Participants: Dick Nunez, Jason Maxwell, William Brauer
Series Code: BAS
Program Code: BAS000073
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00:01 The following program is designed to demonstrate
00:04 simple workouts that you can use to improve your health. 00:08 Be sure to consult your physician 00:09 before beginning any exercise program. 00:14 Do you think you're too old to start exercising, guess again? 00:18 Stay tune for the how's and why's next on Body & Spirit. 00:51 Hello, I'm Dick Nunez, exercise physiologist 00:53 and principal of Mountain State Leadership Academy 00:55 in Miracle Meadows in West Virginia. 00:57 Welcome to Body & Spirit. 00:59 Today, we're gonna talk about training for senior citizens 01:01 or anybody who might think they're too old. 01:04 Some people think they're too old to exercise 01:06 by the time they're 30 which is very, very sad. 01:09 I met people all throughout my career 01:11 who've had determination to keep going. 01:14 I remember a lady who came to our wellness program one time. 01:17 She was in her 70's and she had a rheumatoid arthritis. 01:20 And she was determined just to sit in a chair 01:22 and do nothing and view Mount Rushmore, 01:24 and get massages and be pampered, 01:26 but she didn't want to exercise. 01:28 Come the second week, an 87-year-old lady came 01:31 and when she got there, 01:32 she was interested in getting a new lifestyle. 01:35 And this 70-year-old lady just watched her 01:37 as she walk up and down the hallway to go exercise. 01:40 And when she'd come back, 01:41 she said, "How's that feel?" 01:43 "Oh it feels wonderful", she would say. 01:45 "It makes me feel like I'm alive again." 01:47 Come the third week, when it was time to exercise, 01:50 the 70-year-old lady finally said, 01:52 "Okay, okay. I'll do it, I'll do it." 01:54 And she finally walked down the hallway, 01:57 went through her exercise and after the final week was over, 02:00 she said, "Oh what a tragic to be stubborn old Irish woman." 02:03 She said, "I wish I would've started this 02:05 when I first got here." 02:06 Yes, great results can be had regardless of what age you are. 02:09 In fact, one of the greatest miracles 02:11 I ever saw was a 73-year-old woman who's in such pain 02:14 she could hardly walk. 02:15 And she came out to our wellness program. 02:17 In two weeks later, 02:18 she was walking six to ten miles a day. 02:20 I've never seen anything like it. 02:22 So great things can happen. 02:23 I think we're ready to get started. 02:25 Helping me out today will be Will and Jason, 02:28 who are both students 02:30 at the Mountain State Leadership Academy. 02:34 Thank you, Will. 02:36 And we're gonna start by sitting down on the chair, 02:38 because often times seniors cannot get around very well. 02:41 And they feel little bit confine, 02:43 so we'll sit down 02:45 and do this in a--in a more of a comfortable manner here. 02:49 We wanna take away any reason 02:50 why somebody would not want to exercise. 02:53 And so we're gonna start by gently warming up. 02:55 Let's put our arms up. 02:56 We're gonna squeeze our elbows together and back out. 03:00 Come together and back out. 03:02 We're just doing a range of motion here. 03:05 We find that senior citizens as they grow older 03:09 or people in general of course. 03:11 But in between the ages of 20 and 70, 03:13 the typical man will lose 40% of his muscle mass 03:17 and 30% of his strength. 03:19 It doesn't have to be that way. 03:20 And unfortunately, the average person over the age of 75, 03:26 one quarter of all men and two-thirds of all women 03:28 can no longer pick up 10 pounds. 03:30 This will make it very difficult for them 03:31 to even carry their own groceries 03:33 or certainly make it adversely impossible 03:35 to pick up a grandchild. 03:37 Okay. Now squeeze in and back out. 03:42 Squeeze in, back out. Squeeze in, back out. 03:48 Okay, now just press the hands here like this 03:51 and you determine how hard you go if you got a sore wrist. 