Chair Exercises For Seniors

You’ll be Surprised what Exercise in a chair can do for you

How often have you gotten all fired up about a new exercise class, only to find yourself a few weeks down the track, struggling to find the motivation to keep going? Is it because you are not fit enough to keep up with the ‘one size fits all’ class? Perhaps you are carrying some extra weight and out of the habit of moving your body. Maybe you don’t feel so steady on your feet, have been injured, or see yourself as simply too busy to fit in some regular exercise. Is it that you think you can’t exercise or just find it an absolute chore?

Imagine if you will, listening to great music, having fun and receiving numerous health benefits, whilst you exercise in a chair. Envisage yourself comfortably and securely seated, moving your body in natural, enjoyable, playful ways, while your brain also gets its own workout. That is what the Ageless Grace® program is now offering people all across the globe.

The common misperception is that chair exercise is merely for those of us who simply can’t, or won’t go to the gym, catering only to the elderly and the infirm or those people who lack the motivation to keep active.

It’s high time to dispel the myth. Read on and discover the surprising array of benefits to be had for your body and your brain when you decide to give the Ageless Grace® chair program a go.

For starters, chair exercise can give you a great whole body workout. It can have you moving in a variety of ways that you are unlikely to move while riding that bike, or going for that run. Just try it now. How much of your body moves as you do any exercise while upright?  How much does your trunk move? How much do your organs move? How much do you rotate, or go up and down; stretch up, out, across? Does your face move? Are you engaging your abdominal, intercostal and back muscles? What about your fingers and hands? Do you get to move all of your joints, or just some of them? Ageless Grace ® demonstrates that you can definitely work up a sweat using all parts of your body, doing seated exercise.

Ageless Grace® incorporates systemic movements through the use of 21 playful exercise tools, designed for lifelong comfort and ease, set to upbeat music, targeting all parts of the body and all five functions of the brain, while sitting in a chair.

Ageless Grace® Chair Exercises for Seniors

Being in a chair has some great advantages:

1. Your brain is actively engaged in figuring out how to do particular movements in a seated position, when those movements are normally done standing up. Try doing some Irish dancing while you are seated in a chair? What parts do you move? Feet, legs, hands, arms, head, spine? So many choices. Fast or slow? What is your range of motion? It’s up to you and your level of fitness, as you are always encouraged to listen to your body and move accordingly. Engaging your brain in this creative way forms new neural pathways in your central nervous system, improving your brain function. It is also bound to tickle your funny bone and make you laugh!
2. You get to move your torso much more. From you tail to your tip you can move in all directions – up and down, side to side, back and forth, corner to corner, undulating, rotating and so on. It’s like giving your organs a massage while you think of new ways to twist or curl – all the while sitting in a chair. Again, you do it at your level and your ability.
3. Not only are your organs getting a massage, but so are all your body systems. Your circulatory system (cardio vascular system) gets to be moved in a different way, helping to pump round the blood and nutrients your body needs. Your endocrine system, vital in regulating many of your body functions through the hormones, gets some physical movement. Your digestive system is also being given a massage during chair exercise more so than it would in your everyday movements or resting.
4. Moving your core (or torso) also helps move energy around the body. Waken yourself up and feel more alive by moving like a tiger, or a snake, for example. All you have to do is sit in a chair and move your body!
5. Depending on the images you use, your sense of humour gets a great workout too. I know that if I were to imagine myself as a limbo dancer, I would find it really amusing to have a mind’s eye picture of getting under that pole!
6. And last, but by no means least, chair exercise for seniors, provides a level playing field for us all to play, move and work our body and brain. It doesn’t matter if you are overweight or underweight. It doesn’t matter if you lack coordination, have balance issues or a number of physical limitations. You can work on your coordination, body/brain fitness and general wellbeing with the range of exercise tools used in Ageless Grace®

For people with foot, ankle, knee or hip issues, chair exercise can be of great benefit. You can easily move all of these body parts to a level that is comfortable for you, but still promotes youthful functioning in the body. Even if you can’t move a particular body part, you can concentrate on that part and imagine it moving! You get benefits to your physical condition even when the brain just thinks about moving it.

Doubtful you’ll get a cardio workout while exercising in a chair? Think again! Active people are able to move with great exertion even when doing chair exercise.  They can extend and contract to their full extent.

Whether you are young or old, active or sedentary, physically fit or have physical limitations, try chair exercise on for size soon!

Recently, at The Mind Body Spirit Festival, Angela Paladin led a group of Ageless Grace® Educators in a variety of chair exercises. Sitting in the chair, they swam as fast as they could to the music, while imagining they were competing in the 100m freestyle race at the Summer Olympics!  Great exercise, great fun!

At the same Mind Body Spirit Festival in Melbourne, the group played imaginary musical instruments as they delighted the audience with Ageless Grace® tool # 4, ‘Front Row Orchestra’. While playing and swaying to the sweet sounds of the soothing Violin, there was much frivolity, foot tapping, arms moving one way and then the other. Neurons were firing as they practiced the primary benefit of that tool which is all about multi-skilling. The picture above depicts how easy it is to move in your own way, respecting your own fitness level, showing Ageless Grace® is for everyBODY.