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Seniors Fitness – Mark Your Fitness Starting Point

Physical activity for seniors is an essential part of healthy senior living and can make a big difference in quality of life as you experience your golden years. Getting fit and/or staying fit in your senior years helps keep you healthy, stronger, and less prone to serious injury from falls, etc.

But to get started, you need to mark your starting point so you can chart your future fitness path. The first step for any prudent senior is a complete physical examination by their family physician or other licensed professional health care expert. This step is necessary so that you are aware of any pre-existing conditions that may affect your exercise regimen or nutrition plan.

The second step in getting ready to start is to decide what you are looking to achieve in the future in the short, medium and long term. Are there areas of your health, current ability, or physical imbalances that need to be addressed first? Is it necessary to improve your cardiovascular system before you start lifting weights, or do you have mobility or flexibility issues that need to be addressed before you can begin to freely strengthen your body?

Building strength, increasing bone density, increasing flexibility, and increasing endurance are all reasonable goals in any fitness effort for older adults, but it’s important to remember that this is a lifestyle change—a marathon, if you will. not a sprint. It is best to take small steps forward over time, evolving into a completely healthy lifestyle over time.

Rushing the process can lead to injury, burnout and worse, and can be very demotivating if you suddenly find yourself with a level of exercise you’re not ready for.
A piece of advice: Before beginning any exercise routine, even a simple starter routine for seniors, be sure to address issues related to your sleep and nutrition patterns. Do you sleep 7 to 9 hours a day? If you have trouble getting more than 4-5 hours of sleep a night, try adding a nap each afternoon to make up the difference. Your body does most of its healing while you sleep, so this is a great first step toward true old-age fitness.

Once it’s under control and becomes a routine, do some research online or at your local library to plan a healthy diet to follow, both for general health and to optimally recover from your upcoming workouts. The most important concern here is getting enough protein, as too little protein due to poor appetite in older people is thought to be one of the factors in age-related muscle wasting known as sarcopenia.
Once sleep and nutrition start to kick in, you can start your exercise routine by simply going for a walk every day when the weather permits. Don’t burn out, but push yourself to go a little further each day, whether it’s another half block in the city or another telephone pole on a country road. Keep track of the distance you walk each day – you’ll be surprised how quickly your range increases as your body gets used to it.

The next step is to start resistance training: working with weights is arguably the most important part of any strength training for seniors. Start off lighter than you think you need to – Remember, your body isn’t used to using each and every muscle every day and it will take a bit of getting used to. You may feel a little sore the next day after workouts, largely because a full range of motion stretches your muscles and ligaments more than they’re used to.

Using bands or dumbbells, choose one exercise per body part to start with, using compound exercises when possible. (A compound exercise is one that involves more than one joint, such as the shoulder and elbow or the hip and knee.) Do one set of 8 to 10 repetitions of each exercise on the first day, keeping it very light, and see how you feel. the next day. If all is well, add a second set of each exercise to your routine on day three, and a third set on day five if all is well.

Stick with 3 sets per exercise for the next month or 6 weeks, working out every other day or three non-consecutive days a week. If it starts to be easy to finish the third set of an exercise, try a small increase in weight for that exercise in the next workout, slowly coming back to complete 8-10 reps for 3 sets.

At this point, you’ve marked your starting point, and your senior fitness routine is ready to begin in earnest. Depending on your goals and what feels right to you, your path forward will vary as time goes by. You may want to start adding cardio sessions into your workout or days off if you’re looking to reduce body fat, you can add a second or third exercise per body part if you’re looking to focus on building and toning muscle, or you can work with safety toward heavier and heavier weights if the current goal of your plan is to build strength.

But whatever your strategy, know that you’re building a happier, healthier life for your senior years and increasing the likelihood of waking up each day feeling ready to take on the world. In many ways, senior fitness is the best investment you can make in yourself!

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