03:54 You don't wanna push that hard or you can do it like this 03:58 if it becomes too difficult to open your hands up. 04:02 The bottom-line is you wanna have a steady pressure, 04:05 so you're feeling it in the chest area. 04:07 So let's keep pressing there. 04:09 We wanna try out some movement to this exercise 04:12 so what we're gonna do is 04:13 we're gonna turn our hands facing out. 04:15 We're gonna keep pressuring on them and go all the way out. 04:18 And then draw them back to our chest again. 04:20 And out, and back in. Out and in. 04:27 Trying to keep the tension on at all times. 04:30 If you have to put your arms down 04:32 and relax for a moment, that's just fine. 04:34 You're not trying to over do it. 04:36 You're simply trying to stimulate the body. 04:39 Exercise should not feel like a death march. 04:43 It should be something you actually enjoy. 04:47 Let's go 10 more like this. 04:50 Obviously as you look at the people that are helping me out, 04:53 you might think that they don't look 04:54 too much like senior citizens 04:55 and that's because they exercise regularly. 04:58 No, really they are, 04:59 they're no more close to being senior citizens, 05:00 they're both teenagers. 05:04 Now if I could introduce one is 76 05:06 and the other one is 77, I really have some going here. 05:11 Okay. Now let's go up. 05:16 Only problem is they'd ask me why I don't look that young. 05:21 And up and down. 05:24 Again if you've to put your arms down, that's fine. 05:29 Up. Keep the pressure on your hands as you're doing it. 05:34 Let's go 10 more. 05:36 And there's two, and three, 05:42 and four, five. Five more. 05:47 Six, and seven, and eight. 05:53 Two more times. Nine, last one and ten. 05:58 Good. All right. 06:00 Now we're gonna just gonna sit back in our chair. 06:01 I'll let you guys sit with back posture 06:03 just this moment. Okay. 06:04 And we're just gonna reach back and stretch the arms. 06:09 Just let it stretch back there. 06:13 We wanna work on a full range of motion. 06:17 Okay. Now let's sit forward and wrap ourselves up 06:20 and try and pull our shoulder blades apart. 06:27 And again we wanna sit back. 06:30 Lay back. Grab the arms back 06:33 so you feel the stretch in your chest. 06:36 You're gonna hold that for 10 more seconds. 06:38 One, two, three, four, five, 06:43 six, seven, eight, nine and ten. Good. 06:48 Now forward and pull the scapula apart. 06:53 Scapula, your shoulder blades in the middle of your back. 06:56 They're one on each side. 07:00 Five more seconds. 07:02 One, two, three, four and five, good. 07:06 Sit back on the chair. All right. 07:09 As senior citizens, it's also very important 07:11 to get a regular breathing going, 07:13 so let's breathe into the nose and out through the mouth. 07:18 Into the nose, out through the mouth. 07:22 One more time. Into the nose, out through the mouth. 07:28 All right. We're gonna do some upper back exercise. 07:30 Just bring our arms up. 07:32 We're gonna drive the elbows back as far as we can. 07:35 Hold that. Press into the chair 07:37 if you can and reach back out. 07:40 Let's go back again, press. 07:43 Think about squeezing your shoulder blades together, 07:47 okay and out. Bring it back. 07:51 Can you feel your shoulder blades, Jason? 07:53 Yes. Will, you're feeling all right? 07:55 Yeah, I feel. Okay, good. 07:57 Now when you come out, 07:58 you wanna try and pull your shoulder blades apart 08:00 as far as possible and bring it back. 08:03 Squeeze hard, you want to flex hard. 08:07 In bodybuilding, when bodybuilders 08:08 flex their muscles, 08:10 it actually is a very strenuous activity 08:12 to contract your muscles as hard as you can 08:14 and just hold it. 08:15 And often times, people loose the ability 08:17 to contract those muscles in the mid back, 08:20 the rhomboids and trapezius 08:22 and some of those muscles back there. 08:24 Reality is we want to keep that ability. 08:26 Okay, reach out. Squeeze back. 08:29 Squeeze it hard. And reach out. 08:33 Let's do five more. Back, squeeze hard. 08:38 And back out. And squeeze. 