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Balance is key to senior fitness

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The key to good balance is complex.  

Good balance is an easy thing to take for granted, especially when you’re young. The complex processes by which you stay upright and move through space—which involve the brain and spinal cord, inner ear, eyes, peripheral nerves, muscles and bones are barely noticeable when functioning properly. 

Why is balance important?

I think it can be summed up by sharing that 95% of hip fractures happen when an older person slips and falls. That is an alarming statistic!  

Balance is critical for many aspects in life. We need good balance to perform everyday activities such as going up or down stairs or reaching for a high shelf or picking up things from the floor. 

Preventing falls is more important as we get older. When you have good balance, you have a better ability to quickly adapt to changes in body position and react to unexpected variations. For example, stepping on a rock or pebble that you didn’t see while out for a walk and being able to centre yourself without falling. 

What can we do to help our balance?  

Balance issues can arise from a range of areas:  

  • Changes to medications 
  • Injury 
  • Illnesses especially ones that affect the inner ear and 
  • Nerve damage.  

But the most common reason is physical deterioration. It is so important to make sure that you continue to exercise. As such, it is so important to make sure that you continue to exercise. And this is one area we can help you! Focus on exercises like the ones below:

  • Standing on one leg with your eyes open and shut  
  • Sanding on unstable surfaces such as a balance pillow or mat  
  • Step ups 
  • Side steps 
  • Squats and lunges 
  • Exercises that strengthen the legs, ankles and knees. 

How can you tell whether your balance is getting better? 

A balance mat measures postural sway

Balance can be measured using a balance mat. These are used to measure the postural sway that a person has whilst standing in several positions such as single leg stance and tandem stance. The mat measures the sway electrically.  

Vintage Fitness is delighted to be able to offer a balance test to benchmark you balance levels and then track improvement.

The great news is balance is a trainable skill, like riding a bike, The more you practice, the better your balance will get. 

MORE on FITNESS TESTS

Fun Fitness for Over 55s: Superfit 60s and Beyond: Embracing a New Era of Fitness

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Are you a sexagenarian who thinks age is just a number when it comes to staying fit and active? Looking for classes that cater for over 55s?

Well, you’re in great company! In this modern age, 60-somethings are defying the odds and proving that retirement doesn’t mean it’s time to hang up your trainers.

Today, we’re diving into the exciting world of fitness for those in their 60s and beyond, and how Vintage Fitness is leading the charge to keep you strong, healthy, and feeling more alive than ever.

The Ageless Warriors

A decade ago, you might have believed that your fifties were a time to slow down. But fast forward to 2019 and beyond, and you’ll discover a new generation of ageless warriors who are redefining the boundaries of what’s possible. Age is no longer a deterrent to achieving your fitness goals; in fact, it’s an invitation to embrace a new level of vitality and strength.

The Superfit 60-plus Movement

Superfit 60-plus individuals are setting new records by spending more time at the gym than any other age group. According to World Health.Net, they average an impressive eight gym visits per month, proving that dedication to fitness knows no age limit. Even at 60 and beyond, you can be stronger, healthier, and more energetic than ever before.

It’s Not Just Gentle Workouts

But what’s drawing these remarkable individuals to the gym isn’t the leisurely strolls or gentle stretches. It’s the high-intensity workouts and tough training regimens that are piquing their interest. Superfit 60-somethings are challenging themselves with vigorous exercises and pushing their boundaries.

Benefits of Joining the Vintage Fitness Community

So, what’s the secret to staying superfit in your 60s and beyond? It’s about embracing the power of community, challenging yourself, and staying motivated. Vintage Fitness has created a welcoming space where playful yet effective fitness programs are tailored to the unique needs and desires of those aged 55 and over.

Here are some hard-hitting benefits of joining our Vintage Fitness community:

1. Longevity is the New Black

Embrace the idea that staying fit can add years to your life. While we might add a playful twist, the message is clear: staying fit can help you live longer, healthier, and happier.

2. Unleash Your Inner Athlete

Think of your workout as a fun challenge rather than a chore. Our high-intensity workouts and training regimens will have you feeling like a real athlete, regardless of your age.

3. Companionship and Support

At Vintage Fitness, we’re all about creating a vibrant community. Share your fitness journey with like-minded individuals who understand the importance of staying active.

4. Functional Strength for Daily Life

Our programs focus on building functional strength that will help you stay active and independent in your daily life, from carrying groceries to playing with your grandkids.

5. Personalised Workouts

We understand that everyone’s fitness journey is unique. Our trainers work with you to create a personalised plan that suits your goals, abilities, and interests.

6. Fun and Playful Motivation

We’ll keep you motivated with our playful yet effective approach. Remember, if you don’t stay fit, you might not be able to keep up with your active grandkids or enjoy your retirement to the fullest!

Don’t let your age define your limits; join Vintage Fitness and be part of the superfit 60-plus movement. Your best years are yet to come!

