Let's extend our healthy lifespan! Care exercises to stay active and energetic forever
As we get older, it can become harder to move our bodies, and we may feel our stamina declining.
Some of you might be thinking, “I want to take preventive steps before my body becomes less mobile.”
In this article, we introduce exercise routines for elderly adults to help maintain a healthy body!
We’ll cover a wide range of exercises—from simple routines you can do while seated to slightly more challenging ones.
Use these ideas as fun ways to extend healthy life expectancy, perfect for day services or recreational activities in care facilities!
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Extend your healthy lifespan! Care-giving exercises to stay energetic forever (61–70)
Just-sleep stretching
If you can incorporate training into ordinary everyday movements, you can work on it whenever you notice and easily improve your body.
This is a perfect training method for those who aren’t good at focusing on workouts: simply changing the way you lie down will benefit your back muscles.
All you do is place a pillow under your shoulder blades when you lie down, raise your arms, and gently sway them—this alone helps loosen the muscles in your back.
By directing your attention to arching your back, it also seems likely to lead to better posture and improvements in rounded shoulders.
A slightly hard full-body ball exercise
This exercise lets you thoroughly train your whole body by moving a rubber ball using not only your arms but also your legs.
Because it engages the entire body, be mindful of controlling your breathing and maintaining proper posture to avoid injury.
Alternating between upper- and lower-body movements—such as pressing the ball with your hands or gripping and lifting it with your feet—allows you to proceed while giving parts of your body brief rests.
It may also be helpful to include guidance during each segment of the program on which muscles to focus on.
Spring Song Exercise
When we listen to songs like “Haru no Ogawa” and “Sakura Sakura,” we picture the warm, sunny weather of spring.
Let’s try doing some exercises to these spring songs.
As you sing, clap your hands and lift your legs.
Many children’s songs are likely familiar to older adults, too.
It’s said that recalling and singing the lyrics of songs you know can also serve as a workout for the brain.
For older adults who find it difficult to move their legs, just the hand motions are perfectly fine.
Please participate within the range you can manage.
Aiube exercises while singing
Here is an introduction to the “Ai-U-Be Exercise,” which comes with lyrics and hand movements.
The Ai-U-Be Exercise is designed to improve breathing from mouth breathing to nasal breathing.
You can do it while seated and practically anywhere, so many senior care facilities may have adopted it.
By switching to nasal breathing, germs can be trapped in the nose, and moistened air can be sent into the body.
Repeating a set—such as 10 repetitions—several times helps strengthen the tongue and enables the mouth to stay closed.
For older adults, an exercise that includes simple lyrics and hand choreography makes it easier to try several times to music.
The movements can be done while seated, helping to move the body and promote overall blood circulation.
Exercise Song Collection: Masterpieces of the Showa Era
This is an exercise done while seated, moving your body slowly yet deliberately to various classic Showa-era songs.
For “March of 365 Steps,” use big hand movements and marching steps; for “North Country Spring,” switch to finger exercises—change the movements with each song.
As the songs change, the size of the movements will also change, so it’s important to stay mindful of which part of the body to focus on.
While enjoying the rhythm of the music, the most important thing is to concentrate on moving each specific part of your body.
Mito Komon Exercise
This is an exercise routine that moves the whole body to the theme song of Mito Kōmon, a staple of period dramas.
Because it uses a song everyone knows, the music itself is enjoyable.
Despite its powerful feel, the song’s gentle tempo is another key point; moving your body while catching the rhythm helps you generate strength.
Once you get used to moving along with the music, doing it while singing is also recommended, as it is expected to help improve cognitive function.
Exercises to prevent a hunched back
To strengthen your back muscles, it’s important to move your shoulders.
If you can move them properly, it will help support correct posture and also improve rounded shoulders.
This is a training routine you can do while seated, slowly moving the muscles around your shoulder blades.
Follow a sequence that supports shoulder movement with coordinated arm and torso actions, and take your time to rotate your shoulders slowly.
It’s also important to proceed while exhaling slowly—relaxing will help increase your shoulder’s range of motion.