It seems as living beings that every part of us is either being exercised and growing or being idle and atrophying. This is certainly true of muscles, including organs such as the heart and lungs. Obviously, if your heart and lungs were completely idle, you would soon die, but they can be underutilized to the point that over the course of many years they will atrophy. So while exercise is important for everyone, it is of great importance for seniors. As you reach your golden years, senior exercises need to be a daily part of your life if you want to maintain the vitality necessary to fully enjoy those golden years. 

Many people don’t grasp just how much of our health is related to our exercise patterns. Senior exercises do more than keep your heart and lungs strong. Senior exercises help you tone your arms, legs, and abdomen. They also give you tighter, healthier skin, improve immune function so you can fight off disease, help you fight off arthritis, improve mental health and function, improve digestive function, and improve your mood.

Perhaps the most touted benefit of senior exercises coming to light is the dramatic differences noted in bone density between those seniors who exercise regularly and those who don’t. Those who exercise regularly, and particularly those involved in impact or resistance exercises, tend to have far stronger bones than those who do few exercises. The good news is that even those who don’t start doing exercises until their senior years show dramatic improvement after just a few weeks on a senior exercise program.

While we’ve established that it is even more important for seniors to exercise, it is important to note that senior exercises are a more narrow range of exercises and intensities, especially for those who have not been exercising for a long time. While a couch potato teenager can usually get away with joining the track team, a senior citizen couch potato usually cannot survive such a drastic change in activity level. The good news is that the less exercise you’ve been doing, the more benefits you’ll receive from slight increases in exercise duration or intensity. So start slowly, build up duration and intensity slowly, and enjoy the benefits quickly.

Some Senior Exercise Ideas

(1) Strength Training

Strength training, which most often utilizes resistance training, is often scary for seniors who have never done it before. The irony is that strength training is one of the best ways to build muscles, flexibility, and bone strength in order to avoid injuries. The important thing is that you take lessons or work under a trainer who can show you how to hold proper form so that you do not injure yourself and so that you get the greatest possible benefits from your workouts.

(2) Core Strength and Balance

Pilates, yoga, tai chi, and a whole variety of other exercise techniques to improve balance are usually taught at local gyms and fitness facilities. The older you get, the longer it takes to recover from injuries and the more devastating they can be to your health. For seniors, falling is a common cause of injuries and these types of exercises can decrease your risk of falling.

(3) Endurance and Flexibility

Not too different from strength training, endurance training focuses on building up how long your strength lasts. If you feel tired at the end of each day or after completing what used to be simple tasks, senior exercises that focus on endurance may be what you need. Endurance exercises can be cardiovascular, such as interval walking or cycling, or they can be resistance training, such as doing many repetitions with light weights. To increase your flexibility, endurance training involves constant movement. For full flexibility, you should do stretching exercises after you complete your endurance exercises.

(4) Pool Exercises

Swimming and even just walking around swinging your arms in the water are excellent, non-impact exercises that can help you build both strength and endurance. Pool exercises are particularly useful for building the muscles around weak joints.

Special Senior Exercises Considerations

Seniors need to consult with their doctors about all of the types of exercise they want to do in order to ensure they’re able to perform those exercises. Your doctor may have ideas about which exercises to do and about how to build up to the exercises you want to do. Your doctor should work with you to help you get on the best possible senior exercise program to extend the vitality of your life.

Related articles

• Mind, Body, Exercise and Emergence (joyofspa.com)