My Fabulous OVER 60s!!

"Being Fit keeps you young in mind & body" says Rosalie, aged 67. (2008)

There is no age barrier when it comes to being fit and active as my amazing over 60 clients will prove. They all take part in Fitness Pilates, Step Aerobics, Dance Aerobics and weight training sessions. The benefits of regular exercise helps to maintain muscle mass and increase bone density helping to prevent Osteoporosis in later years. Not only can you see the marked benefits on the body, a new field of scientific discovery is influencing how we view fitness training and older clients..........BRAIN FITNESS.

Brain Fitness

The growth of interest in ‘brain fitness’ is largely centred around the older adult. No target group is more diverse in terms of psychological and physical function, and has the most to gain (by offsetting age and inactivity-related decline). Key concerns include physical fitness, brain alertness and memory.

Here’s how exercise may directly contribute to brain health:

Exercise helps generate new brain cells, even in the ageing brain.With two months of exercise, brain cells increase in number. Although higher levels of exercise are significantly more beneficial than lower amounts any exercise is considered better than none (in terms of brain cell growth).

Starting an exercise programme early in life is an effective way to lower the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease later on.

As little as three hours a week of brisk walking has been shown to halt, and even reverse, the brain shrinkage that starts in a person’s 40s, especially in the regions responsible for memory and higher cognition. Exercise increases the brain’s volume of grey matter (actual neurons) and white matter (connections between neurons).

Exercise can stave off neural decline, and even roll back some normal age related deterioration of brain structure.

Exercise improves learning through increased blood supply and growth hormones.

Exercise works as an antidepressant by reducing stress and promoting neurogenesis. It protects the brain from damage and disease, as well as speeding recovery.

To sum up, exercise clearly benefits the brain as much as the body. So whilst clients throughout the age ranges may resist my complex choreography or functional training movements, research on brain fitness and the older client is suggesting that a certain level of difficulty is exactly what they need. Similarly the over-stressed have much to gain from exercise classes which nurture balance, harmony and connection.

evolving from
"Use it or lose it" to "Use it and Improve it"