If you used to weight lift when you were younger but have gotten out of the habit now that you’re older and living in a senior living community, you could be missing out on some major physical benefits from doing this type of exercise. But for many older adults, the prospect of starting a new exercise routine, especially one like weight training, can be very intimidating. Luckily, there are things that you can do to help make this transition a little easier on you.
To help you see how this can be done, here are three weight lifting tips for seniors.
Try Starting With Resistance Bands
Before you start trying to throw weights around, one of the best places to start when you’re wanting to do some weight training is to begin with resistance bands.
While a lot of exercises are just done with your body weight to help you get ready for the added weight of weight lifting, resistance bands are a good middle ground that you can use to build up some muscle before you start with actual weights.
There are all kinds of resistance bands that you can use to do all kinds of exercises. You can also be more in control of how challenging it is to use the bands by playing with the tension. This can be a great way to break into weight training in a safe and more controlled way.
How To Tell When A Weight To Just Right
Once you’re ready to start actually using weights for your weight training, it’s important to know how to find weights that are going to be the right weight for you to use. Because while you want it to be challenging so that you can build muscle, you don’t want to use weights that are too heavy that you could hurt yourself.
To find the right weights, choose something that you can do about 10 reps with that leaves your muscles feeling a little tired but not completely spent. You want to be able to complete the set with proper form but not feel like you haven’t actually done any weight training.
Begin With Seated Exercises
When you’re putting the added stress of weights onto your body when exercising, you can easily have your balance thrown off if you’re not used to moving with the weight. So to help make sure that you don’t have any accidents when you’re first starting out, you may want to begin with seated exercises.
As you sit down to do certain weight lifting exercises, you’ll ensure that your body has the support it needs to stay strong throughout the movement and you won’t have to worry about maintaining your balance as much.
If you’re a senior citizen who wants to start weight lifting, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you begin your new exercise regimen.
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