Regardless of your age and whichever stage of life you are currently in, keeping your body active and healthy should be a priority. Integrating movement and motion in your daily exercise routine is crucial to maintaining your joints, bones, muscles, and body functionality to prevent them from deteriorating over time. However, the intensity and type of exercise will differ according to your age and will change as you get older. Today, we discuss and cover exercise recommendations that aging adults can participate in to keep their bodies healthy and strong.
How Will Exercise Change as You Get Older?
Younger to middle-aged adults tend to focus on higher intensity activities like circuit training, sprinting, and long endurance cardio exercises to build muscles and maintain a healthy weight. This will change as you get older as your physiology changes to be more susceptible to injury as joints and bones become less mobile and more tender, meaning that exercise intensity should decrease. However, this does not mean that you should stop exercising completely as it is still an integral part of keeping your body healthy and fit. Instead, mature fitness should focus on preserving muscle mass, maintaining fluid joint movement, and retaining heart and brain health to elevate your quality of life.
What Exercise is Recommended for Mature Adults?
The general guideline for adults is about 2 hours and 30 minutes worth of moderate-intensity exercise. However, the problem that lies with this recommendation is that it is not individualized. The activity you will be doing should depend on various health considerations, including your health status, fitness abilities and capability, pre-existing illnesses, diet, lifestyle, and priorities.
Instead, aging adults should incorporate more movement in their exercise and limit high-intensity activities to avoid as many unnecessary risks as possible. Aging adults should include at least half an hour or more (up to an hour) of exercise a day for five days a week. However, what matters more than the amount of time is the type of activity they should be doing to maintain a high quality of life.
Exercises Recommended for Mature Adults
Aerobic activities are generally recommended for mature adults to upkeep their metabolism and increase their stamina and strength. These are critical in managing or preventing chronic illnesses and diseases and strengthening cardiovascular functions. Here are some suggestions for the type of exercises we recommend for mature adults:
- Walking: Strolling or brisk walking outdoors or on the treadmill is a low-impact and highly effective way to maintain the lower body’s muscle mass and strengthen cardiovascular health. This is beneficial in managing chronic illnesses like obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. You can incorporate inclines or hills for a longer time if you are up for the challenge
- Cycling: You can choose to do recreational, recumbent, or stationary cycling as it is beneficial in maintaining joint health and cardiovascular health. As this activity has a lower impact than walking, this would be more suitable for lower limb injuries.
- Elliptical: Like cycling, this activity is low impact and would be suitable for mature adults with bone and joint-related diseases such as osteoporosis, arthritis, and skeletal muscle conditions.
- Swimming: Swimming is great as a low-impact but high-intensity activity to burn excess energy and calories due to water flow resistance.
- Household Chores: While we do household chores to keep our home clean, they can be a great way to increase blood circulation to the heart, brain, muscles and keep them active and healthy.
Why Choose Lakeside At Mallard Landing?
When you join our community, you get access to a range of different living programs that enrich your life in your golden years. Our Dimensions Health and Fitness program takes a holistic approach to health, focusing on spiritual, intellectual, emotional, medical, and physical wellness. We take pride in offering these highly engaging classes and believe that aging well means keeping your body active and healthy. We also provide our community members with complimentary health screenings to ensure they are in tip-top shape.
To learn more about the living options and programs we have available at the Lakeside At Mallard Landing, please feel free to contact us and arrange a tour with us!
