Personal training is a great way for seniors and older adults to safely improve their general health and fitness and enhance their quality of life as they enter their “golden years.”

For many older adults strength training can increase physical and functional strength, improve balance and general mobility, increase bone mineral density, reduce body fat, enable greater levels of participation and activity in sports such as golf, bowls, hiking and many other fitness activities, and even increase self-esteem. Many of our adelaide personal training clients have seem them improve their golf, tennis and bowling games!

Benefits of Weight Training for Seniors

An important benefit of strength training for seniors is based on growing evidence that exercise may help to slow or decrease the rate of bone and muscle loss through the natural process of aging. A modest increase in lean muscle tissue and strength at all ages can vastly help to improve quality of life and avoid the widely accepted notion that the older we get, the more frail we become.

Studies carried out in the mid 1980’s and into early 1990 began to indicate that even though the number of muscle fibres and muscle strength that naturally decreases with age can maintained and even improved in the older population.

Perhaps the most important aspect of strength training for older adults though is to offset the ageing effects of sarcopenia, from the Greek words which means “vanishing flesh.” It should not be assumed that this natural process of losing muscle tissue through aging equals loss of independence and movement, rather it is a consequence of “disuse.”

Functional Training for Seniors

There are many types of exercises that can be performed by older adults. However, for those that have limited endurance and balance, strength training can be a great way to improve these things and allow participation in a larger variety of sports and general movement.

Some great exercises which can be used at any age are squats, press ups, pull ups, static and rotational core movements, resistance band work, with most of these easily adaptable for use with just a person’s body weight or additional resistance, and of course their allowed range of movement.

Strength Training for Older Adults in Adelaide

Adelaide Personal Trainers welcome any and all older adults to participate in strength training with our very experienced trainers, many of who regularly train clients well into their 60’s and beyond.

For more information, please call us on 08 8378 1379 to arrange a consultation, and we look forward to helping you feel great again, getting out and about and enjoying more out of life.

Note: This page is based on an article written by Tammy Petersen published in 2007, titled “Strength Training for Seniors” and is available only to fitness professionals and members of PTontheNet.