It’s crept up on you. The things that you used to do with ease are more of a burden now and when you attempt them, you feel slow, not as coordinated, and you might even feel vulnerable doing them. You don’t want to ask for help, you never had to and you may feel that asking for help makes you sound feeble. At the same time, there is this lingering fear that you are losing control of your body and you don’t like it. You want a change. You want to feel better and have less fear. You want to be able to do the activities you grew up enjoying. If there was only a way to get out of this situation. A situation that makes you feel too weak to do the things you want to do. Not to mention you feel more uncoordinated and there is this underlying fear of falling as your balance has been more unsteady the last few years or so and getting on/off the floor sounds borderline dreadful. Hopeless? Nope, not at all.
The hard truth is that biological organisms (including you) do have a shelf life. It can be scary to think about, but one might argue that it’s even scarier to think about how one can be on this planet for several decades and lose large scale capabilities, not because of age, but because we stopped pushing ourselves. Biology needs challenge. Without challenge, we literally prune our systems that are not in use. This includes our nervous system (coordination/balance), our muscles (weakness/poor power), our cardiovascular system (stamina/endurance), and our skeletal system among (bones more brittle) others. Now, these changes do happen if we get “old enough”, but we can S L O W these trends down with consistent and intelligent stresses. These stresses are movement based and can go along way to help mitigate this downward trend and we can actually, to a certain point, improve on our systems. Yes, we can get stronger, improve balance, get better coordinated, increase our mobility/flexibility, and get MORE out of life well into our 6th, 7th, 8th, and even 9th decades. But how does one navigate this?
This is where investing in a caring and educated senior fitness specialist can have a role. First, they can ask the right questions. They need to know YOUR WHY. Why do you want to improve your health, your strength and balance? Without the proper why, movement and exercise seems too difficult, out of reach, and often burdensome to many. Nailing down your why layers in context and makes making behavioral change easier and often results in longer lasting and even quicker attainable goals! Secondly, a good senior fitness specialist is educated on exercise for aging bodies and often many of them have physical therapy backgrounds and can assure that you have success without causing damage. Along these lines, many potential clients are often being discharged from physical therapy and the need to find a qualified and educated Senior Fitness Specialist who is also a good listener is imperative! Finally, this Senior Fitness Specialist is mobile and they can help you in the comfort of your own home. They have basic exercise equipment they can bring, work with the equipment you have, make recommendations on purchasing new equipment, and the creative ones are amazing at just using gravity to help improve your strength, balance, stamina, and help improve your life.
In conclusion, there is hope and there is help out there. Your fears are real but tangible results are attainable for the vast majority of people. You just have to take the first step. Most Senior Fitness Specialists offer free initial consultations and are eager to hear your story. I know I am. Tell me your story. I’m listening.
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