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We all know what age-related stiffness looks like: small movements, a shuffling gait, the slow, cautious extension of an arm or leg. We think of this as an inevitable part of the aging process as our body tightens and our ability to move freely gradually abandons us.
This summer found myself shuffling slowly to the kitchen to get a snack (probably chocolate) thinking that old age had come for me too soon. Even though I was cleared to walk without my leg brace and my pain was significantly reduced I still felt like my body couldn’t move smoothly anymore. Every joint movement, even turning my head, felt like it was moving on rusted hinges.
My body had turned into a haunted house in just a few months!
P.S. before I get into the nerdy stuff — if you want and in person deep dive on mobility and power for less young people, I'm co-teaching a retreat in Oaxaca this November called Body & Vibe Over 45 → More details at the end.
What’s Actually Making Us Tighter Isn’t “Old Age”
The truth is that I hadn’t suddenly gotten old. My body was scared. My nervous system was not confident in my ability to manage my movement leading to a behavior called “guarding” that we typically associate with aging, though there can be many other triggers including physical trauma—like knee reconstruction.
Guarding is a kind of physical hypervigilance. Imagine yourself in a high-stakes situation where much is expected of you and you feel unprepared, lacking in information an resources, and exhausted. If you’ve ever found yourself in that scenario you will remember an overwhelming sensation of tension that makes perfect sense.
This is exactly what can happen to your poor brain as it tries to make decisions about how to direct your muscles through movement. Picture your harried brain, crouched in the dark cave of your skull over the switchboard of your nervous system, constantly sending and receiving information about your body’s sensation, position, and capacity and balancing it with information about the world around you. The brain is juggling all that with past experiences, trying to make the best possible decisions to keep you alive and healthy.
If the brain doesn’t feel confident in the information it is receiving, or if it doesn’t trust your body’s capabilities, your brain will make the wise decision to slow everything down and tighten up the ship. The easiest way to do this is just to get all the muscles to contract at once. Voila! Joints are protected and you can’t recklessly flail around and hurt yourself. Brilliant!
Except that guarding is not a lovely long-term strategy. Anyone who has experienced the haunted house feeling of aching, creaky joints knows that it isn’t a fun way to move through the world.
Why “Guarding” Tightness is Associated with Aging
Genetic and neurological conditions, depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and PTSD are just a few things that can contribute a hypervigilant brain. Notice there are both physical and psychological contributors; the brain does not differentiate between different types of danger. Our mental and emotional health play an essential role in the way we move.
Aging can bring about specific physical changes that can encourage guarding tendencies in the brain.
Some age-associated factors that increase guarding include:
Sarcopenia: This is a fancy term for muscle loss. Left unchecked, we start losing muscle every year beginning in our 30s. While the old school view is that strength and mobility exist in opposition, we now know that they are mutually dependent. When the brain doesn’t feel confident in the strength of your muscles it is much more likely to initiate some guarding to keep you glued together.
Gluppy Fascia: I have written about how important fascia is for proprioception (the neurological system of feeding the brain information about body position and tension). With age fascia hardens, dries out, and gets disorganized causing the brain to get less and less information about what the body is up to. This leads to reduced confidence and more guarding. The structural changes to fascia can also become a limitation since the layers can no longer glide and slide as you move.
Osteoporosis: Loss of bone density is particularly problematic for those of us whose estrogen tanks during perimenopause. Without intentional intervention we start to precipitously lose bone density in our 40s-60s and onwards leading to delicate, brittle bones. Our brain also gets proprioceptive feedback from our bones, and as they hollow out our brain knows we can’t count on them like we used to. Better tighten up the joints to protect them!
Eyesight and inner ear issues: The brain relies on good quality sensory information to help us move around. It is constantly lining up feedback from all of our senses to make sense of the world as we move through it. Even slight vision loss or inner ear issues that affect our balance can throw off the brain’s confidence in its ability to perceive our surroundings, causing guarding. Because we are more likely to have eye and ear issues as we age this is another potential factor that can worsen over the years.
Young people are certainly not immune to guarding tightness. Everything listed above can happen to younger folks, especially those of us with hypermobility/EDS who are prone to proprioceptive issues and have quirky fascia and nervous systems. Early life trauma can lead to lifelong issues with guarding as the brain does its very best to protect us from future harm. Understanding why the brain is tightening up can help us have compassion for our bodies when we feel tight and achy.
Guarding is not Inevitable: We Can Be Old and Bendy
It is also true that the above listed age-related factors are not inevitable. Finally more research is being done on the effects of aging and study after study shows that we don’t need to crumble to dust with a sigh of resignation. Older bodies respond to training just like younger bodies (well, maybe a little slower but we still respond!). Proper training can slow and even reverse the conditions that lead to guarding so we can be old and bendy at the same time!
Some of the training techniques that I have used to combat guarding-related tightness, both in my own body and with my clients, are the same that I use to train contortionist and dancers:
Isometric Strengthening: Long hold, low intensity isometrics are great for improving proprioception and building strength exactly where we need it. They can also help to remodel and strengthen our beleaguered fascia.
Full ROM Strengthening: Building strength at our end ranges encourages our body to keep and trust and even expand our end ranges. This builds our brain’s confidence to use the flexibility we have.
Heavy Lifting: When we lift really heavy things it sets off a cascade of effects inside our body—neurological and hormonal—that stimulate muscle, bone, and fascia growth. Lifting heavy is a great way to kick bone and muscle loss to the curb. But it is important to note that progressive overload is the way to go here! Don’t start yeeting heavy weights about, build over time and preferably with a professionally designed program!
Good Nutrition and Hydration: Eat lots of healthy food and drink lots of fluids. Try to avoid fad diets and drink too much booze.
Stay Up-to-date On Glasses Prescriptions: If you’ve ever tried the magic of eyeball drills you can experience just how much our vision affects our mobility. Using glasses that don’t work for you, or not using glasses when you need them, can really provoke the brain to guard the hell out of your joints.
If this feels overwhelming, remember that you don’t have to max out on every one of these bullet points to get improvements. Every little thing helps. You don’t need to move into your gym or stop eating mint chocolate chip. Just do your best, and enlist your community to join you since it’s so much easier to make changes when we do it together!
Ready to work on this in person?
This November I'm co-teaching a week-long retreat in Oaxaca, Mexico called Body & Vibe Over 45 with the brilliant Kerri Krisinski. This retreat is about our agency, voice, physicality, and power as we kick outdated ideas about what it means to be a older woman right in the teeth.
For women and femme-aligned folks over 45 who refuse to let age and societal BS write the story about how we show up.
🌿 Join us in Oaxaca this November →
Want to go deeper?
Further reading:
What Causes Tight Muscles? — the foundational science behind why your body holds tension
Does Passive Static Stretching Work? — why stretching alone won't override a guarding nervous system
Does Getting Older Really Make You Less Flexible? — the physical changes that feed into guarding as we age
How to Warm Up for Flexibility Fitness — What Actually Works — how to prepare your nervous system before training
Strong AND Flexible: Understanding End-Range Strengthening — the training approach that builds nervous system confidence
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Every week I write about the science of flexibility, mobility, and movement — for all levels.
Happy Bendings,
Kristina
