I recently had the opportunity to speak with a group of senior citizens about exercise, health, and nutrition and was surprised to hear a lot of them tell me that they “couldn’t exercise” or they were “too old” to exercise!  My belief is that no one is too old to exercise in some capacity.  I believe that core strength, balance, and practicing functional exercises is key to a healthy life and can greatly reduce the risk of injury that a lot of senior citizens incur.

Core Strength is the center or “core” of keeping your body fit.  Your core muscles consist of your abdominal muscles and back muscles.  Without a strong core everything else becomes weaker.  When developing a strong core you will in turn become stronger and more stable.

Another thing that I think seniors need to pay special attention to is their balance. Many times you hear of people falling down and breaking a hip or another limb because they lost their balance.  In fact, did you know that when a hip break occurs in a senior citizen, many times they will not live past 5 years past that injury?  It’s a scary thought but there is something you can do about it!  We focus a lot of our class time at THE STUDIO on balance.  Here are just a few exercises we do:
 
One Foot Balance Disc

• With one foot on a balance disc lift other foot off ground and hold the position for 30 sec to 1 min.

Tips:  for beginners, hold on to a wall or chair to stabilize yourself and eventually work your way away from the wall or chair until you can stand on the balance disc with no support.

Bosu Ball Toss

• Stand on round side of bosu ball and balance yourself. Toss a ball from chest to partner.  Repeat 20 times.

Tips:  for more advanced toss ball over head.  You can also use flat side of bosu to stand on but make sure you have something close by to steady yourself if you loose your balance.  You can start with a basket ball and work your way up to a medicine ball.

One more key component is what I like to call “functional exercise” which is doing exercises with moves that you do during your daily routine.  For example we do a lot of exercises from sitting or lying on the ground and simply standing up.  If you think this is easy try this:  Sit on the ground and stand up 10 times how ever you can, then lay down on the ground and get to a standing position 10 times, then from a lying position get into a sitting position 10 times.  These are the types of things that seniors should be working on.  One of our students started here in February and couldn’t get out of bed without having to grab a hold of something or someone to help her up.  Now she can get out of bed with no problem, she doesn’t even need to use her hands to balance or support her!

The bottom line is exercising is a key component to a healthy lifestyle at any age, so come down and drop into a class at THE STUDIO and see for yourself how much exercise can benefit and improve your life!  Your senior years should be some of the most rewarding of your life, but to enjoy those precious golden years you must stay active and limber!