Training Considerations for an Aging Population
It’s my belief that working with an aging population is one of the most rewarding demographics to work with in the fitness world. Many of them have become certain that they lost certain abilities or movement patterns or even worse, they become afraid of movement over time. This makes sense as they associate movement with joint pain or even worse, falling which lead to longer lasting injuries. The good news is, in strength training it’s really never too late and you can always make progress with your training to make a lasting impact on quality of life. In this population, if there aren’t careful considerations then it can quickly become dangerous and have a negative effect on their quality of life. At this stage in life, it’s not about bigger muscles or athletic performance, but simply training to be able to enjoy more things in life. Here are few things we use when working with this population.
Practice Getting up and Falling
Falls are the leading cause of death for people over 65. Being able to get up off the ground could be the difference in a small fall or major injury needing surgery and the ability to fall safely is bulletproofing your body for the unknown. With some of the people we work with, this is done by simple doing one exercise standing paired with a ground based exercise. This allows us to get dozens of practice reps each training session without it being part of the workout. If someone can’t get down to the ground, simply start with a box or bench that they’re comfortable going down to and over time see if they can get lower safely.
Prowler Push, Sled Drags, Loaded Carries
These are simply some of the most effective exercises for this population. They have become a staple single leg exercise for our older clients. They build the muscles of the legs and hips and force the core to stabilize the body when one foot is being lifted. They’re also good tools from a conditioning aspect and there’s almost no impact to problematic joint areas like knees, hips, and shoulders. These can be done heavy or light based on capacity.
Med Ball Throws for Coordination
We will use a wide variety of vertical, horizontal, and rotational throws in combination with taking a step forwards, backwards or laterally. This is teaching the brain to work with the rest of the body, but especially the feet. Over time as we move in a lower variety of ways our feet and brain don’t communicate as well. Medicine ball exercises have likely been one of the best things we’ve seen improve this. We will work on landing mechanics or low level jumps for those who can, but medicine balls are used with everyone.
Train Easy
This doesn’t mean that we don’t progress exercises in this population via weight, reps etc, but it means everything should progress very easily for them. This could be doing sit to stands and adding 1-2 reps on a weekly basis, but we never go anywhere near where they would be at risk of not performing an exercise. Our goal with training is to encourage more movement and that begins with making people feel comfortable and confident in moving.
With an aging population, you can still focus on adding a ton of strength over a long period of time. It just won’t be focused around your big traditional lifts, but rather the strength to do things like sit to stand, get ups, stepping up onto a box, or pulling and pushing their body. This is strength that gives them confidence and allows them to do more of the things they enjoy. Nick Showman
Showtime Strength & Performance