Staying active throughout your entire lifespan is like a fountain of youth, boosting hormones that regulate metabolism, maintaining muscle mass, increasing bone health, and improving sexual functioning, mood and sleep.
However, as the body changes with age, adjustments may need to be made to your exercise routine. While you can maintain any activity you did during your younger years, there are some considerations necessary to ensure you focus on the aspects of training that will serve you best as you age and protect you from overtraining and injury.
Exercises for Older Adults – Changes to Make
Build in movement
With age typically comes more responsibility and fuller schedules. Busy lifestyles often lead to neglect of self-care, including focusing on your physical health. Even if you fit in exercise a couple of times per week, it is likely that over time, a more sedentary lifestyle has set in. If this is the case for you, those bi-weekly gym sessions are likely not enough to meet physical activity needs set out by the USDA of 150 active minutes per week.
When you are young and active, movement is nearly constant. However, with packed schedules, being more intentional with your activity may be necessary. Build movement into your day by choosing the stairs, walking for short errands, setting timers for movement breaks during work and using your lunch break for exercise or a walk.
Incorporate strength training
Strength training is vital for optimal health during any phase of adult life, but it grows increasingly essential as you age. This is due to the muscle loss associated with aging, beginning after age 30 and speeding up after age 60. Strength training is key to combat muscle loss, leading to pain, injury, and less likelihood of remaining independent in your senior years.
Additionally, strength training will improve your balance and stability, leading to reduced risks of falls, a primary factor in why elderly individuals end up in professional care homes. Strength training will also prevent bone loss and can even improve bone density, two factors that lead to osteopenia, osteoporosis, fractures, breaks and hip replacements.
Focus on recovery
As the body ages, it becomes more challenging to recover from intense training. You may experience increased and prolonged muscle soreness, stiffness and fatigue. There is no need to discontinue your workouts; simply work in more recovery days and intelligent pre and post-exercise recovery techniques and nutrition to boost the process.
While young gym-goers may be able to skip a proper warm-up without consequence, it is vital as you get older to properly warm up your muscles and joints to prevent injury and increase your ability to recover afterward.
Pre-workout: Begin each training session with 10 to 15 minutes of light cardiovascular activity such as light jogging or walking on a treadmill on an incline. Next, perform dynamic movements that mimic the type of exercise you will be doing, such as bodyweight squats, if you will perform loaded squats that day.
Post-workout: End each session with light stretching, foam rolling, or a warm shower to release tension and reduce swelling. Consume enough protein and anti-inflammatory foods such as omega-3 and antioxidant-rich foods like salmon, leafy greens, walnuts and berries.
Off-days: During your days off of training, participate in active recovery to increase blood flow to bring nutrients to the healing muscles. Try swimming, walking, hiking, yoga or easy cycling.
Protect your joints
Aging can take a toll on your joints. Years of use, reduced ability to repair, increasing inflammation, and inactivity can all lead to joint pain and stiffness—common complaints with aging. Although some people avoid exercise due to joint complaints, you must keep active if you want to ensure joint health in the future.
Keep active: For one, inactivity increases joint pain and stiffness, leading to a cycle of avoiding movement, making the situation worse, so make sure you keep active, including cardiovascular and strength training. If fitting in exercise is not your issue, then being smart with your workouts is necessary as you age to protect your joints.
Try cross-training: For instance, repetitive stress injuries can occur with running if you do not build strength in your legs. Knee pain is often due to weakness in your thigh muscles and potential tightness in your hamstrings. Be sure to perform strength training movements to build resilience and prevent joint injuries.
Reduce the volume: If you are a frequent strength trainer already, reducing the volume of your training sessions may be required if you experience joint pain. Follow the advice outlined in the recovery section, being sure to properly warm-up and recover after training. As well, focusing on lifting heavier weights with fewer repetitions can help you build and maintain strength while avoiding overuse of your joints that can occur when training with lighter weights for several repetitions.
Final thoughts
Prioritizing your health is a solid investment that will pay off significantly as you age. Whichever type of activity you prefer, keeping it up during your entire lifespan is not just beneficial; it is necessary for a better quality of life. Some adaptations may be required to make the most of your training while protecting your joints and supporting recovery.
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