The 22nd annual National Senior Health & Fitness day is on Wednesday, May 27 and is the country’s largest annual health event geared to older adults. For East Ridge residents, health and senior fitness is a regular part of their community’s lifestyle.
Suzana Delgado, wellness center coordinator at East Ridge, uses the 2015 theme “If you keep moving…you’ll keep improving” to motivate residents every day.
Suzana develops exercise routines, tournaments and competition for East Ridge residents throughout the year. Her goal is residents’ fitness. When the Wellness-Fitness center is open for use, she’s there to motivate residents.
There are so many benefits of regular exercise.
- Helps reduces the risk of falling and fracturing bones.
- Reduces the risk of dying from coronary heart disease and of developing high blood pressure, colon cancer, and diabetes.
- Helps reduce blood pressure in some people with hypertension.
- Helps people with chronic, disabling conditions improve their stamina and muscle strength.
- Reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression and fosters improvements in mood and feelings of well-being.
- Helps maintain healthy bones, muscles, and joints.
- Helps control joint swelling and pain associated with arthritis.
“If I don’t see residents for several days, it’s not unusual for me to give them a call to see how they are,” she said. “If I can encourage someone to exercise, it may prevent them from a future fall. If they fall; then someone will be telling them to exercise.”
The Wellness-Fitness Center offers a senior fitness test for balance, strength and flexibility. Recommendations are made from this evaluation and Delgado is able to track improvements.
“In six months we can see differences when someone starts an exercise program,” she said. “And then we retest to track improvements.”
At East Ridge in addition to the Fitness Center that residents can use on their own, there are a variety of fitness classes including sittercise, a low impact stretching class, yoga, and walking. Balance and flexibility, general strengthening and line dancing are also taught. Master Tennis is offered during the cooler months.
In addition, East Ridge’s 76 acres offers meandering walking paths for walking and bicycling. Outdoors there is bocce, shuffleboard, a heated swimming pool and disc golf course. In addition to state-of-the-art fitness equipment, there is Wii-equipment for bowling and ping pong.
To learn more about the East Ridge lifestyle, we invite you to call 305.256.3564. Take a tour of the community and be sure to stop by the Fitness Center and meet Suzana.