Principles of training

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Mature people running on machine treadmill at fitness gym club

This article goes out to all the fitness nerds. Because today we are going to be looking at the back end of what makes a fitness program, and the principles that are utilised to improve performance.

The principles are:

  • Progressive overload
  • Specificity
  • Reversibility
  • Variety
  • Training thresholds
  • Warm up cool down

Progressive overload

Known as the godfather of fitness principles, progressive overload is when the workload progressively increases as the person adapts to training. This is done to maintain intensity of training after adaptations have occurred, i.e. muscle growth or fitness gains. This can be achieved in a number of ways, namely by:

  • increasing the frequency of training, workload, weight lifted, or
  • utilising more difficult exercises that work the same muscles.

Specificity

This is when the training you are doing is specific to the sport you are playing. For example, a runner would have a fitness based running program. The gym work she would be doing may be leg strengthening exercises rather than working arms, or doing a lot of bench press. Basically, replicating the movements done in the person’s sport to provide the best specific adaptations.

Reversibility

The basic law of use it or lose it! Reversibility means if the training stops the adaptations you’ve made are lost or begin to decrease overtime. They are typically lost at a similar rate that they were gained. Here’s a general idea of how long it takes to see the effects of reversibility – or fitness, it takes about 2-3 weeks to see a decrease and for strength about 1-2 weeks.

Variety

This is ensuring training sessions use multiple training types methods and exercises. It not only prevents boredom, but also ensures a complete and full development of fitness. By training with a range of exercises, the whole athlete is trained with a better focus on fully strengthening muscle and joints. Take for example a rugby player, by including swimming into their program they not only improve their overall fitness, but they also work their muscle groups in unfamiliar ways ensuring its full development.

Training thresholds

Training thresholds refer to the level of intensity needed to stress your body enough for the specific type of fitness or strength you are trying to achieve. For long endurance fitness you’ll want to be training at a heart rate of about 70-80% for an hour. For shorter fast pace work over 80% heart rate for no longer than 30mins. In terms of strength gains, strength and power is 1-6 rep max, strength 8-12 rep max and muscle endurance 12-15 rep max

Warm up, cool down

A warm up is the process of getting your body read for exercise. Typically this moves from low intensity to high intensity specific movements for the exercise, preparing the body for physical activity by increasing the heart rate which leads to move blood flow to the muscles. Cool downs are essentially the opposite of a warm up. Taking the body from high intensity to low intensity, slowly reducing heart rate and getting the body’s recovery systems to begin functioning.

Busting some gym myths

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Mature man with weights at gym

Most beginners going to the gym in pursuit of a better and healthier body enthusiastically become sponges, they try and soak up as much fitness knowledge and teachings as they can. Religiously listening to every word of those with bigger biceps and smaller waists like gospel. Although most of the time this is incredibly useful information that has worked for them. Sometimes however some of what is soaked up turns out to be toilet water. That’s why this article is aimed at busting some of those toilet water myths.

Myth #1 – Building muscle can make you look fatter

This couldn’t be further from the truth, the idea that if you have a layer of fat and if you build muscle underneath, that you will just look fatter is plain wrong. Like, very wrong. Muscle building is actually one of the most effective forms of fat loss (just as or even better than cardio). This is because for your body to function it needs to burn fat into glycogen and your body uses that glycogen as the fuel to move your muscles.

The more muscle you build the more glycogen it naturally needs and therefore the more fat is burned and slimmer you look. This only doesn’t work if you dramatically increase your eating while you’re building the muscle.

Myth #2 – You can target your fat burn

Your fat storing is one holistic system, meaning your body doesn’t store or burn body fat based on independent segments of your body i.e., arms, legs, belly. You can’t burn just ‘belly fat’ by doing crunches because to your body its all the same fat. That’s why it’s important to just do the exercise you enjoy doing, eat healthy and all the fat will burn away.

Myth #3 – You should stretch before you work out

I want to make this very clear, warming up is vital before exercise. But static long hold stretches is not what you should be doing beforehand. The idea for static stretching is to increase your range of motion, not prepare you for exercise. To prepare for exercise you need to be moving and getting warm.

Strange Myth – Eating raw eggs

Just don’t.

Flow state in exercise

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‘Flow state’ is a fitness concept that sounds like it has been plucked straight from the mind of a hippie. However, it is highly effective and has been gaining a huge amount of following amongst the athletic and fitness community. Flow is a mindset and training method that many believe is optimal for exercise and fitness.

What is the flow state?

The best way to describe flow state is when ‘time flies by’. It is when the activity you are doing is the perfect balance of stimulation to keep you fully engaged for the whole time you are doing that activity. It isn’t too difficult that you give up, yet it isn’t too easy that you become bored. After working out in a flow state you should feel like you have a boost in energy and you shouldn’t feel sore the next day.

How do I achieve flow?

