Discover your inner gym rat
Lace 'em up and feel younger. That's what's going on in many gyms around the country. There are formal programs, with gyms working together with Medicare providers to encourage seniors to join a health club. Personal trainers are paying attention, adding senior citizens as clients. Senior centers are adding mini-gyms … and maxi-gyms. Older Americans who are becoming more limber through these efforts are less likely to injure themselves in falls.
There's a program called Silver Sneakers that partners with Medicare plans to arrange discounted health club memberships. The average age of participants is 73. A study earlier this year from the government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that regular use of Medicare- sponsored health club benefits was associated with lower long-term health care costs. Researchers say that Silver Sneakers members who went to the gym two or more times a week over two years averaged at least $1,252 less in health care costs than those who visited a gym less than once a week.
It's a shame all those tens of billions of dollars going into Big Pharma's coffers from unnecessary prescriptions can't be redirected into smart prevention programs like Silver Sneakers.
I've talked to many of you who felt reluctant before the first-ever trip to a gym. Many join a health club for the first time in retirement, having gone decades without responding to the gym rat environment. I've talked to some patients uncomfortable with the gym culture until they become a regular — and then suddenly they're enthusiasts. Once they get there, they like the way their mind responds to exercise — maybe more than their body responds. And they hadn't counted on the social benefits of the gym.
I exercise five times a week myself – two of those days are at the local community center's fitness center. I make sure I get my full workout in. But I always relish running into patients and old friends and doing a little social catch up while I'm at it.
Some of you find that once you incorporate gyms into your daily or weekly routine, you suddenly find the energy to go to the grocery store on a given day or add an afternoon of card-playing or a weekly walk in the park. An active lifestyle is contagious and it means a healthy lifestyle.
Whatever it is, many find themselves responding to health spas for the first time in their sunset years. It doesn't hurt that there are more seniors at the gyms, partly because of marketing efforts aimed at the older generation. For many of you, improving strength and mobility are powerful declarations of your independence continuing through your later years.
