It has often been said that investing in your health is like investing in your financial well-being. Investments made over time have a compounding effect. This means that ever dollar or hour invested today increases the base line for what you add in tomorrow, and the day after that. Just like financial investments, effort invested in your health today will reap rewards in the future. And when you are over 50, these health investments will provide substantial benefits to you as you grow older.
For people over 50, exercise classes and any form of fitness classes will translate into benefits when you are in your 60’s, 70s or 80s because you will still be able to continue doing the things you love to do. Look around you. There are people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s who are still biking, hiking, dancing, inventing, teaching, travelling and having some of the best days of their lives because they didn’t believe what they hear about getting older. Instead of meeting the standard expectation of becoming less, they decided to create the expectation of becoming more. They continue to learn and live life to its fullest and don’t have any plans of stopping anytime soon. Their goal, and your goal should be to live to reap the benefits of your compounding interest in your health and overall wellbeing.
Exercise Classes for Over 50’s
It’s definitely in your interest to update your views on ageing, body maintenance, and health in your over 50’s years. Not because you’re getting older, but because research shows how much of what we’ve been taught, even as recently as five to ten years ago, is wrong. That means how you approach fitness needs to change, too. And the best way to start your investment in a healthier you is to attend fitness classes for over 50s.
Let’s think about how you’ve exercised up until now:
∙ Are you someone who doesn’t like to exercise and thinks, “I don’t want need to lose weight, so I don’t really need to exercise”?
∙ Are you an occasional exerciser who says, “I only need to lose a little bit of weight, so I’ll just do a little bit of exercise”?
∙ Are you someone who feels like you need to lose a lot of weight, and you’re frozen in fear and dread because that means “a lot of exercise!”?
In each of these situations, exercise does equal weight loss, but that’s not where we’re headed. Exercise classes may lead to weight loss, but it’s about so much more than that, especially as we get older. In fact, many of us are not at a healthy or unhealthy weight based on the amount of exercise we get or don’t get. For instance, you may know of someone who is very active, yet significantly overweight. Or, you may know people who are at a healthy weight, but don’t attend exercise classes at all. But this doesn’t make them “lucky”.
The truth is, particularly for people over 50 years, exercise, especially exercise classes, is important for many different health outcomes, and those other outcomes become more important as we get older. Let’s rethink our understanding of exercise because these factors can dramatically improve your quality of life in so many ways, including your ability to finally drop those unwanted kilos.
Exercise is the Best Investment You Can Make
Invest today for the rewards you earn tomorrow and beyond. Starting earlier is always better, and it’s never too late to begin. The investments you make in exercise and fitness classes in your 40s, 50s, and 60s are wellbeing deposits you’ll cash in when you are in your 70s and 80s and even in your 90s.
The good news is it’s never too late and you are always in total control of you. Even better news, you don’t have to go it alone. At Renewed After 50, our fitness classes will deliver a wellbeing outcome that will directly benefit you. Our goal is to become your reliable personal training partner for life and support you in your journey to stay healthy and fit. Remember: grow old but stay young.
Investing in your health and wellbeing in your 50’s through exercise classes and fitness classes will not only yield the benefits of avoiding the old-age stereotype, it will also allow you to age gracefully. And the benefits of ageing gracefully go way beyond your physical health and strength – they extend to your social, mental and overall psyche and will become a source of pride that will be visible to all those around you – you family, children and grandchildren, and your friends.
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Top 5 Fitness Tips for Over 50s
Group Training Classes for Over 50’s
For many people, the thought of joining a fitness class can be daunting. They may think that they are not ready, or they may worry about what others will think if they are really unfit, or they may be put off by the thought of having to ‘work out’ as being outside their comfort zone.
At Renewed After 50 we totally understand these concerns. But we also know that for those who do make the start the rewards and benefits they receive will always vastly outweigh any concerns or hesitancy at the beginning.
Plus, the good news is it’s never too late to start. Our qualified instructors will make sure you are always in control. Remember, you don’t have to go it alone. At Renewed After 50, our fitness classes will deliver a wellbeing outcome that will directly benefit you. Our goal is to become your reliable training partner for life and support you on your journey to stay healthy and fit, with the added bonus that our fitness classes are a lot of fun, too!
Fitness for Over 50’s
Recent research shows that the number one concern expressed for people over 50 is having enough savings to pay for the things they want and need during their retirement years, including medical expenses and care. But millions of these people are approaching retirement with a back to front understanding. They’re only focused on their personal wealth accumulation to pay for expenses like housing, insurance, holidays, medical care, and so on.
The focus and attention being given to these things are decisions all about financial savings plans. They are working to save enough to protect their lifestyle, but they’re not working to protect their bodies! What good does it do to build up wealth and resources, but not have the physical health to enjoy it when you finally do retire?
Group Training for Fitness is the Smartest Investment You Can Make
Investing in group or personal training classes for fitness to exercise your body today represents one of the top 5 things you can and should be doing now in order to enjoy the things that your financial expediency will give you later.
Often people think that taking up jogging is a good way to get exercise and stay in shape and even lose some weight. But you really don’t have to. You absolutely do not have to “be a runner!” The truth is, if you don’t intend to run marathons, you only need enough aerobic capacity to do whatever it is you like to do, right? Maybe that’s tennis, golfing, swimming, skiing, whatever. You need the aerobic capacity to do these activities and to remain healthy, but you don’t have to have the aerobic capacity of an elite athlete. Keep that in mind when you think about aerobic endurance.
