Rationale Behind An Over 50's Exercise Session

Here you have a typical session that we may prescribe to someone who is reintroducing themselves back to exercise. In this blog you will find a detailed explanation of why each exercise is there and the benefits of the session.

An exercise programme for someone over 50

The Warm-Up

We would usually perform an extended warm-up which typically lasts between 8-15 minutes depending on the persons level of experience and health condition.

The warm-up would include exercises that slowly increase heart rate to promote blood flow through the body as well as mobility and stretching exercises.

Activation

A warm-up in an exercise programme for someone over 50

These three exercises would be completed one after the other in order to activate and potentiate the muscles we are going to be working during our main session.

These should be relatively easy but you should be able to feel the correct muscles working.

We use activation exercises to recruit motor units, decrease risk of injury and improve overall performance.

Main Session

Main circuit of An exercise programme for someone over 50

These exercises would be completed one after another in a circuit format with a Peripheral Heart Action (PHA) style.

The reason we use PHA is because there are many benefits associated with performing a lower body exercise straight into an upper body exercise. Benefits include, an accelerated calorie burn and time efficiency.

The format of the session would always look the same however the exercises are interchangeable e.g swapping squats for deadlift or press up for chest press.

This session is slightly on the higher rep range and that is because we are looking to use light - moderate loads as not to over exhaust the body this early into returning to exercise.

Core

These exercises would be performed one after another for 2 sets.

We would always prescribe core at the end of the session as it is one of the less taxing exercises we perform and is better utilised at the end of the session.

There is another rationale around using core at the end of a session to do with overall heart health but that does not need to be explained in this blog.

Again the exercises are interchangeable however we prefer 'anti' movements for our core exercises so we recommend maintaining that structure.

'Anti' core exercises can be described as resisting the way your spine wants to move e.g during a plank your spine wants to fall into extension and you have to resist that movement using your core muscles and hence named 'anti-extension'.

The Cool-Down

We typically programme an 8 minute cool down which includes exercises and stretching that slowly lowers heart rate until you feel ready to move on with the day.

In Conclusion

This session is designed for someone who is looking to reintroduce themselves back to exercise and would like to build the tolerance to be able to handle more intense sessions later down the line.

Using the same format with a few tweaks we can manipulate the exercises and intensity to enable us to prescribe this session for those who are more advanced.

Live, move and feel better, for longer.

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If you have any further questions, please email us info@vitalityrehabfit.co.uk. Alternatively, our team will be posting a blog each week discussing various conditions and the aging process which you can get emailed to you weekly by going to our website here and entering your email.