[For Seniors] Strengthen Your Legs! Recommended Training Items
Some older adults find that their legs don’t feel as strong as they age.
With that in mind, here are some recommended training items to help strengthen your legs.
Daily exercise and training are important for building leg strength.
However, many people start exercising suddenly and end up giving up halfway because they can’t keep up physically.
Begin with training you can continue without overexerting yourself.
Use this article as a reference when choosing your training items.
- [For Seniors] Recreational activities and games that let you have fun while strengthening your legs
- For Seniors: Strength Training You Can Do While Lying Down
- [Recommended for seniors] Rejuvenating Rock-Paper-Scissors Exercise
- [For Seniors] DIY Rehabilitation Aids: A Collection of Easy-to-Make Ideas
- [For Seniors] Build a Healthy Body Indoors! Recommended Exercise Equipment
- [Today's Recommendation] Gentle Health Exercises for Seniors
- For seniors: Enjoyable exercises done while seated, accessible for wheelchair users.
- [With Video] Lower-limb strength training for seniors that can be done in bed
- [For Seniors] Core Training: Recommended Simple Rehabilitation
- Recommended Events for a Sports Day at Day Service Centers for the Elderly
- [For Seniors] Fun Exercises You Can Do While Seated
- [For Seniors] Leg and lower-back training: Fall prevention
- [For Seniors] Let's Enjoy Exercising with a Towel!
[For Seniors] Strengthen Your Legs! Recommended Training Items (41–50)
walking exercises
Have them focus on lower-body movement with a motion like marching in place.
To train effectively with light intensity, it’s important to do it while seated in a chair.
Instead of jumping straight into the marching exercise, start by loosening the legs with movements like lifting and drawing the knees in, and rotating the hip joints.
Good posture and movements beyond the legs matter too—keep the back straight and swing the arms broadly while marching.
Pay attention to the rhythm of the movement and proceed while regulating your breathing.
Foot muscle training with a towel
An exercise to strengthen the muscles of the feet using a towel.
One appealing point is how easy it is—just prepare a towel.
Sit in a chair, spread the towel at your feet, and move it using your feet.
Focus on toe movements: pulling the towel toward you with your toes and folding the towel with your toes.
By paying attention not only to the overall muscles of the feet but also to the toes, you can improve the power of your walking.
If you’re not used to it, your toes may be hard to move at first, so take your time and get used to it slowly.
Gluteus medius training
As we get older, it inevitably becomes harder to maintain our balance.
For older adults who feel their balance has been declining lately, I recommend training the gluteus medius.
You can do it standing, and it’s a routine you can continue without overexertion, so it’s reassuring.
Strengthening the mid-gluteal area helps stabilize your walking and can reduce the risk of falls.
The exercises I’m introducing today can be done a little each day, so they’re easy on the body.
Hold onto a chair or something stable, and move one leg at a time.
Walking balance practice
Falls are especially likely to occur while walking, and those automatic, half-conscious movements increase the risk.
This session slightly modifies and makes the act of walking more challenging, aiming to improve everyday walking balance.
You’ll place your stepping foot and bend your knee in ways different from usual, then take small steps while maintaining balance in that unstable position.
Another key point is to keep your upper body upright so the effort transfers properly to your muscles as you move forward.
Stretches to make walking easier
This is an exercise you can do while seated, moving your feet thoroughly to loosen the calf muscles and ankles.
Loosening the calves—often called the “second heart”—helps improve overall blood circulation, and making ankle movements smoother can lead to easier walking and help prevent falls.
The routine involves repeating motions such as alternately lifting the toes and heels, and opening the feet inward and outward in turn, so you can get a feel for how the ankles move.
It’s also recommended to include movements that lift the entire foot upward to bring awareness to the whole lower body.
Hip joint movement
Smoothing the movement of the hip joints leads to the lifting motion of the legs, which is essential for walking.
These are exercises that strengthen the hips to support healthy everyday walking.
The key is that they can be done easily while seated in a chair, making them simple to incorporate into daily life.
The movements are straightforward—such as extending the legs and bending the body forward—while maintaining clear awareness of engaging the hip joints.
It’s also important to focus on using the chair for support and moving in ways that prevent injury.
Kneeling balance practice
In our usual way of standing, we might hold onto something, but we rarely pay attention to the finer details.
This exercise intentionally makes your stance unstable so you can become aware of the muscles you use when standing and improve your balance.
Slowly move into a kneeling position, and from an upright kneel, shift your weight to one side at a time while paying attention to which muscles you’re engaging.
Since kneeling and maintaining balance can be difficult, use a chair for support or try other methods that make it easier as you go.