For those in their 80s and counting, the key is to keep moving.
Dallas resident Mary Bennett follows instructor Angela White during a chair exercise session at Park South Family YMCA in Dallas.When you are in your 80s or your 90s, or perhaps your 70s or 60s, you may think your exercise train has left the station and you’re perfectly happy not to be on board.
In New York, she regularly walked two miles on a bike path near her apartment and practiced yoga in a class and at home.“Every morning, I’d do a salutation to the sun, just to connect all the body points and joints and wake my body up,” she says. “Then I had a knee operation and haven’t been able to do that. So I asked myself, ‘What can I do now? How much? How little?’"
“I do stretches, a little running in place, plus sitting and standing with my arms folded or stretched out in front of me. When I was a kid, I used to double Dutch jump rope. I don’t have a rope, but I try to use those steps to get my body working.”“I love the feeling of movement, and I love the feeling that I’m taking care of my body. In my younger years, I took it for granted. Now I can appreciate what a wonderful instrument the body is; I’ve come to respect it more than ever.
When Mary Bennett moved to the neighborhood she calls home in 1983, she was delighted the Park South Family YMCA was only three blocks away. “I have friends I try to get to exercise,” she says, “but they just talk about their ailments and have a woe-is-me attitude. I tell them even if they don’t want to be with a group, maybe they can get together with a neighbor who’s home like they are. I tell them, ‘You can walk up one side of the street and down the other.’"“Exercise makes you feel better about yourself,” she says. “About life. About living.
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