Research has shown that it’s important for older Americans to get all four types of exercise or physical activity:
- Endurance (aerobics),
- Strength and Resistant,
- Balance, and
- Flexibility.
Each exercise or physical activity has different benefits for your health and well-being. Additionally, doing one or more kind of exercise can improve your ability to do the others, and variety helps reduce risk of injury and promote healthy aging over the long term.
Endurance exercises for older adults
Endurance activities or aerobic exercises increase your breathing and heart rates. These activities help keep you healthy, improve your fitness, and help you perform the tasks you need to do every day. Endurance exercises improve the health of your heart, lungs, and circulatory system. They also can delay or prevent many diseases that are common in older adults such as diabetes, colon and breast cancers, heart disease, and others. Physical activities that build endurance include:
- Brisk walking or jogging
- Yard work (mowing, raking)
- Dancing
- Swimming
- Biking
- Climbing stairs or hills
- Playing tennis or basketball
Increase your endurance or “staying power” to help keep up with your grandchildren during a trip to the park, dance to your favorite songs at a family wedding, and rake the yard and bag up leaves. Build up to at least 150 minutes of activity a week that makes you breathe hard. Try to be active throughout your day to reach this goal and avoid sitting for long periods of time.
Gauging your exercise intensity
When you’re being active, try talking: if you’re breathing hard but can still have a conversation easily, it’s moderate-intensity activity. If you can only say a few words before you have to take a breath, it’s vigorous-intensity activity.
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