One of the main goals of exercise for Seniors is to keep yourself active, independent and healthy until it’s time to go. Keep in mind that exercise is only a part of an overall health and fitness program for seniors. You should invest part of every day in doing some form of physical movement.
Here are the main benefits that you should look for when you start or continue exercising as you get older:
- Prevent or recover from a fall
- The strength to push, pull, lift and carry things.
- The flexibility to bend, twist and reach; the mobility to move your joints through their full range of motion.
- Comfortably move from point A to point B at whatever pace you choose.
- Get up and down from the floor.
- Stand up straight while preventing “forward head posture” and a shuffling gait.
- Reduce aches and pain
- Prevent or recover from an injury
- Look good and Feel good
- Hold to an acceptable weight for your body type.
While your body shape and your weight (body compositions) are mostly determined by what you eat as opposed to how much you move, exercise still plays a role.
There are four modes of exercise that we all should be doing in one form or another to accomplish the items on the above list. These are:
1. Aerobic exercise. Exercises that increase your heart rate and make you increase your oxygen intake. These include:
- Walking at a brisk pace
- Running or jogging
- Swimming
- Intervals of high intensity exercise and less intense exercise (HIIT)
2. Resistance exercise. Exercises that pit your muscles against some sort of resistance to build strength and sometimes size. These include:
- Free weights. These can be done with dumbbells or barbells at a gym or at home.
- Exercise bands or tubes usually at home or at a gym.
- Machines. Found mostly at gyms, they are also available for the home.
- Bodyweight exercise. These are calisthenics like push ups and pull ups and other movements where your own body provides the resistance. This can include isometric exercises where you pit one muscle against another or against a hard surface like the floor when you do a plank exercise.
3. Floor, Core & Balance. These can include programs like Yoga, Tai Chi, Mat Pilates and just basic twisting and bending, rolling, and core exercises like leg raises and crunches. These include:
- Stretching for flexibility
- Range of motion exercises where you move your joints through their full range of motion
- Crawling and rolling around on the floor like an infant
- Bending and twisting exercises
- Abdominal exercises like leg raises and crunches.
- Practice getting up and down
- Off center balance and recovery exercises. Don’t try and just stand on one foot; allow yourself to get off balance and then do what you need to recover.
Posture. Posture is a critical component of offsetting the effects of aging. Good posture can help you mentally as well as physically. Posture exercises include:
- Various neck strengthening and stretching exercises, particularly for “forward head posture” prevention and correction
- Scapular retraction and pulling exercises strengthen particularly the upper and middle back so your shoulders do not pull forward.
You should include a few of each in each exercise period or do alternate days between strength and the other exercises. I believe you should do the floor, core and balance exercises every day.
It goes without saying that you should start slowly and ease into any exercise program. You should check with a medical professional before starting any exercise program.
Those are the basics. There aren’t a lot of books or manuals on exercise for older Seniors but there are plenty for those in their 40’s and 50’s. Check them out online. And I hope to remedy that absence of a good manual for 55 and up in the near future.
As I said at the beginning, these are simply the basics for exercises for Seniors. You can make it as simple or as complex as you choose. There are a lot of very technical discussions of the mechanics of exercise online. My goal is to Keep it Simple. I’ll be elaborating on much of the above in future articles.
Thank you for reading.
Privacy: New regulations by the European Union called GDRP require updates and disclosure of Privacy Policies for all those who gather personal data on the internet. The only data I obtain are email addresses. I use a commercial mail service to collect email addresses when a person opts-in from my website to receive these articles weekly. Some recipients are on my personal list where you have given me your email address and allowed me to send these articles. I use the email addresses and sometimes names ONLY for the purpose of sending blog articles and updates to those people who have provided their email addresses in person or from my website. I do not sell nor knowingly provide data in any way to a third party. The site is registered as The Come Alive Project, LLC.