08:45 Okay, two more. When I say squeeze 08:48 what I'm meaning is to contract 08:49 the muscles as hard as you can. 08:51 We're not talking about squeezing an orange 08:53 or anything like that. 08:55 Squeeze it and hold it, 08:59 and hold it, and hold it, 09:01 keep contracting, keep contracting. 09:04 Five more seconds. One, two, three, four and five. 09:10 We're gonna take our arm up over the head and pull it over. 09:19 And let's hold that for five more seconds. 09:22 One, two, three, four and five and switch. 09:30 Steady pull. Do not wrench on your arm. 09:33 Do not try and go any further 09:35 than what you feel is comfortable. 09:37 Your body will naturally allow you to get more flexible 09:39 as you go but obviously there will be a limit. 09:42 Four, three, two, one, relax. 09:47 Okay, deep breath. 09:50 Into the nose, out through the mouth. 09:53 Into the nose, out through the mouth. 09:57 For some who've been around for a while, 09:58 you might remember Jack LaLanne 10:00 who is a very famous fitness pioneer 10:02 and even now in his mid 80--mid upper 80's, 10:05 he's still exercising on a very regular basis. 10:08 And people often time have asked Jack, 10:10 they said, "Do you feel like 10:12 you've added years to your life?" 10:13 and he said, "I don't know, but I've added life to my years." 10:16 And that's the very important thing. 10:17 And I think if you remember his exercise program, 10:20 he always emphasized proper breathing 10:22 and he'd use that organ, 10:23 then when he breathe in like a booo, 10:25 and then they'd breathe out brooo. 10:27 So that's very important aspect that something 10:29 that's helped to keep Jack LaLanne very fit. 10:31 And he is extremely fit last time I saw him. 10:34 Okay. We're gonna work on the shoulders now. 10:36 You're gonna take your arms at a 90 degree bend. 10:38 We're just gonna lift them up and back. 10:41 And up and back. 10:44 Shoulder areas are extremely important area. 10:46 And what happens often times 10:48 is people get so weak in their shoulder muscles 10:50 that it's difficult for them to do virtually anything. 10:53 Like reaching up into a cupboard 10:54 and trying to feel like take something out, 10:56 or put something away, 10:58 it becomes a very, very difficult task. 11:01 So by strengthening the shoulders back up, 11:03 then it will become much more affective again 11:05 at moving around. It's a very simple exercise. 11:08 You can use some weights if you want. 11:12 For most that are in the senior category though, 11:16 this will be adequate. Now for those at home 11:18 who are not in that category ones 11:20 still gonna get a good hard workout. 11:22 Certainly you're applying to add some extra weights. 11:24 And obviously some of the exercise we do, 11:26 the harder you push, the more you work you get, 11:29 so you determine how hard you're gonna workout. 11:31 Just doing the basic exercises 11:33 will still give you a lot of benefit. 11:36 And let's go 10 more. 11:38 There's one and two, and three, 11:43 four, five, six, 11:50 seven, eight, nine. 11:55 One more time, ten. 11:57 We're gonna hold that for ten seconds. 11:59 Two, three, four, five, 12:03 six, seven, eight, nine. Relax. Okay. 12:09 Let's bring one arm across. Stretch the shoulder. 12:13 Let's hold it for 10 more seconds. 12:15 One, two, three, four, five, 12:20 six, seven, eight, nine, ten. 12:25 Switch. And across. 12:28 One, two, three, four, five, 12:33 six, seven, eight, nine, ten. 12:37 Okay. Into the nose, out through the mouth. 12:42 Again, into the nose, out through the mouth. 12:48 Usually we do the entire upper body 12:51 and now we're going to lower body or abdominal training. 12:54 Today, we're gonna mix it up a little bit, 12:55 because we'll try and let certain muscles rest 12:57 when we go into a different area. 12:59 So our next exercise 13:00 although it's gonna seem fairly simple for you fellows. 13:03 The bottom-line is--is it could be difficult 13:05 for some people out there. 