Maintaining your physical fitness at any age is important. However, it’s even more important once you’re over the age of 60. Regular exercise can not only improve your chances of living a long and healthy life, but it can even improve your mental health.
However, some of us may be late in the game regarding getting in shape. We may find ourselves a little less toned than we would like in our older years, and as such we may feel lost about where to get started on the road towards getting in shape. If you’re over the age of 60 and looking to get in shape, here are some tips to get you started.
Start With Low Impact Exercises
The first place you should start is with low-impact exercises like walking and swimming. These will reduce your chances of pulling a muscle or worse, falling and hurting yourself. Walking is easy on the joints and is also fairly easy to do. You don’t even have to be short of breath to reap the benefits that walking has to offer.
The best part is that it can be enjoyed alone or with other people. The same goes for swimming. It’s a great way to tone your body without risking serious injury, yet can also be social and relaxing.
Incorporate Strength
As you get used to your low-impact exercises and start to find them get easier and easier, you might be ready to graduate to strength training. Strength training will help you build and maintain muscle mass that can help improve not only your strength but also boost your metabolic rate.
Initially, you may not even want to use weights at all. Exercises like squats and push-ups can use your own body for resistance instead of having to bother with equipment. However, if you’re feeling extra motivated, or maybe you even have access to a gym, you might want to use dumbbells or resistance bands to add even more of a challenge.
Stretch
It can’t be stressed enough how important it is to stretch before and after your workouts. It’s incredibly common for seniors to hit the ground running with their new workout program only to get injured shortly after and have to start back at ground zero. Daily stretching is incredibly important if you hope to avoid pulling a muscle or seriously injuring yourself and losing all your progress.
There are many stretching tutorial videos online that you can incorporate into your workout routine, otherwise, yoga still remains one of the best ways to keep your body limber and warmed up. Not to mention it can be an incredibly soothing and relaxing addition to your workout routine.
