If you are in good enough health to exercise, a regular workout routine can create a great number of benefits for seniors. It can help reduce your chances of heart disease and diabetes, and limits symptoms associated with arthritis and back pain. It helps to increase your energy levels and, when you develop stronger muscles, puts less pressure on your joints. Perhaps the best benefit of all, exercise can make you feel happier and less stressed during your day.
Doctor Knows Best
Before beginning a workout regimen, talk to your doctor. Make sure it’s okay for you to exercise, and then ask if there is anything specific that you should work on, as well as anything you need to make sure you don’t do. If you have thin bones, your doctor might recommend light weight training. If you have a family history of heart disease, you may be encouraged to do regular low-impact cardiovascular activity, like walking or swimming.
Create a Schedule
Make yourself a weekly schedule with your workout goals. The Aerobics and Fitness Association of America recommends that healthy seniors exercise for 20 to 30 minutes, two to three days per week. The workout should include a five to 10-minute warmup, light aerobic activity, like walking, and gentle stretches, followed by weight-bearing exercise. If you can, you should do 12 repetitions of exercises that focus on all of your major muscle groups. That includes your back, chest, shoulders, biceps, triceps, abdominals and leg muscles. You can use either light free weights or resistance bands, depending on what you have available to you.
Stretch and Limber
If you start to feel arthritis as you age, it is important that you do regular limbering and stretching exercises to help you retain your range of motion--and to make your joints feel better. The American Council on Exercise and the Arthritis Foundation suggest that seniors do limbering exercises at least once per day. Some common limbering exercises are shoulder circles, neck rolls, arm swings, leg swings, hip circles, leg splits, ankle and wrist rotations and lying knee-to-chest pulls. Combine these with stretches for each major muscle group. Remember to do all limbering and stretching slowly, gently and in a place that is not cold.
Listen to Your Body
Your doctor isn’t the only one who has a say about what’s good for you; your body does as well. If you feel pain, stop. If you feel winded, short of breath or overheated, take a break and call your doctor. If the woman at the gym suggest that you try walking on a treadmill and you are bored, try something else. Check out an aqua aerobics or a yoga class. If you take a class and you feel uncomfortable or can’t do an exercise, talk to the instructor about a variation on the exercise--or go get a drink of water and then rejoin the class.
References
- “Fitness Theory and Practice”; Peg Jordan, R.N.; 1997
- American Council on Exercise: Exercise and Arthritis
