Fitness After Fifty

Dance Your Way To Fitness At Any Age

 

Dancing is not only an art form but a great way to get some exercise.  Dancing is heart pounding exercise to the strains of your favorite tunes.  Dancing will bring a smile to your face and make you feel happy.  All you have to do is move.  It is an amazing workout!  Dancing increases your heart rate, works your core muscle, improves coordination and flexibility, and strengthens and tones your muscles.   

 

 Never be bored again. Mix up your workouts by including dance lessons.  No matter what your income, age, or musical tastes there is a program out there for you.  No experience is necessary. It doesn’t have to be fancy and you don’t have to be good at it.  Dance style exercise classes incorporate elements from modern dance, ballet, tap, jazz, line dancing, social dancing, and even musical theater.  Dancing is cool; it’s trendy and provides a fun way to exercise. Recent studies show that sedentary adults have logged up to 2,000 extra steps a day while dancing. 

 

Statistics show that you can burn 170 to 225 calories in just 30 minutes and it is so enjoyable that you forget you are exercising.  It doesn’t have to be traditional ballroom dancing either (in case you are afraid of stepping on someone else’s toes).  Many forms of dance such as line dancing in country pop, rock and jazz styles don’t even require a partner, so don’t let that stop you. 

 

Dance your way to health.  Dance can be an aerobic activity in the form of ballroom, zumba, swing or hip hop, but it can also be as slow and affirming as meditation in motion.   Dance in all its forms is an enjoyable way to train your cardiovascular system and elevate your mind at the same time.

 

Dancing is exercise without thinking about exercise.  It is easy on the joints and can be done at any age.  Dance trains the brain as well as the body.  It is good for memory recall; it stimulates social interaction and builds confidence.  Dance is has been found to be a beneficial form of therapy.  We aren’t just talking about hip hop calorie burning aerobic exercise but of therapy sessions that transcend disease and disability.

 

 What do you need to get started?  Good dance shoes, dance videos, perhaps a heart rate monitor, partners are optional. Dance is a creative ways to get people excited about exercise and fitness.  If you are too shy to join a class at first you can prepare yourselves with a Wii program or video lessons.  Remember Richard Simmons and “Sweating to the Oldies” as he got the crowds moving to strains of party music? Anyone can do it.  You can have fun and exercise at the same time.  Doesn’t just the thought of doing something funky like Salsa, Hip-Hop, Ballroom, Zumba, Afro-Cuban and Belly Dancing sound cool?

 

Exercise: Mental and Physical Fitness

Exercise is no longer a dirty word.  A new generation of seniors is interested in fostering a sound mind as well as a sound body.   Studies are being done every day, and researchers are telling us that exercise is the key to living longer and more productive lives that ever before.

I work with seniors and not a day goes by when someone doesn’t say, “If I had known that I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”   They also express the notion that if they could keep their mental functions, they wouldn’t mind the physical problems so much. 

Dementia is not a normal part of aging.  New research is indicating that physical fitness had a great impact on the level of brain function.  The author suggests that regular aerobic exercise like walking, biking or swimming can be just as important as mentally stimulating games to thwart mental decline.

Research is indicating that in addition to mental gymnastics you might want to do some real gymnastics too.  An article by Sharon Begley in The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, November 16, 2006) suggests that 3 hours of exercise a week can bolster memory and intellect.  Aerobic exercise apparently increases blood flow to the brain and triggers biochemical changes that increase production of new brain neurons.  Wow, that sounds like good news to me!  These are early days but it is a breakthrough that is certainly worth thinking about.  We only have “x” amount of time left so don’t we want to make it count?

A number of new studies are showing that seniors who take up aerobic exercise show improved cognitive function after a few months.  Aerobic exercise increases the brain’s volume of gray matter and white matter.  After three months the people who have started an exercise programs had the brain volume of people three years younger.  Studies on people and animals are showing that older brains can rev up their production of new neurons, enough to show a difference.

Thanks to new technology such as MRI testing the brain volume can be measured.  In a study neither the stretchers-and-toners nor the couch potatoes showed any brain changes.  The aerobic group showed a substantial increase.  This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t continue to do your crossword puzzles, read, learn languages and other forms of mental gymnastics, but keep on exercising too.  It is worth a shot!

Exercisers unite!  If this isn’t encouraging, I don’t know what is.