Staying physically active helps to prevent the main causes of morbidity and mortality—ageing, according to the anti-ageing therapy study. As we age, we tend to ponder the question of what can we personally do to keep in shape and stay as healthy as possible.
Adding another year in our mid-life age simple, means we experience weaknesses that debilitate our muscles, joint and other physical ailments. This is why knowing the exercises and workout regimen which can help us avoid any health complications is vital.
In this way, we can not only boost our longevity but also we can improve our chances of prevailing and living healthier as we age. The good thing is, there are now ways that we can do to combat the effects of ageing through this amazing fitness hacks.
Fitness Hacks to Grapple the Effects of Ageing
Exercise
Staying physically active may be crucial for some, but be mindful that it’s necessary as it helps to keep our body feel as youthful looking as possible. It turns out that exercising also helps reduce the effect of ageing.
Walking has been proven to be beneficial especially for individuals in their mid-life age. It is one of the moderate and low-impact exercises which can provide an adequate amount of physical activity for seniors.
Also, it’s a convenient one to add to their daily routine. A 30-minute of walk a day already helps in reducing mortality risk.
As claimed by the medical professional at Harvard University, walking guarantees cardiovascular benefits that are biologically credible. Below, we have listed the cardiac risk factors that can be improved just by walking, according to the study:
- Cholesterol
- Blood pressure
- Diabetes
- Obesity
- Mental stress
- Vascular stiffness
- Inflammation
Dancing
Another way to get your muscle tone and balance improved is through dancing. According to a study conducted by the Life Extension, dancing also helps to reduce cognitive decline due to ageing.
One of the possible serious problems that older people tend to experience is the risk of having a fall and injury. This is mainly the reason why balance is the key to everything and dancing comes in handy as it’s a perfect low-impact activity to:
- Maintain balance
- Reduce fall risk
- Improve cognitive function
Lastly on the list is swimming. This kind of physical activity is a great low-impact form of exercise which helps not only in improving balance but also reducing the risk of falls as we grow older.
A study in 2014 has discovered that older men were more likely to have a higher risk of falls compared to those who were regular swimmers. With that being said, adding swimming to your regular routine or making it as your regular activity will help in the reduction of fall risk and also help to improve your balance.
Reducing Muscle Loss as We Age
As we age, our muscles inevitably weakened—this is why muscle strengthening exercise is a must especially for seniors. Muscle-strengthening exercise is a perfect addition to walking and other low-impact exercises.
It may seem to be a difficult challenge for seniors to build their muscles. Even so, this is the best option they can do to minimise the risk of developing osteoporosis and other bone issues.
Below is a list of muscle-strengthening exercise ideas for seniors:
- Chair Squat
- Knee Lifts with a Med Ball
- Side Leg Lifts
- Lat Pulls with Bands
- Bicep Curls
- Tricep Extension
- Bid Dog
- Ball Taps
Fitness Hacks: Use Fitness Tools to Monitor Your Fitness Level
In today’s world, countless helpful fitness tools are now available in the market. Fitness tools come in handy to those individuals who are
- Unsure on how to keep their strength training on track and
- unsure about the level of their physical activity in general
With the perfect fitness tools, you can access any of your needed data such as your heart rate, the reps and sets, the speed of your workout and much more. In this way, a fitness tool helps you to tailor your workout based on the results you want.
It’s fine if you’re working out with or without any fitness tools, but keep in mind that you’ll reap tons of benefits if you’ll use one whilst working out. For instance, you can track the total torched calories you’ve burned within an hour through the monitor built in the machine if you’ll run on a treadmill.
Not only that, through the use of your fitness tracker you can not only track the calories you burned but also your heart rate. Your fitness routine will be more convenient, especially for seniors with the help of fitness tools.
If you wish to add any fitness tools to your workout regimen, you can check out our top five fitness tools below. These tools will help you to revitalise your fitness program.
- Exercise band
- Light-weight dumbbells
- Medicine balls
- Stability balls
As much as we can, we must engage in regular physical activity as exercise offers lots of health benefits regardless of age. One thing we can’t prevent from happening is ageing, but exercise and engaging in physical activity are few of the fitness hacks you can do to grapple its effects.