It’s the widespread chorus Carolyn Haines mentioned she will get when she asks returning seniors what they’ve performed to train in the course of the pandemic.
“I did nothing.”
Haines, 78, is a gaggle leisure teacher for the Prime Time Seniors Program at East Lansing Hannah Group Middle.
“One woman, she’s fairly helpful with crochet and stuff like that, so she did that,” Haines mentioned. “However she didn’t go for a stroll or the rest. She stayed in her home.”
From bodily well being and wellness to group belonging and psychological wellbeing, the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted older adults in some ways.
The Hannah Group Middle closed its doorways to the general public on March 13, 2020, following declarations of a neighborhood state of emergency by East Lansing’s mayor and a statewide state of emergency by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The Prime Time Seniors Program didn’t reopen its doorways to seniors till fall 2021.
One among Haines’ shoppers got here again to the health program as soon as it reopened with security protocols in place, similar to masks carrying, restricted class sizes and social distancing. Previous to the pandemic, she would go to the gymnasium twice a day and do water aerobics with Haines three days every week.
“She tried to return again to the health, and she or he was nonetheless very, very, very uncomfortable,” Haines mentioned. “So, she’s solely doing water aerobics, and she or he admits she wants extra muscle mass.”
Susan Williams, 76, works full-time at a desk job, which suggests she already sits for eight hours a day, she mentioned. Earlier than the pandemic, she was going to the Westside YMCA two to a few instances every week the place she would use the treadmill and different train machines.
“When the pandemic began, I ended going – completely,” she mentioned. “And I sat for 18 months.”
Her return to train occurred instantly when a good friend, who additionally wasn’t exercising, fell at residence and needed to crawl to the telephone to name 911. Her good friend ended up within the hospital.
“That scared me as a result of I believed, ‘She’s the identical age as I’m. And I don’t wish to be in that state of affairs,’” Williams mentioned.
Her path again to common train was gradual and started with one-on-one exercises with a good friend’s husband of their storage. “I didn’t wish to go to the gymnasium. However I do know that the time that I went with him, I’d be the one particular person there and he would masks, and I’d masks,” Williams mentioned.
After she started to train once more, her weight dropped from 184 to 172 kilos.
A latest College of Michigan research =discovered that 45.9% of the two,006 seniors surveyed skilled elevated isolation, 36.9% expressed a decreased bodily exercise and 37.1% observed a decline in companionship in the course of the heights of the pandemic.
“The dearth of routine impacted the mobility of our seniors,” mentioned Carol Wooden, govt director of Retired & Senior Packages of Ingham, Eaton & Clinton Counties. “Being locked down and never being able to train, simply strolling the aisles of grocery shops, dramatically affected their means to do easy issues.”
The Retired & Senior Packages offers seniors with volunteer alternatives at native nonprofits, together with volunteering in lecture rooms, at senior amenities, meals banks and greeting vacationers as they arrive and go at Lansing’s airport.
Haines needs everybody to know that seniors have suffered in the course of the pandemic. She hopes that Ingham County residents will come to grasp the “tragic features of COVID on seniors.”
“I feel that is true of many others the world over and in East Lansing,” she mentioned.
MONDAY, May 20, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Some folks like to count their daily steps, while others prefer exercising for a certain amount of time during a day or a week.
Luckily, either approach boosts health, a new study finds.
Exercise targets based on either step count or minutes are equally associated with lower risks of premature death and heart disease, researchers report in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
Given this, personal preferences probably are key when setting up an exercise plan, researchers said.
“For some, especially for younger individuals, exercise may involve activities like tennis, soccer, walking, or jogging, all of which can be easily tracked with steps,” said lead author Dr. Rikuta Hamaya, a researcher with the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Preventive Medicine in Boston.
“However, for others, it may consist of bike rides or swimming, where monitoring the duration of exercise is simpler,” Hamaya added in a hospital news release.
Current U.S. exercise guidelines focus on minutes – at least 150 minutes weekly of moderate to vigorous physical activity, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity.
But smartwatches have made it easier than ever to track step counts, raising the question of whether steps would be better suited for setting exercise goals, researchers said.
“We recognized that existing physical activity guidelines focus primarily on activity duration and intensity but lack step-based recommendations,” Hamaya said.
“With more people using smartwatches to measure their steps and overall health, we saw the importance of ascertaining how step-based measurements compare to time-based targets in their association with health outcomes – is one better than the other?” Hamaya added.
For this new study, researchers analyzed data from more than 14,000 women participating in the national Women’s Health Study.
Between 2011 and 2015, participants 62 and older were asked to wear motion trackers for seven days in a row to record their physical activity, only removing the devices for sleep or water-related activities, researchers said.
On average, the participants engaged in an average of 62 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week, and accumulated nearly 5,200 steps per day.
During an average follow-up of nine years, approximately 9% of participants died and 4% developed heart disease, results show.
The most active women had 30% to 40% lower risk of death or heart disease, regardless of whether minutes or steps were counted, researchers found.
Further, women whose physical activity levels fell within the top three-quarters outlived those in the bottom quarter by an average of 2.2 months based on minutes and 2.3 months based on steps.
The survival advantage persisted regardless of differences in body-mass index, researchers noted.
Either steps or minutes have advantages and disadvantages when it comes to tracking exercise goals, Hamaya said.
Step counts can differ significantly between a 20-year-old and an 80-year-old who walk for 30 minutes at moderate intensity, Hamaya noted.
On the other hand, steps are straightforward to measure and less subject to interpretation compared to time-based exercise intensity, researchers said.
Steps also capture the physical activity contained in everyday living, not just the time spent in exercise. That’s the type of activity most common among older folks, researchers said.
“That’s why it’s important for physical activity guidelines to offer multiple ways to reach goals,” Hamaya said. “Movement looks different for everyone, and nearly all forms of movement are beneficial to our health.”
More information
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has more on physical activity guidelines for Americans.
SOURCE: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, news release, May 20, 2024
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) – If you’ve been following along with us and doing your back exercises, It might be time for some recovery.
On this week’s Your Fitness, Adam from Gainesville Health and Fitness shows us stretches to help take care of your shoulders.
RELATED: Gainesville Health and Fitness: Rowing Exercises
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BATON ROUGE – Starting June 1, teens ages 14-19 can work out for free at their home Planet Fitness locations.
By preregistering through PF’s Summer Pass program, teenagers can stay active throughout the summer with no additional fees.
The program will run through the end of August. Planet Fitness has run its summer program for four years.
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