Between preparing meals for yourself and your family, work, household chores, the quickly approaching holiday season, when in between your everyday tasks are you fitting in an exercise program? If there just isn’t any time left in your day, you are not alone. Most of senior Americans say that do not have the time to keep up with an exercise program and fall short of the recommended 30-60 minutes of exercise/activity 5 times a week. Exercises does not have to include running a mile, performing 10000 crunches or spending an hour on the stationary bike. You can fit in your exercises while sitting in a chair watching TV!
For example during commercial breaks of your favorite TV show preform:
- Seated marching for 1 minute
- Sitting at the edge of your chair with knees bent, lift legs only as high as comfortable alternating as if you are marching in place.
- Abdominal braces 10-15x 3 second hold
- Lightly draw your belly button in towards the spine, hold contraction without holding you breathe, repeat.
- Toe raise/heel raises 10x 2
- Sitting at the edge of your chair with knee bent, flex ankle as you go onto your toes, slowly relax down then keeping ankle in contact with the ground bring toes toward you shin, repeat.
- Stand up and then sit down 10 times
- Scoot to the edge of your chair so that knee are bent with feet under legs, stand up from chair slowly and with control, then slowly have a seat and repeat
- Bicep curls (holding can of soup/water bottle for resistance) 10 x 2
- With hand weight or water bottle in hand, keep upper arm next to side, bend elbow bringing hand towards your shoulder, slowly lower and repeat for each arm
- Long arc quad 10x per leg
- Sitting at edge chair, kick out to straighten your knee bringing foot towards ceiling, hold for 3 seconds then bend knee back to start position repeat 10 times
- Adductor squeeze
- Place ball or firm pillow between knees, squeeze knee together & hold for 5 seconds then repeat 10 times
If you feel exercise on land is too much for you or you experience pain when attempting chair exercises, you may be in need of physical therapy to address pain and have an individualized exercise program created for you by a licensed physical therapist. We offer free 30-minute consults with a Physical Therapist to determine if you need physical therapy interventions.
Writing by Shelby Vincent PTA ( Shelby is available to see patients at our Easton, MD office.)