20 May Senior Exercise Ideas to Stay Active and Social at Casamar
Senior exercise ideas are essential for maintaining health and wellbeing as we age. Our body requires different kinds of activities during the day to stay healthy, especially as we grow up. Usually we tend to be more active when we are kids, since we get to go outside and run, jump or play, while we are getting older we tend to lower our activity impact and if we have any kind of illness like dementia, Alzheimer, Parkinson, we kinda stop moving that much.
But here we are going to talk about some senior exercise ideas, senior fitness tips and safe workouts for elderly.
The Benefits of Staying Active as You Age
Being active is not only good for your physical health, but it is also good for your mind. Being active it’s crucial to maintain a good relationship with our bodies. But not every workout or physical activities are good for everyone, we need to take into consideration the limitations of our bodies, our age or any kind of illness that we might have. It is important, when working or taking care of seniors, to know them and their body limitations so we can create safe workouts for elderly. The most important part of all of this is helping them to do something beneficial that can improve their physical health and mind.
Doing exercise and physical activities will also improve the sleeping quality. It can also help us to delay the appearance of hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, and obesity. Activities for seniors will also help to improve their eating habits. If they were struggling with appetite, exercising will make them a little bit hungry and they’ll eat more often. Also eating will help them to have more energy, have more balance, and get some muscles so they can keep doing their favorite stuff.
Also, exercising and doing activities are a good way to meet new people and socialize. Especially if they live in a senior living community where other seniors will love to be friends!
Top Low-Impact Exercises for Seniors
When working and taking care of seniors, it is important to consider their limitations and illness that they might have. We need to create safe workouts for elderly, and that includes how much time we are going to do the activities. Seniors can get tired faster, so we need to be really careful with the kind of activities that we do.
Here are some senior exercise ideas:
- Walking: A good easy exercise that can also be relaxing. Walking can take fifteen minutes of the day, in the garden, the park or patio!
- Stationary bike: Will help them to move their legs without moving all of their body. And will also help them to not lose balance.
- Tai Chi: It will help them with their balance, flexibility and also their mindset. Tai chi are slow movements that are pretty easy to achieve for seniors.
- Swimming: Swimming can improve their lung capacity and breathing habits, also it’s pretty good for muscular mass.
- Sit and Stand: It’s quite similar to doing squats, and we can see it as a low impact squat for seniors. This will help them with their stability.
- Toe Raises: It will help them for more stability and help them to improve falls. Toe raises will help strengthen the muscle and work with the lower part of the legs.
Indoor vs Outdoor Activities at Casamar
At CASAMAR you can find our physiotherapist, expert in senior exercises. While inside we do have games and movies, we also have exercises that will help our residents with mobility and coordination. Starting with warm ups, you can also see our lovely seniors exercising with balls, elastic bands, rope and hoops. We try our best to make everything fun so everyone can have a good time while working out.
And when the weather is good, a walk in the garden or at the park, it’s always a good idea. You can find us running around and walking between flowers and grass. We have a lovely park half block away and it’s always a good idea to visit it on sunny days.
How We Help Residents Stay Motivated?
Motivation is the key for a successful exercise day. And we know that sometimes our seniors are not really into having any kind of activities. It can be a bad day, a sad day or just a lazy day. But when you work with seniors, especially if they have dementia, it can be a little tricky to make them exercise a little. But it’s always a good idea to ask them to help you. If they seem a little hesitant, you can ask them to join you just for a moment so you won’t be alone, that’s how they will also feel needed and will be happy to help you.
Wrapping Up: Small Steps for Big Results
One might think that all this small and low impact exercises for seniors can do not much to their health, but the truth is, that even if it seems small, all these movements and exercise are helping our beloved seniors to improve their health and to delay any kind of illness that they could get because of their age and the changes their body is doing while aging.
It might not seem as much, but it is. For their bodies and their minds, and also it helps them to feel seen and to feel like part of something, especially if they are living in a senior facility, because doing activities will also make them interact with the other residents living there.