13:07 And that's simple. We're gonna cross our leg, okay. 13:11 Now, we're gonna put it down and cross the other one. 13:14 And we're gonna put it down 13:15 and then cross the other one. Okay. 13:18 And down and cross. And down and cross. 13:23 And down, cross. Good, keep going. 13:28 Now it looks like we just can't find a comfortable position, 13:31 but the reality is this is a very good exercise 13:35 for seniors or for anybody really. 13:41 It just helps you keep that flexibility 13:43 and range of motions allow you to do that. 13:46 You see somebody's trying to pick their leg up 13:48 to cross it over becomes very frustrating. 13:53 And I think we all know that seniors 13:56 like to be able to do their own thing. 13:57 They don't want people back to help them. 14:03 We look like a chorus line, we're in good unison here. 14:08 Okay. Let's go five more each way. 14:10 There's one, and two, 14:17 three, and four, 14:23 and five. Good, okay. 14:26 Into the nose, out through the mouth. 14:31 Into the nose, and out through the mouth. 14:35 Good. Let's pull one leg out 14:38 and we're gonna rotate it in and out. 14:43 It's sad when you see the amount of people 14:46 there in nursing homes simply 'cause of the fact 14:48 they can't take care of themselves anymore. 14:50 And people who have gone into nursing homes 14:52 that gone to a regular exercise program 14:54 have found great results. 14:55 I know the Boston Hebrew Rehabilitative Center 14:57 did a project on people from 87 to 96 15:01 and found fantastic results in their training. 15:04 Some were abandoning their canes 15:06 or getting up out of wheelchairs. 15:07 And some people even were able to go home 15:09 because now they can take care of themselves again. 15:12 Let's go five more. Two, three, four, and five, good. 15:19 Okay, rotate. 15:21 As I've mentioned at the top of the show 15:23 the lady who is 73 that was in extreme pain. 15:26 I have never seen a person 15:29 go from where she was virtually ready 15:32 for a wheelchair to go into walking six to ten miles a day. 15:35 That was absolutely staggering. 15:36 I've never seen anything like it 15:38 in my career as an exercise physiologist. 15:41 Okay, 10 more. One, two, 15:44 three, four, five, six, 15:49 seven, eight, nine, ten, good. 15:53 Now we're gonna do is we're gonna--gonna put our hands 15:57 on the outside of our knees 15:58 and we're gonna spread our legs out, 16:00 and bring it back. 16:03 As people grow older, 16:05 often times they loose the mobility of their hips 16:08 or the hip joint becomes weaker 16:10 because the muscles surrounding that hip joint are now weak. 16:14 Remember we've established the fact on many programs 16:17 that everybody has weak joints. 16:20 A joint is just bone to bone connected by ligaments. 16:23 It's a muscle that gives the strength. 16:28 This is another one where you dictate 16:29 how hard you wanna work. 16:34 Let's go 10 more. 16:37 It's two, and three, four, five, 16:44 six, seven, eight, nine and ten. 16:50 Okay. Now we're gonna do the inside of a thigh. 16:53 We're gonna block, push out. 16:56 This will also work the shoulders 16:57 a little bit as we do this. 17:04 Very important exercise, 17:05 getting those abductor muscle strong. 17:08 And remember, 17:09 one always have balance whenever we work the muscle, 17:11 We want to work antagonistic muscle wear, 17:13 which is the opposite. 17:15 So for the abductors, the opposite will be the adductors 17:18 and that's what we're working now. 17:19 Just as your lower back is the opposite of your abdominal 17:23 or your biceps, they're opposite of your triceps. 17:30 Okay, 10 more. 17:34 Three, four, five, six, 17:39 seven, eight, nine and ten, good. 17:46 All right, deep breath. 17:49 Blow out, deep breath. Blow out. 17:56 One more time, into the nose, out through the mouth. 18:02 Okay, let's go back to arm training. 18:04 We're gonna sit forward and put our arm down 18:07 between our legs here using our inside of our leg 18:10 to be a block for the elbow. 18:12 Grab a hold of your wrist 18:13 and you're gonna curl the arm up and back down. 18:17 We're gonna do 15 repetitions. 