Just like their children and grandchildren, seniors need to stay in shape. Exercise brings various benefits to seniors, such as keeping their bones healthy, reducing various afflictions and helping them stay flexible and more mobile. Whether you want to stay active and play sports like golf and tennis or just want to stay healthy, enjoy fun exercises to increase your quality of life.
Weight-Bearing Exercises
Bone density decreases as people age, leading to more fractures in seniors. In addition to increased calcium intake, weight-bearing exercises help improve bone density, according to the Mayo Clinic. Use dumbbells or resistance bands to strengthen muscles and increase bone density. To make these exercises enjoyable, create a circuit-training routine, moving from exercise to exercise with short breaks in between. Set weekly goals for increasing the number of repetitions you can do for each exercise, and monthly goals for increasing weight or resistance.
Aerobic Exercises
Many of your favorite exercises can be turned into aerobic workouts if you increase their duration and intensity. Ride your bike using a lower gear setting, or just go a bit faster, to change things up. Swimming is another excellent aerobic exercise because it's non impact and uses most of your muscles. Speed walking with a friend is another way to get your heart rate up and still have fun. Walk your dog, or ask your neighbor if you can take her dog out once a day. Use a heart rate monitor to see the calories you've burned and other interesting statistics. Many senior centers and apartment complexes have free exercise equipment, or you can join a gym. Machines like treadmills and exercise bikes let you train at your own pace, and read, listen to music or talk with a friend while you're working out. Dancing is another enjoyable way to stay heart healthy, if you can dance strenuously enough for 15 minutes or more.
Sports
With its start-and-stop action and reliance on strategy and tactics to win, tennis is beneficial for the mind and body, working your muscles, heart and strengthening brain synapses, according to Dr. Jack Groppel of the Human Performance Institute. There are many free, learn-the-game programs around the country at thousands of Tennis Welcome Centers. You can make golf more like exercise by walking all or part of the course instead of riding. At the very least, have your partner drop you off and let you walk every five or six holes.
