Exercising safely is incredibly important for your elderly family member. These tips can help.
Always Use Safety Equipment
If there are safety devices specific to the activity your senior is attempting, she should use them. Things like knee pads, elbow pads, and helmets can ensure that she’s a lot safer as she’s exercising. If your elderly family member is using exercise equipment, even something as simple as a treadmill, it’s important that she understands how to use it safely.
Stretch and Warm-Up
Stretching and warming up is a crucial part of exercising safely. This helps your senior to avoid injuries and can help to improve her flexibility over time. Cooling down afterward is a good idea, too. These don’t have to be complicated activities, either. Simply walking at a slower pace before and after a walking workout can do the trick.
Slow and Steady Is the Way to Go
Your senior might hear “exercise” and think that she has to be out there improving her pace and getting faster or lifting heavier weights. That doesn’t have to be the case. She can still get great benefits from going at a modest pace and simply doing what she can. It’s the consistency of moving her body that she should be aiming for.
Breathing Is Important
Breathing patterns while exercising are very important. Your senior needs to remember to keep breathing steadily as she exercises. This is going to help ensure that she’s got the oxygen that her muscles need in order to keep moving. If she finds that she tends to hold her breath, she might need to spend some time focusing on her breathing.
Hydration Is Vital
Proper hydration matters a lot, too. This is even truer if your senior is exercising in a hot, humid atmosphere. As she sweats more, that’s also water that needs to be replaced. Keep a water bottle at the ready for her and make sure that she remembers to drink.
Exercising Alone Isn’t Fun
Your senior might not like exercising if it’s something that she ends up doing alone. It’s a lot easier to stick with exercise if she has some companionship. But that can be tough if she doesn’t drive anymore. Hiring senior care providers to help your elderly family member to get where she needs to go can help immensely.
Make sure that you and your senior understand what to watch for as she exercises. Her doctor can give you specific situations to be alert for that might mean that she needs to stop.