Aerobic Exercise
Anyone alive during the 80s is familiar with aerobic exercise. It was the time of cringe and synonymous with bright colored spandex and leg warmers. More recently, it has been revamped and is not referred to as “cardio”, but the general idea and benefits remain the same (we’re just saved from the embarrassing attire). Aerobic, er, Cardio exercise increases the heart and respiration rate over a sustained period of time without stopping or resting. The typical examples are running/jogging, bicycling, swimming, and, for our target audience, walking.
The goal of doing aerobic exercise is to improve cardiovascular endurance by keeping the heart beating at a mild to moderate rate over time. This strengthens the heart and improves lung function making them more efficient at getting oxygen out to the muscles. This in turn, allows us to exercise for longer periods of time.
Let’s take a look at a few more benefits our bodies experience from doing cardio. Performing regular aerobic exercise can:
- Improve your cardiovascular (heart, arteries, and veins) health by strengthening the heart muscle and lung function.
- It can help to lower your blood pressure and your cholesterol levels
- Naturally, it helps with managing your weight management and how your body looks
- It can improve your overall mental health and mood
- It boosts energy levels
- And, improves the quality of your sleep
Now, particularly for the elderly, aerobic exercise is particularly beneficial. Let’s face it, as we get older, our physical and mental abilities tend to decline. Doing regular aerobic exercise will help slow these processes down, maintain muscle mass, reduce the risk of falls, improve cognitive function and lower your risk of developing cognitive conditions like dementia. Scientist believe this is because cardio can increase the blood flow to your brain, helping to nourish it promoting the growth of new brain cells. Working it out: Researchers find exercise may help fight depression in seniors — ScienceDaily
Resistance Exercise of Strength Training
Most people think of “weight training” when they hear the term “resistance exercise”. And, true, working out with weights has been the most common and popular forms of “resistance exercise”. But, for the elderly, working out with resistance exercises could mean much more.
Resistance exercises challenge your muscles with varying degrees of resistance or weight. For the elderly, using their body weight or resistance bands are two safer ways to get their muscles working.
Wall push ups, squat and lunge exercises are all forms of “resistance” exercise but are easier to do, don’t require any special equipment and tend to be more “functional” than lifting weights.
Then there are the different types of resistance bands that are made out of rubber or latex that provide resistance when you pull against it. These tend to be the preferred for many physical therapists and fitness experts who work with the elderly. The reason for this is that resistance bands are a lot more easy to carry and stow. Plus, there is little chance of being hurt if you drop the band on your foot, unlike a dumbbell or barbell.
Resistance exercises are needed to build muscle. Our muscles grow stronger and bigger when we challenge them with a resistance that is slightly too heavy. The muscle strains and the weight causes “micro-tears” in the muscle body which in turn causes the whole muscle to grow. This is the same process that body builders use to get massive muscle growth. However, while the elders’ muscles grow in strength with resistance, they don’t have the dramatic increase in size seen in body builders.
Building muscle also has the added benefit of increasing our body’s metabolism. This means that it’s easier to lose our friendly fat deposits. Having lean muscles also helps against a host of unhealthy diseases or conditions that may confront many in the elderly community.
The benefits of strength training for the human body are many. Regular resistance exercise can:
- As we noted before, increase muscle mass and strength
- Improve bone density making them stronger and less prone to fracture
- Improve your cardiovascular health decreasing the likelihood of heart attack
- Naturally, improve physical functioning and mobility
- It improves mental health and mood
- Increases your energy levels
- Improves your sleep quality
For the elderly, resistance exercise can be really beneficial. As we get older our muscle mass naturally decreases. Along with it our strength decreases. This can lead to what we call in the medical profession, a “decline in function”. Resistance exercise will help slow down this decline by replenishing muscle mass and strength. If you’re strong, you will be able to “function” better and can slow the “decline” significantly. Also, strong muscles will improve your opinion about yourself, give you confidence, and it can even help with balance preventing falls.
Stretching For Exercise
When people think of stretching exercises they generally think of things like “yoga”. But, there are different ways and reasons to stretch than yoga. Stretching involves the relative lengthening of certain muscles with the goal of increasing general flexibility and “range of motion”, or ROM. You can do stretching passively, by putting your body in a position of stretch and staying/holding there using gravity or a strap of some sort. Or it could be done actively, by engaging the muscle being stretched, as in yoga.
For many seniors, they stay in a seated posture for most of their waking hours. When a bodily position is held for a prolonged period of time, the muscle, tendon, and fascia tissues tend to take on the position the body is in. Then when it comes time to move, it’s difficult to get out of that position and you need to stretch out of it.
For the elderly, stretching is extremely beneficial and should be done routinely. Again, as we age, just like our strength, our flexibility and range of motion tend to decrease. And just like with muscular weakness, can lead to limitations in physical function and also an increased risk of falls.
Stretching regularly can help to slow down this process too. By being limber, you’re less likely to fall. If you do slip, trip, or even fall, being flexible can help you avoid the fall and it will ensure that you have enough ROM to get up from the floor after having a fall.
Like all other forms of exercise, stretching has many, many benefits. Regular stretching can:
- Improve flexibility and range of motion – goes without saying
- Can reduce muscle tension and soreness
- Can improve your posture
- Improve activity performance and make it easier
- Stretching can also improve blood flow and circulation
Stretching is an unappreciated exercise that can help people suffering from painful arthritis. When you have arthritis, it means your joint is irritated and inflamed. You’ve heard the term “bone on bone” arthritis? Stretching the joint actually creates more space in the joint and can relieve some of the pain and irritation that comes with the joints are compressed.
Functional Exercise
Functional exercise is a type of physical activity that mimics everyday movements and activities in order to improve our overall ability to function. These particular exercises emphasize specific tasks or movements that we do on a daily basis. Everyday activities like lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling and twisting can be made into exercises.
Specific exercises are designed that will increase your strength to do those activities. Your balance, flexibility, and coordination, will also be improved.
Most of the time, people start out using their body weight as the only form of resistance in functional exercises. Once you’re able to work out with body weight and feel comfortable, then you can move on to using resistance bands, or equipment like kettlebells, medicine balls, and stability/gym balls.
Squats, lunges, deadlifts, step-ups, push ups, pull ups, and rotational/twisting exercises are all examples of functional exercises. Walking can also be considered a “functional” as well as an aerobic exercise
The goal of this form of exercise is to improve your body’s ability to do real-life activities efficiently. The approach is based on the notion that our bodies should be trained to perform activities that are specific to our needs and goals in the present moment. For instance, if someone is having difficulty standing up from sitting on a chair, then performing squats will help with that activity. Another example is being able to get up from the floor if you’ve fallen. In this case, doing lunges would be beneficial because it’s a similar movement to the one that you’d use to get up from the floor.
Approaching strengthening from a functional perspective is perfect for those family caregivers that want their loved one to be as independent as possible. In fact, as mentioned above, you find something that the elder has a degree of difficulty doing, separate the actual movements that they have difficulty with and then make them into discrete, isolated exercises. This is the essence of “functional” training.
It should go without saying that it is important to talk with your doctor, or possibly, a physical therapist before having someone start any new exercise routine, especially if that person is up in age or has any specific health conditions, or who may not have been active for a while. You’ll want any exercise program to be safe and you also want it to be effective and make sure your loved one is starting at an appropriate level for their personal condition. And, you’ll want to have a program that’s easy to follow and easy to progress to get the most out of it.