[Seated] Fun Health Exercises for Older Adults and Seniors
More and more people are finding their bodies tire easily and feel they’re spending longer periods sitting in a chair.
Some of you may be wondering, “Is there any training I can do while seated?” In this article, we introduce enjoyable health exercises you can do while sitting! We’ve compiled easy activities for everyday life, including strength training you can do from a seated position and brain-training exercises.
Be sure to try incorporating them as recreational activities in nursing care facilities as well!
- [For Seniors] Fun Exercises You Can Do While Seated
- For seniors: Enjoyable exercises done while seated, accessible for wheelchair users.
- [For Seniors] Enjoyable and Healthy Chair Stretches!
- [For Seniors] Easy and Fun Core Training
- [Today's Recommendation] Gentle Health Exercises for Seniors
- [For Seniors] Fun Recreational Activities Without Equipment
- Hand games that liven things up for seniors—also great brain training
- Cognicise you can do while seated. Simple dementia prevention.
- [For Seniors] Enjoyable While Seated! Ball Exercises and Recreation
- [Enjoy Safely While Seated] Newspaper Activities Recommended for Seniors
- [For Seniors] Recommended Easy Strength Training
- [Brain Training for Seniors] Recommended Hand-Play Recreation for Dementia Prevention
- Recommended Indoor Exercises for Seniors
[Seated Exercises] A Fun Collection of Health Exercises for Older Adults and Seniors (41–50)
Full-body cold prevention exercises
When blood circulation worsens, your body tends to get cold more easily.
So this time, we’ll introduce a “whole-body cold-prevention exercise” using a ball that you can do while sitting in a chair.
First, keep marching your feet to a rhythm and add the motion of lifting a ball held with both hands up and diagonally up.
Next, while marching, extend one foot forward and simultaneously thrust the ball forward.
By coordinating the ball-thrusting with your leg movements, you promote hand–foot coordination, which helps activate the brain.
It’s a simple exercise you can do without strain that not only improves whole-body chilliness but also helps prevent dementia and maintain muscle strength.
Highly recommended.
Improve cold sensitivity! Exercises to make your fingers easier to move
Finger movements are essential for smooth daily living and also contribute to safety when holding objects.
This exercise focuses on consciously engaging finger movements to promote circulation and activate the brain.
The routine isn’t complicated: while paying close attention to which part of the hand you’re touching, rub one hand with the other.
By alternating which hand you touch, you can carefully check the sensations in both hands and connect that awareness to smoother, more coordinated movement.
Posture-correcting ball exercises
Here’s a recommended idea for those concerned about a hunched back or body sway: “Posture-Aligning Ball Exercises.” First, place a ball between your knees and slowly tilt your pelvis forward and backward.
Engaging your inner thighs and abdominal muscles helps stabilize the pelvis, naturally lengthening your spine and improving posture.
Next, sit shallowly on a chair with your feet flat on the floor, and move the ball up and down with your feet; this stimulates the core and muscles around the hips, enhancing balance.
Furthermore, if you keep the ball between your legs and alternately lift your legs, it helps strengthen the abdominal and thigh muscles.
All movements are slow and low-impact, and with consistency, you can expect improvements in posture.
Exercise collection specialized in improving hand and finger movements
This is an exercise where you perform various finger movements in sequence, checking how your fingers move while aiming for smoother motion.
The routine progresses from overall movements to examining each finger’s motion one by one, gradually becoming more complex, which can also be expected to stimulate the brain.
If you find a movement that doesn’t go as you intend, focus on that one to work toward improving your finger control.
It’s also recommended to do the exercises to the rhythm of a children’s song or similar music, as it helps you keep time while you practice.
Fun brain-activating exercises to the rhythm of stepping
If you want to enjoy brain-activating exercises with a marching rhythm, ball exercises are recommended.
First, repeatedly extend the ball forward with one hand while lifting the opposite leg, alternating sides.
Once you get used to it, change the direction from forward to upward, coordinating your hands and feet in the same way.
Finally, match the rhythm by extending the hand opposite the lifted leg forward, forward, up, up—two times each.
This exercise requires changes in tempo and hand-foot coordination, providing strong stimulation to the brain and helping maintain concentration and reflexes.
It can be done while seated, making it easy for older adults to adopt, and it’s convenient to start with just a single ball from a 100-yen shop.
The Itomaki (Spool Winding) Song Using Rubber Bands
This exercise aims to make finger movements smoother by stretching a rubber band with both hands and moving it from finger to finger.
Maintaining strength is important to keep the band well stretched, so sustaining effort while moving adds complexity that also helps stimulate the brain.
If you coordinate the movement of shifting the rubber band with a song—such as the children’s song “Ito Maki”—and proceed rhythmically, it will further improve smoothness.
We also recommend starting with patterns that move the band to the same finger on both hands, then gradually shifting the positions to make the patterns more complex over time.
If Kamepatakara Song Exercise
https://www.tiktok.com/@rizumicalgass/video/7053507212525784322Why not try some mouth-area exercises to the tune of the children’s song “Usagi to Kame” (The Hare and the Tortoise), which every Japanese person has heard? It’s simple: change the lyrics “Moshi moshi kame yo” to the syllables pa-ta-ka-ra and vocalize them.
Once you get used to it and feel more comfortable, add hand claps or foot stomps.
Doing multiple movements at the same time turns it into a dual task, which can also help train your brain.
You can do it anywhere, and doing it before meals is especially effective for preventing aspiration.