Exercise Routines for the Elderly

 

With age comes slower metabolism, lack of energy, and limited mobility. However, just like any other obstacles in life, there are fun easy ways to modify exercises to suit your physical abilities to maintain or improve your appearance and health. It is recommended to incorporate 150 minutes of moderate endurance activity into your week. You can walk, swim, ride a bike, really anything you like for a little bit of time every day and find that you will improve your strength, flexibility, and balance, and maybe even blood pressure if you suffer from hypertension. Of course, you will want to schedule a visit with your primary care physician to go over a possible workout routine that is safe and beneficial to you before participating in any advice you see here or in any other article or video.

What Not to Do

First things first; if it hurts or aggravates a pre-existing condition, don’t do it. Some common exercises that can create new problems in seniors are leg presses, crunches, and running. Upright rows and chest presses have been known to worsen pre-existing conditions; and over head presses, and dead lifts are routines that can be hard to do with proper form and can cause harm if not done correctly.

What May Work for You

Workouts that have a proven track record of being beneficial to senior citizens are, walking, squats, pushups, and rows and lat-pull downs to build up muscle strength and endurance. You can also incorporate some fun chair workouts into your day if you are not safely able to endure much impact.

Working Out With Assistance

You can also rely on walking aids to help with balance and keeping your workouts low impact while working out. If you are able to walk without assistance that is great, but if your balance is impaired, please reach for that walking aid before you hit the road. Use a walking aid that offers maximum mobility that will also assist you in working all your muscles properly. In addition to using a walking aid, look into a wearable medical alert system for added safety precautions. If you need just a cane to walk, you are doing yourself a disservice if you use a walker. You still want to push yourself to build your muscles to not only maintain a healthy exercise routine but also to protect your joints. If you rely on a walker when a cane is all you need, you will not get optimal results. Once again, check in with your doctor before applying any of this advice to your workout routine.

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