January 8, 2021
Swimming Improves Range of Motion
Water offers a lot of resistance to your senior’s muscles, but not in a way that causes pain. Swimming and other water exercises are excellent for helping your elderly family member to improve range of motion in her major muscle groups. She can also become more flexible overall if she sticks with a swimming workout.
Swimming Is Low Impact Exercise
High impact exercise tends to be a bad idea for aging adults, mainly because it’s tough on joints. Because water supports your senior’s weight, she’s able to use the resistance of the water to move her body, gain muscle, and get a great workout. She’s likely to experience far less pain with swimming than with other types of exercise.
Swimming Can Help with Balance Issues
When your elderly family member swims, she works all of her muscle groups. That means that her core muscles are working just as much as the muscles in her arms and legs. Whether she’s swimming laps or doing water aerobics, that means that she’s improving her balance and her ability to remain stable on her feet, even when she’s on land.
Swimming Is Cardio, Too
Swimming is an aerobic exercise, which means that it’s a form of cardio exercise. Your senior’s heart and lungs get a workout and become stronger. This is terrific if your senior has high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, or other cardiovascular issues. Make sure that she talks with her doctor about how much exercise is right for her before she starts her swimming workouts, just to make sure she sticks within her guidelines.
Starting an exercise program that includes swimming can be lifechanging for your senior. You might be surprised to find a public pool in your area that is welcoming to swimmers of all ages. If transportation is a concern, hiring home care providers to take your senior to the pool to work out is a great option. They can also offer companionship and other types of assistance to your elderly family member.
