Pilates for Seniors: Enhance Mobility, Stability, and Quality of Life

Trying to stay healthy is a challenge that can grow more difficult with age. Your body is wearing down and the high-impact, intense exercises you performed before may no longer be an option. Exercise is not only still a must, but it’s also arguably even more critical with age. Staying active has an innumerable list of benefits that will help you stay vital throughout your life.

But if the exercises you’ve participated in are less likely an option due to your advancing age, what to do? Thankfully, there are several exercises that, while less intense than a day at the gym, still offer a potent exercise that will help you stay mobile and retain or even enhance your quality of life.

One of the most important forms of exercise you can look to is pilates. This low-impact, easy-to-perform exercise regimen is a must for seniors. With the aid of pilates, you’ll achieve a wide range of benefits that will help you maintain both physical and mental health to attain a higher standard of life longer. Pilates for seniors is a must for making sure your health stays prime.

What is Pilates?

To understand the benefits of pilates for seniors, you first must answer this question: what is pilates? Broadly speaking, pilates is a series of exercises designed to benefit both the body and the mind. These exercises—originally called Contrology by the founder of the method, Joseph Pilates—work to strengthen the body’s core and increase flexibility through exercises, many of which use apparatuses to enhance the body.

Reformer Pilates

There are several different methods of pilates for seniors to enjoy. One of the most popular is reformer pilates. This method, often taught in reformer pilates classes, uses the reformer machine which consists of a bed and a platform. In reformer pilates classes, exercisers work to push and pull themselves in resistance exercises. With reformer pilates, you get a more intensive exercise than you’ll receive from traditional mat exercises. Consider reformer pilates among other options for your workout. 

Regardless of what option you choose, you’ll find many benefits in pilates for seniors. Here is a guide to just some of the reasons to consider this exercise regimen:

Enhance Your Posture

One of the most important steps you can achieve with pilates is improved posture. Pilates is built to improve your posture by strengthening the muscles around your spine. The reclining nature of pilates exercises helps you to correct the curvature of a spine that has warped over time. This benefit was one of the key reasons pilates was developed in the first place. It’s a key benefit for seniors.

Improved Stability

One of the most essential reasons to consider pilates for seniors is the way it improves your stability. Seniors are prone to falling. These falls can be quite dangerous with serious injuries like broken bones and head injuries occurring. Pilates teaches you smaller movements, which leads to increased control over your body. With better control, you’ll stay stable and avoid falls.

Increased Strength and Flexibility

A core reason to engage in exercise at any age is to improve your strength and loosen up your body. Pilates is a great way to work on this. Unfortunately, we lose 3-5% of our muscle mass each decade over the age of 30. Through pilates, it’s possible to regain much of what was lost. 

A reformer pilates class is a particularly effective way to achieve this goal. While caution is a must when adding strength training (due to the risk of injury), with proper care, you’ll improve your health. These movements will help you loosen up and gain increased flexibility. 

Strengthening Mobility

For seniors, mobility is everything. With a full range of mobility, it’s easier to stay independent for much longer than without. Unfortunately, modern sedentary life only makes the ability to remain mobile harder with time. Furthermore, the natural effects of aging such as reduced mobile and bone mass leading to joint restriction.

Through the low-impact exercises of pilates, you’ll improve your joints. Pilates is a great way to carefully build increased mobility as the simple exercises allow you to feel your body’s movements, only expanding at your rate. Your mobility will improve naturally as you get used to looser movements.

Better Breathing

The importance of breathing is often overlooked. Quality breathing can boost your health in several ways. With breathing, oxygen is distributed to all parts of your body through blood flow. Increased oxygen will keep you healthier and more alert throughout the day, improving your state of mind and quality of life throughout your day. Pilates is a great way to ensure your breathing is at its strongest. Pilates offers quality exercises designed to help you breathe deeper and more naturally.

Improved Mental Health

Ultimately, the strongest benefit of pilates for seniors is the effect it has on your mind. Joseph Pilates designed the exercises to connect both mind and body. With pilates, you’ll gain an increased sense of focus through the attention the exercise puts on your body. The exercises train you to breathe stronger, increasing your cognition. But one of the simplest benefits is the way pilates is a great way to release stress. Through exercise, you’ll burn off negative energy and learn to relax. With a stronger mind, you’ll have a longer and higher quality of life.

Pilates is a great way to stay strong as an older individual. Be it a beginner class or a reformer pilates class, you’ll find exercises for whatever your needs are. Pilates for seniors will improve your life greatly.

If you’re wondering where to start, look to Absolute Pilates. Located in South Central Pennsylvania, we offer a number of different classes at all different levels. To start your pilates journey, check out our site today and see what we can do for you.