Home Care in Summerlin NV
As the person in your family elected to be in charge of home care for a senior parent or other loved one, you have your hands full. Thinking about whether or not they’re getting regular exercise may not even be on your radar screen. But helping them stay on a regular, yet varied exercise routine might help you in the long-run, because it can help keep them from falling or suffering some other major illness or other medical condition. It’s even a great way for you to enjoy some quality time with them, while gaining personally from the exercise at the same time.
Getting started may sound tough, but staying with it can be even tougher. Here are some suggestions for you and your loved one on how to stick with the program.
- Get started by finding something that’s easy for your loved one to do, given any conditions or restrictions they may have. Seniors should check with a doctor before starting anything.
- Walking is a great workout, easy to stick to—especially since it can be done in some many settings, which helps keep it interesting—and free. But, if that’s all you do, you may be setting yourself up for boredom, or worse yet, repetitive stress injury brought on by overuse of the same muscles.
- Your exercise regimen should involve cross-training so you’re not overusing some muscles groups, while underusing others—neither of which is healthy.
- The American College of Sports Medicine recommends an exercise program include each of the following elements: Aerobic exercises, strength training, flexibility and balance. Aerobic exercises should ideally be done for 20 minutes or more at a time, three to five times per week. Strength training activities should be done for about 10 minutes at a time, two to three times per week.
- Variety makes exercise more fun, which means you won’t get bored as if you were doing the same thing day in and day out. And not only does changing the muscle groups you’re working on help to increase balance and agility, a person at any fitness level can participate and benefit from.
- Remember also, that recreational activities such as golfing, pickle ball, hiking, skiing, fishing, bowling, dancing, and the like, are also nice, added touches to any exercise routine and cross-training schedule.
- If you or your loved one are trying to attain a certain goal with your exercise program, such as increased weight reduction, you’ll eventually reach a plateau if you merely stick to the same routine. So you’ll need to vary your exercise or do more in order to see additional progress. If able, do the activities longer, farther, or harder. Or you could do them more often, or, as mentioned, add new activities.
The main thing is to do something, no matter what. As they say, something is better than nothing. And nowhere is that more true than exercising and trying to remain healthy through some kind of physical activity.
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IF YOU OR AN AGING LOVED ONE ARE CONSIDERING IN-HOME CARE IN SUMMERLIN, NV, PLEASE CONTACT THE CARING STAFF AT GOLDEN HEART SENIOR CARE. CALL TODAY 702-800-4616.