18:19 There's three, and four, and five. 18:25 Not too fast, six. Good control. 18:29 All the way down. Keep the elbow into your leg. 18:32 Nine, and ten, and eleven, 18:37 twelve, thirteen, fourteen. 18:42 One more time, fifteen, good. 18:45 Switch over to the other side. 18:46 And curl, and curl, good. 18:52 Full range of motion. 18:54 Four, five, six, seven. 19:02 Palm up. 19:04 There's nine, and ten, eleven, 19:10 twelve, thirteen, fourteen. 19:14 One more time, fifteen, good. 19:17 Okay, shake your arms out. Relax for a moment. 19:23 When you are not in very good shape, 19:25 you wanna make sure 19:26 your pulse rate stays in a reasonable range. 19:29 Every now and then, you might wanna check your heart. 19:31 And I'd advise you to use either your wrist 19:34 between your first couple of tendons 19:36 on your thumb side or use your temple area up here. 19:40 I would not go after the carotid artery. 19:43 A lot of people don't even know where the carotid artery is. 19:45 They just start clutching for their throat 19:46 until they'd feel the pounding of the pulse. 19:49 But they can start putting pressure on that carotid artery 19:51 and especially for somebody who's elderly 19:54 or may have some problem with vascular blockage, 19:57 it wouldn't be a good thing 19:58 to start pushing down on those very vital arteries. 20:01 And also there is an automatic response from the brain 20:04 telling your body that there is pressure on a carotid artery 20:07 and so you might want the heart will actually slow down. 20:10 You're not gonna get totally accurate read anyway. 20:12 So you better off going off your thump side 20:14 or off your temple area 20:16 but the bottom line is when you are exercising 20:19 you should be able to still talk 20:21 maybe not be able to sing, 20:22 but you should be able to talk, I can't sing anyway, 20:24 so it doesn't matter for me. 20:25 But you need to be able to talk 20:27 or you should be able to still carry on a conversation 20:31 and you should still feel okay. 20:34 Let's do the triceps now. Let's press down. 20:41 I do the old prison singing, 20:42 I don't have the key and I'm behind a few bars, so. 20:54 There's ten. Five more, 20:56 eleven, twelve, thirteen, 21:01 fourteen, fifteen. switch over. 21:05 Push down, down, down. 21:12 Again we're keeping the elbow block into the leg, 21:15 trying to get a full extension each time we go down. 21:19 The term muscle down is really quite erroneous, 21:22 people think it's because you get big muscles 21:23 as you muscled out. 21:24 Actually somebody who is elderly 21:26 and doesn't do any exercise, 21:28 they are the ones who truly are becoming muscled out 21:30 'cause they can't move anymore. 21:32 Five more. One, and two, 21:35 and three, and four, and five. 21:39 Now I want you just string your arms back as far as you can 21:45 and lock the arms out with little bit of intensity 21:48 and just hold that contraction your triceps, 21:51 we're gonna hold that for ten seconds. 21:52 One, two, three, four, five, 21:58 six, seven, eight, nine, and ten, good. All right. 22:05 Breathe in into the nose, out through the mouth, 22:10 into the nose, out through the mouth. 22:15 One more time. Into the nose, out through the mouth, good. 22:21 We gonna go back to leg training. 22:23 We're gonna do some leg extension, 22:24 so we're gonna start 22:26 from having our leg out up on the heel. 22:28 We're just gonna go up from there. 22:32 If you want to add resistance through this, 22:35 you can put your other leg over 22:37 and that will give you little more resistance. 22:40 For those at home they have not been exercising 22:43 go ahead and just do it straight out, 22:47 even by just flexing those quadricep muscles 22:49 and don't be afraid to touch them, 22:51 because that will help you 22:52 to actually put your mind where the muscles is. 22:55 There's really been lot of valuable research on, 22:58 it's called the touch technique 22:59 where if you're touching a muscle 23:01 it actually encourages to contract more. 23:04 Can you feel that contracting, Will? 23:06 Good. Jason? Yes. 23:09 Okay, everything still alive in your legs, that's good. 23:14 We can do a lot of repetition on this 23:16 since we're not really using resistance. 