Do you need special equipment for a decent exercise program at home or when traveling? The answer is simple: Yes and No. Yes, you can go running or walking and all you need is a pair of decent shoes. But, as seniors we need more than just running or walking. In fact, as I wrote two weeks ago in Energy Bite 230, while some seniors are still actively running, if you are new to exercise, you probably should be walking — not running. Why not running? Primarily because of the added stress on your aging joints and other infrastructure. No matter how physically conditioned you are, if you do a lot of running, your knees, ankles and feet take a tremendous beating. And when traveling, sometimes a walk after dark in a strange town can be a bit uncomfortable.
But beyond walking, what else should you be doing. For most seniors, the goal is mobility and functionality. This includes the ability to completely control your body both during exercise, as well as for the functionality required for your day to day activities. Functionality is the ability to use your body to do the things you need to do: carry groceries and put them away, lift your infant grandchild, smoothly and easily get in and out of a car (both driver’s side and passenger side). It means the ability to push, pull, lift, carry, bend and twist, and balance. In short to move your body easily and smoothly, with complete physical control of what you are doing.
And that requires more than sitting on the couch all evening watching TV or playing on your computer or smartphone, even after a walk.
So what sort of equipment do you need to get the kind of exercise and movement your body requires to be mobile and functional? Let’s start with the equipment you see on late night TV infomercials. Do you need it? NO! The only exercise equipment I found on TV that I liked was the old time “ab wheel”. I bought furniture “sliders” at Home Depot which work better than the ab wheel, particularly on a carpeted floor. And furniture sliders are a lot less expensive.
I suggest that exercise bands and light dumbbells are great for exercising at home. The dumbbells might be a little cumbersome to take on a trip, but exercise bands are easy to jam into a suitcase and carry with you for travel.
I suggest light dumbbells of 3, 5,10 and maybe 15 pounds each for home use. You can buy them at Target, Dicks, or other big box or sports equipment stores. Use them for simple resistance exercises for your upper body, mostly your arms, legs, shoulders and back muscles. For the beginning exerciser, you can use soup cans to do most any movement you can do with a dumbbell.
I prefer resistance bands for travel. they come in several forms. You can buy them with handles or you can buy bands that look like oversize ribbons (wide bands, normally without handles). They come in various resistance settings identified by different colored bands: easy, moderate and hard, and are often sold as packages. Since one size doesn’t always fit all, I recommend the bands that come in packages of three, with varying resistance
Of course your own bodyweight and the floor are two of the best pieces of exercise equipment you have. They are free and don’t take up space in your suitcase when you travel. Depending on where you exercise at home, there is usually sufficient space to move around at home. It’s far more confining in a hotel room on the road. In travel situations, you usually have the space between the bed and either a wall or a dresser with a TV on top. Sometimes there is a couch with a table. You can always push the table to the side and free up some floor space. But it doesn’t take much space to use exercise bands.
The fact is, your body is the best exercise equipment of all. If you really want to, you can get all the benefits of most any equipment available on the market by just using the weight of your own body. The nice thing about your own bodyweight is that the difficulty of the movement can be changed simply by changing the position of your body.
That’s it. That’s all you need. If you belong to a gym or a health club, you’ll normally find all of the equipment you’ll ever need. If you choose to move your body at home, it’s really not expensive to pick up resistance bands and a couple of dumbbells. And of course, best of all, you can use your own bodyweight to get most of the resistance you will ever need.
And don’t forget to walk.
Thank you for reading.