For seniors: Leg-strengthening exercises you can do without overexertion.
Strengthening the muscles in your legs increases the ability to support daily activities and helps prevent falls.
However, overexertion can cause injuries, so it’s important to start with low-impact exercises.
Here, we introduce simple and effective leg-strengthening exercises that older adults can do without strain.
These safe methods use items like chairs and walls, making them easy to perform at home.
Begin little by little, keep it enjoyable, and aim to maintain healthy daily habits!
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- [For Seniors] Balance-Training Exercises: Preventing Falls
- [For Seniors] Stretching Exercises: Easy and Safe to Do
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- [For Seniors] Recommended exercises to relieve constipation.
- For seniors: Enjoyable stick exercises. Easy workouts.
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[For Seniors] Leg-strengthening exercises you can do without overexertion (21–30)
toe exercises
It’s said that strengthening the gripping power of your feet can also help prevent falls.
There are even experimental results showing that older adults who had fallen had about 20% weaker grip strength than those who hadn’t.
With that in mind, here are some exercises to train your toes.
By strengthening your toes to grip the floor, you can improve stability when standing and walking.
While seated, try opening and closing your toes like making a fist, or place a towel on the floor in front of you and scrunch it toward you with your feet.
Since these exercises can be done while sitting, they’re easy to fit into small pockets of free time.
Give them a try!
Leg-swing exercises to strengthen the lower body and hips
Some older adults may feel their legs and lower back are getting weaker.
Many might think that walking is good for this and may already be going for walks.
However, simply walking without paying attention doesn’t provide much training effect for the legs.
So here are exercises that can specifically strengthen the legs and hips.
Hold onto a chair and extend one leg back, or place one foot on the seat of the chair and press your chest toward it.
These moves help strengthen the glutes and the front of the thighs.
As walking becomes easier, your range of activities can expand and you’ll likely be able to do more.
For older adults, this can also increase enjoyment and contribute to better health both mentally and physically.
front lunge
While it’s natural for muscles to weaken with age, losing the ability to walk can seriously impact daily life.
So this time, we’d like to introduce an exercise that strengthens the thigh and glute muscles, which is effective for preventing falls.
The movement is simple: take a big step forward with one foot, keep your back straight as you lower your hips, then return slowly.
Alternate legs as you repeat the movement.
If taking a large step feels uncomfortable, it’s fine to start with a smaller stride.
By continuing this exercise, you’ll strengthen the muscles that help maintain balance, which leads to more stable walking.
Try to keep it up within a comfortable range for you.
Indoor walking exercise
You probably already know that walking is good for your health, but some of you may find it a hassle to actually go outside.
So today, we’ll introduce indoor walking exercises you can do at home.
Do each move for one set of 30 seconds, but be sure not to overexert yourself and adjust to your condition.
The routine focuses on various steps: marching in place, moving forward and backward while marching, side steps, and kick-ups while marching.
It may feel challenging enough to get you breathing harder, but if possible, try to keep moving without stopping.
Because it’s aerobic exercise, it will boost the benefits of walking.
Give it a try!
Toe strength training
If you feel like you’re getting more unsteady when you stand up or start walking, the cause might be that your weight is centered on your heels.
This time, we’ll introduce toe-strength exercises that help firmly support your body, along with exercises to prevent your center of gravity from shifting backward.
Prepare a chair and stand facing it.
Place your feet shoulder-width apart and perform a forward-bending motion as if to touch the chair seat, 10 times.
Be careful not to bend your knees.
Next is a glute exercise.
Stand with your heels and thighs together, tighten your buttocks, and then move your hips forward and backward while keeping them engaged.
You’ll see better results if you continue regularly, so try to do these consciously.
Ankle flexibility exercises
If your stride is short and you take quick, tiny steps when you walk, your ankles might be stiff.
So this time, we’ll introduce stretches to loosen up the ankle area.
First, use a desk or the back of a chair to stretch your calves.
Do it slowly on both sides, without overexerting yourself.
Next, focus on the ankles.
While holding onto the back of a chair as before, lift your toes as if stretching your calves, then tilt your foot to the side.
You should feel the muscles around your ankle stretching.
You can get a similar effect by placing your foot on a chair and pressing down as if you were stepping on a car’s accelerator.
To get your ankles working, it’s also important to support your body by moving it forward and backward while actively moving your toes and heels.
These exercises are simple, but you can expect results if you keep at them.
365-Step March: Singing Exercise
This is about moving your body energetically to the tune of Kiyoko Suizenji’s classic song “365-Step March.” The lyrics, which give the impression of walking forward with vigor, are striking, so let’s proceed with a special focus on marching-in-place movements.
Overall, the routine emphasizes clear rhythm, so feel the beat of the music and make large, dynamic movements.
Whether you’re standing or sitting in a chair, maintaining proper posture is important for loosening up your body.
