Low impact exercises is beneficial for seniors as it helps in stretching and strengthening muscles, thereby reducing stress and preventing injury. It also helps in lowering one’s blood pressure.

Let us look at some of the exercises for seniors that are low impact and can be performed by them easily.

Walking
It is one of the best low impact exercises, and takes very little planning to get started. It is easy on the joints and they can keep up with this routine until very late in life. For a beneficial walking routine, make sure that you have the right pair of shoes that you feel comfortable wearing. While you are walking, focus on the posture. Walk with your back straightened and shoulders rolled back. Begin walking for small distance and gradually increase the duration by a couple of minutes.

Swimming
This exercise helps in increasing endurance and flexibility. Water helps in relieving stress on the bones and joints. As compared to other endurance exercises, swimming helps in conditioning your whole body. You can make this exercise a fun routine by trying different styles of swimming that help in conditioning different muscle groups of the body.

Stretching
Stretching is a very important part of exercise no matter what workout one follows. Stretching is one of the exercise for seniors that specifically helps in improving the range of motion and flexibility in the body. Make sure you are doing the stretches properly to avoid any injury. All you need to feel is the gentle pull on the muscle as you stretch. Take slow deep breaths as you hold. Be very cautious that over stretching can lead to a muscle pull.

Water aerobics
It is one of those cardiovascular exercises that also involves strength training. The water’s resistance helps strengthening your muscles as you move. It is a low-impact, full body exercises for seniors. It is a misconception among seniors and otherwise that to take part in water aerobics, one must be able to swim. The fact is, water aerobics takes place in shallow waters which is waist and chest deep, thus swimming is not a requirement.

Yoga
many seniors shy away from yoga as they envision yoga classes as room full of people performing contoured and impossible positions that their body would never abide. You can always try those poses that focus more on stretching and flexibility. Perform yoga poses in the presence of a qualified, well trained yoga instructor who will help in guiding the seniors with alternate positions that they won’t find any trouble performing.

It is completely imperative that you talk to your healthcare provider before starting any of these new low impact exercises if you are suffering from any medical or physical condition.