How to Make a Senior's Exercise Schedule

It's important to select the best kinds of exercises for seniors. Senior bodies need strength-building, stretching, endurance and balance exercises that can be performed with slow and gentle movements. Most seniors can tolerate and benefit from any low-impact activity and do not need intense or strenuous exercises to stay fit. A senior exercise schedule should start slowly, build gradually and meet a senior's needs.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Sturdy chair on non-slip carpet for chair exercises
• Walking shoes, bicycle or other aerobic equipment

1. Speak to your doctor. Before you start your exercise routine, make an appointment to have a physical exam. These exercise activities are low impact, but every senior's body is unique and your doctor should determine whether your body can tolerate them without doing harm to joints, muscles and organs.

2. Start with chair exercises. These are slow, gentle stretching activities that will strengthen your leg and arm muscles and increase the flexibility in your neck and joints. Do these exercises on a sturdy chair that you've placed on a non-slip carpet. In the first week, select two or three chair exercises and do them 1 day on and 2 days off. It's important to give your muscles time to recuperate when you first begin an exercise routine. In the second week, you can add more chair exercises to your routine and do them every other day. By the third week, you can do these exercises every day. Make chair exercises the foundation of your exercise routine because they'll strengthen your body and help it tolerate the other activities in your senior's exercise schedule.

3. Start one low-impact aerobic activity in the third week of your exercise schedule. Choose from walking, bicycling, or swimming and do the activity for 15 to 25 minutes, 2 days during that week. Make sure you have a sturdy pair of walking shoes if you choose walking, or a bicycle fit for your body if bicycling is your choice. Aerobic exercises increase your heart rate and your lung capacity, and will eventually increase your stamina. Gradually increase the number of days and minutes you do the specific activity you choose. Your goal is to be able to do it at least 3 days each week, preferably every other day, for about 30 minutes each time, without feeling out of breath or having pain in your joints or chest.

4. Join a yoga or tai chi class during the third week of your exercise schedule. Your chair exercises should have prepared your muscles to tolerate either of these activities well. Find a class that caters to seniors and attend 1 day a week. These activities will improve your breathing and balance.

5. Build more movement into your daily routine by taking stairs instead of elevators, parking farther away and walking to stores and gardening in mild weather.

Tips & Warnings

• Drink water before, during and after exercising to guard against dehydration.
• If you incorporate both indoor and outdoor activities into your schedule, the weather won't ever prevent you from exercising.
• Begin and end each exercise routine with slow stretches to avoid injuring joints and muscles.
• Do not overdo it. If you begin to feel pain while performimg these exercises, stop immediately and check with your doctor.

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