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How baby boomers and beyond stay fit in the golden years

Naples Daily News - 8/1/2017

July 31--Beverly Lipson breathed deep and channeled her energy into one simple task -- getting out of a folding chair. She planted her feet square in front of her, careful to keep her knees in line with her ankles.

"Nose to toe," her personal trainer, James Metcalf, reminded her.

Then she rose, and a smile spread wide across her face.

"I could not do this," Lipson, 86, said triumphantly on a recent Friday from inside the exercise room of Bradford Square, a North Naples retirement community. "I couldn't do that before."

For someone who only started exercising later in life, Lipson now does it five days a week. She takes yoga classes at her community every Tuesday and Thursday, tai chi on Wednesdays, and a one-on-one strength and balance workout with a personal trainer from Max Flex Fitness on Mondays and Fridays.

And sometimes, when she doesn't feel like tai chi is enough of a workout, she goes into the weight room for more.

"I feel good," Lipson said.

Lipson and several other seniors across Naples are finding the benefits of staying active in their golden years. Local coaches and personal trainers say it's never too late to begin, especially at a time in life when health becomes so fragile.

At Addicted to Fitness, a gym that specializes in serving baby boomers and beyond, 69-year-old Marilyn Lewis found a routine that works for her. Lewis started exercising there two years ago. Before that, she feared injuries from falling. She had already fallen twice.

"This is something very new to me," Lewis said after her one-hour workout on a recent Tuesday. "We're not gym people. ... We're not ones that are going to come in here and do it by ourselves."

So she started working one-on-one with Jon Bates, owner of Addicted to Fitness. He taught her how to use the resistance and cable machines, exercise balls, free weights and other equipment Lewis never imagined herself using in her 60s.

Strength, balance and flexibility, Bates said, are the key components of senior fitness.

"Over the age of 80, the risk of dying from a fall is higher than anything else, so working on balance is super, super important," he said. "(Balance) is partly physical but it's also mental. We have neurotransmitters in the brain that if we don't keep them firing, you start to lose them -- they're like muscle. So doing things that challenge their balance keeps them working."

Bates encourages stretching to improve flexibility. Otherwise, tightness in the body can lead to pain in older adults, which often sends people running to the doctor for pills and procedures.

'If they would come and exercise and work on flexibility, a lot of times we are able to get them out of pain without the medication and surgeries," he said.

Since exercising with Bates for the last two years, Lewis said she's received high marks from her physician.

After a recent bone density test, Lewis said her doctor told her, "I don't know what you're doing, but whatever it is, keep doing it."

And she hasn't fallen since then.

Dick Niess, 94, the oldest client at Addicted to Fitness, has simple advice for people his age -- just move.

"If I wasn't with Jon working 14 years with him, I don't think I'd still be here," Niess said.

He exercises at Addicted to Fitness twice a week. "It's made a big difference. Big difference. As you get older, you just sit in a chair and watching TV all day, you don't do anything. ... If you don't exercise your muscles, they atrophy as you get older, and then you feel sick and you don't feel well.

"We're not trying to build muscles here; we're trying to save muscles."

Nino Magaddino, owner of Max Flex Fitness, which recently became recognized by the Blue Zones project, suggests starting out slow.

"Seek advice from a fitness professional," he said. "If you feel like you could just go for a walk, try natural movements. Try something new, like senior yoga, tai chi. Find out what you're comfortable with. Just do something."

Since Lipson started training with Magaddino and Metcalf in May, she said she's already seen improvement. She can now lift 25 pounds on the lat pulldown machine, and about 80 pounds on the leg press machine.

Getting out of a chair, though, seems to be her proudest accomplishment so far.

"I know I can do it," she said as her momentum sent her forward and up, over and over for 30 seconds. "This took a lot of practice."

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(c)2017 the Naples Daily News (Naples, Fla.)

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