23:20 We're gonna do 20 more. 23:22 Two, three, four, five. 23:27 If you do resistance you won't have to do quite so many. 23:30 Eight, nine, ten. Ten more. 23:34 One, two, three, four, five, 23:41 six, seven, eight, nine and ten. 23:47 Now were you able to feel that still, 23:49 Will, in your thigh? Yeah. 23:51 Jason, were you able to feel it? Yeah I can feel it. 23:53 Even though we're not using weight or any resistance, 23:56 we still have a training effect there. 23:58 Let's go up, and up. 24:00 We're gonna do 50 repetitions. 24:03 Help count along with me, Jason, 24:04 just in case I get talking and loose count. 24:07 You can help in put me back on task. 24:09 There is number 10, 11, 12. 24:13 What I've seen those when in training senior citizens, 24:17 I've seen just tremendous progress 24:19 and they actually make gains in far, 24:23 far more abundantly than somebody might think. 24:26 In fact often times they make better gain 24:28 in those that are in their 20s and 30s 24:30 'cause they know their clock is running down 24:32 and they actually put a little more effort into it. 24:34 I always found great joy in training seniors. 24:36 In fact I have a certification as a senior specialist, 24:40 or senior fitness specialist 24:41 from the International Sports Science Association 24:43 'cause I really do enjoy training seniors. 24:46 I've also trained a lot of professional athletes 24:48 and people would say 24:49 don't you just love training those pro-athletes. 24:50 And I say well, yes that's wonderful 24:52 but it's even more gratifying when you take somebody 24:55 who basically has one foot in the grave 24:57 and the other on a banana peel and you help them out. 24:59 They're so appreciative of the efforts you give them. 25:02 Where the pro-athlete 25:03 basically is acting like- they're doing you a favor 25:05 by letting you train them. 25:07 Where we're on, Jason? Little bit over 50. 25:11 See I told you I might get talking. 25:13 All right put the leg out, dig the heel in. 25:17 We're just gonna hold the sitting contraction 25:19 for ten seconds. 25:21 This is working the hamstring area. 25:25 Okay, move your foot about six to eight inches, 25:27 and dig in again. 25:33 And hold it for a few more seconds. 25:36 Now let's put our foot flat down and pull in. 25:41 Holding in there again for ten seconds. 25:43 Three, four, five, six, 25:47 seven, eight, nine, ten. 25:50 Other leg. Dig the heel in. 25:53 One, two, three, four, five, 25:58 six, seven, eight, nine, ten. 26:03 Move it about six to eight inches, dig in. 26:05 One, two, three, four, five, 26:10 six, seven, eight, nine, ten. 26:15 Foot flat, dig in. 26:16 One, two, three, four, five, 26:21 six, seven, eight, nine, and ten, good. 26:27 I want you to put your hands on your abdomen. 26:30 Blow out, crunch down. 26:33 Okay, then push back, push back into the chair. 26:36 Okay, crunch down, 26:38 push your lower back into the chair as you do that. 26:40 Then lay back and push your upper back into the chair. 26:44 Now crunch down, and lay back, push back, good. 26:50 We're gonna do ten more. 26:53 There's one, and two, 27:01 three, four, 27:08 five, six, 27:14 seven, eight, 27:20 nine, one more time. And ten, good. 27:25 All right, I think we're done. 27:27 Thanks a lot, fellows. 27:30 Training for seniors does not have to be difficult. 27:32 In fact it can be quite enjoyable 27:33 and very, very rewarding. 27:35 Get in a regular program 27:36 and see the great things will happen for you. 27:38 But also remember to do it for the right reason. 27:41 Do it for the glory of God. 27:42 The Bible says in Philippians 4:13, 27:45 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." 27:48 God bless you and happy exercise 27:51 and we look forward to see you next time. |
Revised 2014-12-17