You must be wondering what are the best workouts for seniors as you can lose your strength when you get older. Getting back to an active lifestyle after leaving it can be daunting. There is also a chance that the workouts you used to love and accustomed to are no longer ideal for you. Anyhow, you still need to workout regularly to keep your body well and active. You can practice these easy and simple workouts that can help you maintain fit and healthy.
Chair Yoga
Sounds easy right? This simple yoga exercise is a low-impact form of workout that can improve your muscle strength, flexibility, balance and mobility which are all crucial aspects for adults. Compared to other forms of yoga, it provides less stress on your joints, muscles and bones. Moreover, it has been proven that chair yoga helps improve your quality of sleep and mental health. The chair yoga forms that you can practice are overhead stretch, seated cow stretch, seated twist, seated cat stretch and mountain pose.
Balance Exercise
Falls can cause serious injuries and even death for senior citizens. However, you can feel confident and stand tall by doing a balance workout that could improve your strength. It is always best to start with a simple balance workout which can make you feel familiar with other forms of exercises later on. You can start with a Flamingo Stand. Firstly, stand with your feet together and arms relaxed on both sides. You can hold onto a chair for support if you need to. Then, try bending one knee to lift the foot slightly off the ground and balance with your other leg. Hold it for 10 seconds and repeat with your order leg. It is really simple but provides you great benefits. You can also try back leg raises, single limb stance with arm and clock reach.
Walking
Walking is one of the accessible forms of workout that you can do daily. However, walking can be really challenging towards some seniors depending on their condition. As walking can be done just about anywhere, you can go out for a walk according to your stamina and ability. You are recommended to walk from 2,000 to 9,000 steps daily for a healthy lifestyle which is equal to 5 to 6 kilometers. Make your walking habits even more fun and easy by having a walking buddy or walk with your loved ones. Walking can help strengthen your muscles and lower the risk of heart disease.
Resistance Band Exercises
Resistance bands are stretchy strips of rubber which add resistance to workouts that can reduce stress on your body. This exercise is popular among seniors as it is ideal for at-home exercise and the stretchy strips are easy to get. Some of the workouts you can try with resistance bands are bicep curl, triceps press, band pull apart and leg press. These simple practices are ideal for strengthening your core and improving posture, balance as well as mobility.
Body Weight Exercises
Seniors are prone to have severe muscle loss and it can be devastating. Muscle loss can lead to hormone problems such as lowering the ability to metabolize protein. To counteract the effects of muscle loss, you can practice a complete bodyweight workout which can increase the strength of your muscles. Some of the workouts that you can practice are side lying circles, squats to chair, wall pushups, knee lifts and lying hip bridges.
It is essential to exercise as you age to maintain a healthy lifestyle throughout your life. These exercises are simple and easy to do which is just perfect for seniors that are opting for an active lifestyle. Let’s keep our body healthy and fit by practising these exercises daily!