Exercise

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Exercise

Strategy: Exercise to Stay Strong for Life; Refuse to Grow Weak!

Exercise strategies for Senior Fitness; frequent, purposeful and often strenuous movement is required for optimal aging. Proper exercise can delay age-related functional decline by decades, preserving our independence and ability to enjoy a wide variety of activities. Weight Training, Aerobics, and other forms of exercise are discussed such as Yoga, Pilates, Balance, martial arts and Dance.
Frank’s New Training Gig at Island Health & Fitness

Frank’s New Training Gig at Island Health & Fitness

Hire me, Frank Wilhelmi, Senior Fitness Specialist, BS, ME, CFT, as your Personal Trainer and I will give you skills to keep an aging body in top shape into your 80s, 90s and beyond! Let me (at 83) show you strategies that work life-long to sustain real long-term...

Rev up your Workout with Interval Training

Rev up your Workout with Interval Training

Frank's Comments: I coach all my client to use High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) on days between weight training workouts. I especially like interval sprints on an Elliptical machine, because one can push and pull on the hand levers while pushing the legs into a...

Training at Fitness19 in Simi Valley

Training at Fitness19 in Simi Valley

In December I was hired as a trainer at the new Fitness19 Gym in Simi Valley CA. If you're tired of sliding down-hill toward infirmity, let me help you on a new path to strength and stamina with a renewed outlook on growing older with class and grace.   I guide you...

Resistance Exercise Reduces Cognitive Decline

Resistance Exercise Reduces Cognitive Decline

Frank's Comments: This article (from May Life Extension Magazine) is must-know information if we hope to stay strong and smart up to our last days on earth. Strength Training is the most important form of exercise for we seniors - I Have been doing this for 45 years,...

Frank’s 3-Day Training Routine

Frank’s 3-Day Training Routine

Let’s look at the primary means of avoiding age-related functional decline – the stuff I advocate for keeping youthful capabilities intact as long as possible. By looking at our home page you can see that I consider 6 key elements to be integral parts of this effort,...

Training For Strength, Free Weights Or Machines

Training For Strength, Free Weights Or Machines

Training with free weights or resistance machines is one of quite a few subjects that leads to plenty of arguments in the world of weight training. Which method is most effective, which technique leads to the fastest gains? Is there a ideal answer to the question?...

Our body is a demand-driven, adaptable, self-repairing system that requires movement and muscular activity to maintain optimal function.

Consider what happens to someone bedridden for a month or more; muscle mass, flexibility, strength, bone density and range of motion all drop like a downed helicopter, starting in just a matter of days. The unseen effects are equally damaging; every organ reduces function and slows its activity. Lack of movement is devastating to the human body.

Aging is very much like a longer version of being bedridden. Slowly, over decades, the same decreases in capability occur AND the antidote is the same: MOVEMENT. Start moving and your ability to move will improve. Walk, run, dance, stretch, lift weights, play games that require physical motion, and the losses due to aging will reverse.

Along with this improved ability to move, many other changes take place. Blood sugar levels will regulate downward and remain more even, stored fat will be reducedinsulin sensitivity will improve, blood pressure will come down and your heart will get stronger. Your vascular system will actually start building collateral arteries around blocked vessels, improving blood flow to your heart and other organs. The body’s repair mechanisms speed up, things heal faster, the immune system gets stronger; you get sick less often and you recover more quickly from virtually every malady.

So, lie on the couch, watch TV, drink beer and eat potato chips with all your spare time and the disabilities of aging will overtake you like a Mongol army. You’ve seen the stories of the 92 year old Chinese (or whatever country) man or woman, still tending the rice paddy, wondering what all the fuss is over being that old. They still ride a bike to work and enjoy life with their family five generations deep. The primary difference is that they never stopped moving.

Under this category we discuss and explain the most effective forms of exercise practiced these days. Some are significantly better than others for restoring or maintaining strength and fitness in seniors.

Weight Training – to trigger your anabolic, or muscle-building process; muscle you need to look good and move well, be stronger than you look and dissolve fat 24 hours a day.

The most effective form of exercise for delaying age-related decline is Weight training with progressive resistance. Nothing works to reverse age-related functional decline as well and as rapidly as this. It raises Testosterone production (the hormone of your youth – needed in both men and women for maintaining muscle structure), Growth Hormone output, it lowers blood sugar, encourages the burning of fat for energy, improves immune system function, makes bones stronger and more dense, and lets your entire body function on the level of a person decades younger. Make progressive resistance weight training the core of your exercise regime and all other exercise forms will be icing on the cake. I discuss the best approach to building and regaining muscle in our Weight Training Category. Click the link and learn about the number one way to eliminate frailness in our senior years.

Aerobics – to maintain and recover your heart/lung/vascular fitness.

Next, we promote Aerobics to maintain heart-lung-vascular fitness for life. However, some approaches to aerobics are more productive than others, with regard to the changes that take place with aging. The best approach is discussed further in our Aerobics Category. Follow the link to learn the best way to keep heart, lungs and vasculature fit for life.

Yoga, Pilates, Stretching, Balance & Dance – Building poise, posture, flexibility, strength, endurance, balance and grace, while connecting with the spirit within – speed and power aren’t the whole story.

Posture, fluidity of motion, flexibility and balance are undeniable important in terms of aging gracefully. I believe that the swift and the strong don’t have a corner on happiness, and hope you will take time to find the value in these milder forms of exercise. Balance becomes extremely important in advanced age because most bone fractures are caused by falls, and these exercise methods maintain our sense of balance and agility. Read More Here.

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