4 Easy Sports That Can Be Done In Older People

Medical Video: Sports for Seniors - Game On Toronto

Many people who have over 65 years spend an average of 10 hours or more time just sitting or lying down, and this forms a sedentary lifestyle. Lifestyle like this is prone to cause various degenerative diseases. Therefore, doing sports is not only useful for young people who can be said to still have strong muscles. Exercise must be carried out by all ages, because by exercising the immune system increases, the metabolic processes that occur in the body get better, and prevent various non-communicable diseases such as diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, obesity, and various diseases other chronic. Even exercise carried out in old age, helps to maintain fitness, make muscles, joints, and tendons strong and reduce the risk of injury.

What sports can the elderly do?

Aerobic exercise

Aerobics can help the elderly to burn excess fat, reduce blood pressure and bad cholesterol, and maintain flexibility and joint health, maintain heart health, and can increase the body's overall energy level. Building body strength does require time and depends on the level of activity and health status you have.

Try to start by doing simple movements like squats or crunches.The process of muscle formation takes time, but doing exercise is very beneficial for the elderly. You can start by doing low-impact movements, such as squats (using chairs at home), tai chi, swimming, walking, cycling. If you do this regularly for at least 6 weeks, you will feel the impact on your health, such as feeling more fit and strong.

If you are 65 or even more, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends doing aerobic exercise at least 150 minutes per week with moderate levels of movement intensity. While 75 minutes per week for sports with high intensity.

Train strength

Even if you exercise to train just a few muscles, this still has a big impact on the elderly. That way you can at least be able and strong to lift your purchases when shopping, climbing stairs, and getting up from a bed or chair. The CDC recommends exercising muscle strength at least twice a week.

You can do this by practicing lifting a light load, such as 500 grams or 1 kg and done regularly, 10 to 15 times each exercise. This helps you to strengthen your arm muscles and chest muscles. In addition, a very simple push-up, squat, or sit-up movement can strengthen leg muscles, back muscles, abdominal muscles, shoulder muscles, arm muscles, and chest muscles.

For your convenience, the following modifications to the push-up movement can be done:

Stand facing the wall and give a distance of about 30 cm from where you stand.
Lean your body towards the wall and place your palms on the shoulder against the wall.
Slowly, bend your elbows and do it like a push-up.
Do this 10 times.

Train balance

From the CDC data, it is known that every year there are 2.5 million elderly people who are taken to the emergency department due to injuries due to falls. The elderly group is vulnerable to injury due to falls because their balance ability decreases with age. However, if the balance is trained then this can be prevented. Yoga is one sport that can train balance in the elderly. Then what simple movements can be done to train balance in the elderly group?

Try some of these movements to train your balance:

Stand back from the chair. Try to use strong chairs to hold yourself back.
One hand holds the waist, while placing the other hand on the chair behind you.
Then bend your right leg and hold it for 10 seconds.
Do this alternately with your left foot and repeat 9 times, if you are tired, you can stop for a while then continue again.

Training flexibility

Do you feel stiff and then it hinders your daily activities? Or have you ever felt tense muscles in the body? If yes, then this indicates that you need to stretch. Stretching is something you must do every day to prevent muscle cramps or stiffness in the muscles. Before stretching, start by warming up by walking leisurely for 3 to 5 minutes. Here is a stretching of the neck muscles that can be done even when you sit:

Slowly turn your head to the right and hold for 10 to 30 seconds.
Do this but change direction to the left.
Repeat at least 3 movements.

If you haven't been exercising for a long time and want to start doing it again then do it slowly and gradually. You can gradually build muscle endurance, muscle strength, balance, and flexibility. The simplest and most easy way to start exercising again is to walk around 5 to 10 minutes a few times a week when you walk at least 30 minutes and do it regularly, so your body is getting ready to do harder or more exercise long time ago, because the strength and habits have been formed.

READ ALSO