People often associate aging with graying hair and wrinkles, but muscle and bone density loss is more of a cause for alarm. Loss of muscle mass and density can lead to pain, fractures and falls while hindering activities such as walking up and down stairs or playing with grandkids. Luckily, however, you can counter this decline through simple exercise routines.
According to experts, seniors should participate in at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity each week and two days of muscle strengthening exercises. Though this may sound daunting, adding this type of physical activity into your weekly schedule doesn’t require the assistance of a personal trainer or gym membership – it just requires planning and some knowledge of where and how best to exercise.
One effective anti-aging exercise is the hanging leg raise, which targets muscles located in your midsection and lats. Also useful are bench squats which strengthen leg and back muscles while simple walking provides benefits to knees, core and cardiovascular system.
Stairs provide an effective and straightforward way to work out lower body muscles such as calves and quadriceps, as well as increase balance and stability with the marching exercise. Stand with feet an arm’s length apart in front of a wall without paintings, decorations or windows and slowly raise one leg at a time towards your side until reaching an arm’s length height before slowly lowering back down after one second and repeating this exercise ten times on each leg.