The key to flow is knowing your limitations and consistency. For example, if performing 10 pull ups is your absolute physical max and you’ll be sore the next day. In flow, you would only do seven pull ups yet consistently do them daily. This should be enough pull ups for a good workout and the feeling of satisfaction, but easy enough that you’ll be able to continue doing this throughout the week. By doing this by the end of the week you might end up doing a total of 40-46 pull ups compared to someone who would be lucky to do 30 pull ups by working out too hard each session across the week as they’ll need a rest day.

Different types of stretching

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So, you wanna bust out some yoga pants and look like you know what you are doing. Well good for you, because no matter what shape, size or age you happen to be, stretching is one of the fundamentals of fitness for all of us to improve both our performance and injury prevention. But did you know that there are different types of stretching with different purposes to improve your exercise journey and overall general health?

Dynamic stretching

Performed by using movement through full range of motion, in other words, stretching by moving joints. This is a common type of stretching that includes stretches such as arm swings, leg swings, lunges, etc. This type of stretching is best performed before training as it provides blood flow to joints and warms them up properly preparing them for workouts and exercise. It is also the only type of stretching that you would do pre training.

Ballistic stretching

Similar to dynamic stretching, ballistic stretching is going through range of movement but with a focus of bouncing at the end of the movement. The purpose of this type of stretching is that the body is taken past its full range of movement and increases the maximum length that it can be lengthened to. Caution must be taken when performing this type of stretching as bouncing too hard at the end of the stretch can cause soft tissue damage, it is imperative that this is done lightly.

Static stretching

This stretch requires you to hold a stretch at the end of range position for an extended amount of time. For example, reaching to touch your toes and holding the stretch by grabbing your foot. By doing this stretch you are lengthening soft tissue and certain connective tissue so that you are comfortable moving within your maximum length. This should be done after training, likewise with ballistic not beforehand as it decreases performance.

Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF)

Your life will be a lot easier if you don’t bother with the name and simply think of it as alternating between stretching and contracting your muscle. To give an example of this, imagine you are lying down with one leg in the air and someone’s holding your leg in a stretch. Then after you stretched you push against the person contracting the muscle you just been stretching. The theory behind this form of stretching is much like that of static stretching however just a different approach. The added contacting of the muscle is also believed to further relax the joints you are working so that your range can be increased and a better quality, less painful stretch can be performed (also not to be completed before exercise).

Benefit of small group training sessions

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By design, Vintage Fitness fundamentally revolves its workout routines around the fitness principle of small group training. Small group training sessions are becoming more popular, practical and are boosting people’s quality of workouts. Here are some reasons why.

Motivation

Having the support and camaraderie of fellow gym goers can be hugely uplifting when going through a tough session. When working out seems dull and tiresome, having the extra motivation of those around you can be just what you need to get the work done. Better yet, if you are more of a competitive person, having others there to measure yourself against will inspire you to push that little bit harder.

More time with the trainer

Unlike big fitness classes, small group training gives your trainer more opportunity to spend individualised time with you. They can help to work on your form and track your progress. Conveniently, they’ll also be more available to answer questions and teach you new exercises, without disrupting the rest of the class or the flow of a circuit.

Variety

With small group training there is much greater flexibility with what can be done in a class. A range of workout types can be covered such as anaerobic training, aerobic training, strength, endurance and even flexibility.

Accommodates your needs  

As class sizes are smaller, if you have any injuries, lack of experience, certain level of fitness or just not comfortable performing certain exercises, the trainer can easily work with you and around any concerns. So you can maximise your training not needing to worry. Unlike larger group fitness sessions, where there sometimes just isn’t enough time to help and accommodate everyone’s needs.    

Car pool and coffee

Whoever said it had to be all about the exercise? Some of the best friendships most people ever make are associated with exercise. It’s an incredible way to meet new people and bond over training. Most of the time these sessions are the highlight of people’s day. Not only do they get to look and feel healthy but afterwards there’s always a friendly chat.

The benefits of stretching

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One of the most overlooked, and under-appreciated, aspects of our fitness lives is keeping our flexibility. What a lot of people don’t understand is that stretching should be done on a regular basis or daily in order to keep us strong and injury-free.

Keeping pain-free

While weight lifting builds strength, stretching increases the range that we can effectively use our strength. Stretching holds strong benefits for preventing pain, with not only physical performance, but also our everyday lives.

Just some light stretching daily could mean the difference between living in chronic pain or being able to pick up gardening pots off the ground, pain-free.

This is because when you have greater mobility, it uses muscles throughout the whole movement. When you are not flexible it pulls on joints throughout certain parts of your lifts because it ‘can’t reach’. This also means that the likelihood of injuries greatly decreases.

Increase performance

Stretching can increase performance by making your movements more efficient. For example, when running or walking, having muscles that comfortably move at a fully extended length means that your stride length can be increased and move faster with less effort.

Make you taller

Although stretching doesn’t physically make us taller human beings, it can help with our posture to maximise our body’s natural height. It’s surprising how many of us aren’t actually standing the full centimetres that we are. This is because tight muscles are pulling more than they should and making us hunch over to avoid pain, ironically making us more injured in the long run. However, this can all be easily fixed with some post-workout light stretching holds.