Older adults need to focus on endurance, strength, flexibility and balance with their exercise programs. A quality yoga teacher training for seniors program should teach you how to incorporate these principles in a safe and effective manner. As part of your 200-hour teaching certification program, you might learn a segment on teaching to yoga to seniors, although the governing organization of yoga programs, Yoga Alliance, doesn't require a specialty course on it as of 2011.
Where to Train
If your 200-hour registered yoga teacher training program does not include an extensive segment on teaching to seniors, then you can supplement with workshops and continuing education credits. Your school may already have one or you might have to look elsewhere. Many styles of yoga hold weekend workshops, including YogaFit, Kripalu, Integral Yoga, YogaWorks and more. Before you sign up for a workshop, ask the program director if the course counts as continuing education credits under Yoga Alliance's requirements.
Teaching for Special Conditions
A vital component to a yoga for seniors training program is that it gives you specific modifications you can teach to people with common, special conditions, such as arthritis, osteoporosis and heart conditions. Your course should alert you to poses, or groups of poses, which a person with a special condition should avoid or modify. You might also learn how to sequence yoga poses together so your older students don't have to spend as much time going back and forth between floor and standing poses.
Teaching with Props
Blocks, straps, bolsters, chairs and thicker mats can make poses much more accessible to older adults. Your course may teach you how to teach almost an entire class with your students practicing yoga in a chair or with the chair used as a prop. Back bends supported with bolsters and inversions that incorporate blocks may help a senior practice a pose they normally would not be able to do. Consider learning how to teach a water yoga class to seniors, which makes balance and standing poses gentler and easier on the joints.
Considerations
Take a yoga teacher training for seniors program that highlights cueing your students with dignity and respect. A senior yoga student needs to be encouraged, challenged and valued like any other student. Older yoga students may be more interested in learning poses that will reduce pain, lower blood pressure or increase their flexibility; they might not be as interested in learning intermediate or advanced poses. Because depression is a common issue for older adults, learning poses and meditation techniques to address this issue is helpful. Look for a training program which focuses on yoga for seniors from as complete of a perspective as possible.
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