Finding Your Health Path Forward
When you think of a functional approach to fitness, you’re exercising to support all the other parts of your life. We want you to have a functional approach to nutrition, too! What you eat supports all those other parts of your life. It gives you the energy to go on a walk, hit the gym, or even take a holiday away from your daily routine. Our goal is to shift your focus to the number of things you want to do with the rest of your life. Balanced nutrition and exercise are the winning solution.
We want you to choose the foods that support and enhance your life. While you’re thinking about action, what you eat needs to be part of the plan.
Group Training Near Me
Finally, as we age, our metabolism slows down. You may have noticed that you’re eating the same amount and the same types of things, but you’re gaining weight, or it’s ending up in all the wrong places. It becomes even more important to eat well and exercise as we get older. Our goal is help you be a healthier person and put you on a more positive trajectory—for the rest of your life. This doesn’t mean you can never have a piece of birthday cake. But it does mean we’ll be working with you to find nutritional balance. This is nutrition that empowers you, so that you have more energy, sleep better, fight disease better, and move with fewer aches and pains—equipping you to do the things you need to do, want to do, and love to do—for the rest of your long, healthy life.
So, if you are over 50 and looking for a group training class near you, don’t wait any longer. Our group training classes are just the thing you need to start you on your journey to receiving the most important benefits that will be yours for the rest of your long, healthy life.
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How Much Should Seniors & Over 50s Be Exercising?
How Healthy Are You Right Now?
If you look at what’s being said about fitness and ageing, there seems to be some confusion about what we perceive as healthy and what medical experts consider true health. For many, the definition of health has been revised to mean only the absence of disease. Given the expanding waistline trend in Australia—nearly two-thirds of the population is overweight or obese—debilitating chronic disease is, most certainly, on the rise.
But the reality is that you cannot assume that you are truly healthy just because you are not obese or haven’t been diagnosed with cancer, type 2 diabetes, or heart disease. Sure, it is good news if you are 40- or 50-something and have not been “diagnosed.” But true health is about so much more than absence of disease. Many people are lulled into a false sense of security. “If I’m not sick, I must be doing things right.” They don’t realize the importance of many of the decisions they’re making about their health. Choices you are making right now can have HUGE implications in the years ahead.
The Health Disconnect
Recently, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada published a report highlighting what it means to be healthy versus fit. Their poll research found that while almost 80 percent of Canadian Boomers think their doctors would rate them as healthy, their self-reported lifestyle choices show otherwise. Eighty-five percent of participants admitted they’re not eating enough fruits or vegetables. Sixty-two percent described themselves as overweight or obese. And, 1 in 5 admitted they didn’t exercise at all.
To make matters worse, 30% of polled participants described their life as often or always stressful. This means their hormones are out of whack—which increases their chances of cancer and a variety of chronic illnesses. The truly concerning takeaway from this bears repeating—80 percent believe their doctor would rate them as generally in good health, despite the fact that they admit to:
∙ Not moving, being physically active, or exercising like they know they should, and thats why exercise classes for seniors are so important!
∙ Not eating like they know they should—openly admitting to not eating fruits and vegetables.
∙ Not managing stress levels.
∙ Carrying excess weight—especially the dangerous fat around the middle.
That’s a pretty big disconnect! Even more shocking, three-quarters (74%) don’t know they could reduce their risk of heart disease and stroke by up to 80 percent with lifestyle modifications through exercise and nutrition.
We often fool ourselves—we feel like we’re doing okay since we’re not making trips to the hospital! This leads us to think we’re mostly healthy when perhaps we are not. The real question we should be asking is: “Am I taking care of myself so I can continue to do the things I need to do, like to do, and want to do for the rest of my life?”
This smarter fitness question is the foundation of what we call functional fitness—the idea that our movement routines are keeping us physically fit for all the necessary and desirable functions of life.
Functional Fitness
Functional fitness is the term we use to describe fitness as it relates to our body’s ability to function, performing the tasks we ask of it. And it’s so much more than what we traditionally think of when it comes to fitness. Basically, Functional Fitness focuses on training for strength to be able to do everyday tasks such as lifting reaching, bending walking and stepping.
Our functional fitness level impacts our ability to continue to enjoy the most important things in life as we get older. Most people think about exercise in its most basic form—as a function of cardio, muscle strength, and weight management. But what we now know about the body is that to be “fit” means so much more than being able to climb stairs and wear the same dress size you did 10 years ago.
When assessing functional fitness, we measure your power, aerobic energy, balance, response time, joint function, coordination, agility, and more. The goal is to make you better than fit—you need to be functionally fit to ensure that you can do all the things you want to.
This combined with maintaining a healthy lifestyle, healthy eating and regular exercise can and will deliver for you the fittest version of you that is possible for the rest of your life. You just need to get started!
Remember, like so many things in our lives, life is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. And a marathon starts with the first step. Similarly, life is a journey not a destination and renewal at any age starts with the first step. Hopefully, this and our other regular blogs, will provide you with the motivation to take that first step. If you haven’t already found the benefits of eating and exercising for a better and more enriching life, I hope that you will act now.
Whatever your goal is, it needs to be something important to you. At our group fitness classes in Melbourne, we ask that you tell us what that goal is, and we’ll help you get there, step by step. Setting specific goals gives you something to think about and aim for. We have the best gym for over 50s to help you reach your goals and it’s going to be lots of fun! You’re going to make new friends, and we hope you’re going to fall in love with exercise as much as we do. We guarantee you will love the results!