Senior Health and Fitness: Get Up and Move!

Get up and move!   Winter is just around the corner and it would be easy to curl up with a good book and doze the days away.  Reading is good and relaxing is even better, but try not get carried away.    Remember how you told your kids that they should go out and play, because it was “good for them”?  Well, it is time for you to go out and play because it is good for you too.  There are articles in the paper every day that tell us that exercise is the key to healthy living (this would be the equivalent of saying it is “good for you”).

We all pay lip service to the importance of exercise, but seniors as a whole aren’t very good about embracing the idea.  I can tell this by the skimpy turnout at the Senior Center.  The people who line up to buy tickets for lunch and Bingo are turning a blind eye to the yoga and enhanced fitness classes offered.   The instructors think they have hit the jackpot when more than 5 people enroll, and that is just not right.  Every person that comes through the door should be signing up for enhanced fitness, if they are not already involved in other fitness programs.

For example, my cousin has been talking about starting an exercise program for years.  She entertained the idea of joining Curves and often talks about walking with a neighbor (as soon as their newly replaced knees are ready) but her track record isn’t exactly good.  She was pretty faithful when she had a Physical Therapist standing over her with a whip, but she cannot seem to get motivated to exercise on her own.  It is something she thinks about regularly but it always gets pushed to the back burner.  She is a smart lady and knows that it would be in her best interest but she finds rummage sales and shopping more to her liking.

Studies show that it doesn’t take many weeks of inactivity to turn the average person into an invalid.  Now that is a scary thought.  Muscle function deteriorates surprisingly fast, but the good news is that it can be reversed.  The bottom line is that your physical strength, heart health, and respiratory function do not deteriorate just because you are getting older, but because you are getting lazier.   Working adults spend little to none of their time exerting their bodies.  Many adults don’t even spend 10 minutes a week doing vigorous leisure time physical activity.  Because so many people do not do physical labor our generation is the first in modern history to be less healthy, as they get older, than the generation before them.    With so many reports and so many magazine and newspaper articles on health issues each day, surely this cannot be true!

It shouldn’t be that hard.  You really don’t have to do that much.  Minutes a day devoted to balance, aerobic activity, strength training and flexibility is all it takes (and you don’t even have to do all of it every single in day).  Motivation (I know you have that because you want to be strong and you want to take care of yourself), compliance (just do it) and consistency (week in and week out) is the formula.   A daily dose of a hobby is another good idea, and it can make any activity fun. You owe yourself that much, and if you are doing something good for yourself at the same time it is even better.  You don’t have to go to the gym every day or train for a marathon, but figure out someway to put a little more energy in your step!

I read an article about motivation the other day and I hope to put together a series of articles on how to motivate seniors.  Please feel free to share your ideas about what works well for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Donna A. Menner]

I don't think I agree entirely about growing lazy as we get older and that is why seniors and elderly don't exercise. I think it has a lot to do with their physical condition, for example some have bad knees, some bad backs and hips, and some have balance problems. If some of them were just to stoop over to pick up a ball they might fall down.

For many seniors the most exercise they obtain is getting into the car, getting out of the car, and walking into a restaurant, then back to the car again and when there is a handicap placard those steps are few. There is something about the previous generation viewing work as exercise, they just never really got into as a group, or a class, that type of thing wasn't available when they were growing up.