Exercises to Build a Boomer's Strength

I am back from PEI, Joyce, my personal trainer from Goodlife sent me an email to remind me of my training session with her. I am glad that Joyce is my personal trainer because she is cheerful, responsible and most important of all she motivates me and challenges me to do exercises that I would not normally do or able to achieve myself. I realize that as a Boomer, exercise must be a part of my life otherwise I will lose my strength. A workshop we went to by a physiotherapist warned us that a boomer loses on the average 10% of our muscle. Therefore, if we don't exercise, after a few years, boomers could become very weak as they have lost a lot of their body's muscles. This explains why a lot of older folks cannot open cans or bottles with their hands because they are too weak to do so. This is precisely the reason I have joint a fitness club- to prevent becoming so weak that I become dependent on others.

Goblet Squat

My first day back form my holiday and I thought Joyce would go easy on me. Nope! She pushed me on and taught me three new exercises in today's session.

1. Goblet Squat - I had to squat 12x and hold a 12.5 lb of iron in my hand as if I was holding a goblet.

Farmer's Carry

2. Farmer's Carry - I started carrying a 15 lb iron on each hand for 1 minute, then I progressed to walking with the weight on both hands. When Joyce saw that it was easy for me. She increased the wt. to 20 lbs and I had to carry the wt. walking back and forth the full length of the training area once, then twice and trice.

3. Step up with weight - Joyce set up the step board using 4 plastic support blocks on each end and a long one on top. She showed me how to pick up the  2 dumb bells with each hand and step onto the step properly. It was not too bad stepping on the steps but when I had to carry the weight plus stepping on the step, it was not easy.

It was difficult towards the end, but Joyce kept encouraging me to finish it and I persisted and did it!  Final count: I stepped on 5 step blocks height with 20 lb on each hand, not bad, eh?

My fingers felt loosen up and much better as if the strength of my fingers were starting to come back. Maybe I could twist open the bottle caps myself without any help.  A taste of my youthful days again!

R.T., T.O.
July 3, 2012
Picture Source - Google