea, and my friends know they can count on me to introduce them to a new tea flavor.

In addition to yoga, what other forms of exercise have you found to be beneficial and enjoyable as you have gotten older?

For all its many benefits, yoga doesn’t offer much in the way of cardiovascular exercise. I try to get outside to walk or use a treadmill or elliptical machine for a minimum of 30 minutes at least three times a week.

What are your top wellness tips?

Keep moving, stay connected to others, know yourself!

Jennifer’s insights are the kind that stick with you long after the conversation ends. What I loved most is how she reminded us that aging well isn’t about fighting your body or pushing through pain. It’s about showing up for yourself consistently, moving with intention, and giving your body the flexibility it deserves at every stage of life. Whether you’re brand new to yoga and stretching or you’ve been practicing it for years, there is something in what Jennifer shared for everyone. I walked away from this conversation genuinely inspired to be more mindful about how I move . I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Has yoga, stretching, or simply moving more changed how you feel as you’ve gotten older? Let’s keep this conversation going. This is exactly the kind of topic we should all be talking about more.

I hope you enjoyed “Move Better, Age Stronger: Yoga Expert Jennifer Parker on Flexibility, Agility, and the Stretching Habits That Transform How We Age”.If you would like to catch up on any posts you may have missed in our self-care series, you can find them here.