10 Core Exercises for Seniors to Build Strength, Posture, and Independence (with Videos)

00:00:04 Chair yoga can improve your flexibility and strength while boosting your mood and lowering stress and it can be done wherever there is a chair. Jenny is here to demonstrate. Turn sideways and hold the back of your chair with each hand. Keep your hips steady and with a long spine slowly twist to the back of your chair using your arms as resistance. Breathe deeply. Twists are neutralizing poses that could be calming, if you feel agitated or stimulating, if you feel dull. They also detoxify the organs 00:00:39 and glands. Now turn forward. Cross one ankle on the opposite thigh and flex that ankle. Gently arch your lower spine and then forward until you feel a stretch in your outer hip. Hold as long as you want Inhale to rise and change for the other side.

00:00:00 this exercise is the straight leg raise it's going to work the muscles in the front part of our upper leg and it's also going to work some of our lower abdominal muscles in our trunk area Polly's gonna sit on the chair and sit upright on the front edge of it I'm going to stay upright but I'm going to sit back a little bit it's just a little bit more comfortable for me to execute but I'm still going to keep my trunk nice and straight and upright all right we're gonna pull our toe in straighten our leg out 00:00:29 órale raise the leg hold and then release we want to keep our leg straight through the whole range of motion touch lightly and then lift it again try to go so that you're at least parallel to the other leg if you can get a little bit higher go there squeeze hold and then release the top part of this exercise is very important to contracting the muscles that we are trying to isolate on this exercise movement keep our toes coming towards us squeeze hold release excellent job touch lately the heel two 00:01:13 more reps with this leg squeeze release last rep up hold release very good we're going to change legs straighten the left leg out bring it up hold release touch lately again if we can get it a little bit higher than the opposite leg that's even better we're isolating the quadriceps or lower abdominal muscles through this range of motion and Polly is exhaling inhaling as she's doing the exercise movement she doesn't want to hold her breath through the range of movement here squeeze very good she's doing an excellent job of 00:01:53 squeezing at the top of this to contract the muscles that we're trying to isolate that's critical you don't want to come up and just let it go we want to hold all right two more repetitions excellent excellent job here squeeze one more hold release very good that's our straight leg raise you

00:00:00 sit down with good posture draw your belly button inwards towards the back of the chair slightly and tilt the pelvis backwards I.E flatten the spine against the chair return to the start position arching your back known as Lumar L dois this exercise strengthens the Deep abdominal muscles and improves core control

00:00:00 welcome to this gay exercise confident video I'm with will and we're going to talking to the Russian twist which is a really great core stabilizing exercise we're gonna talk you through the different progressions of the Russian twist and it's really important that you make sure you're confident with each progression before you move on to the next one so well so we get started and show us the first progression brilliant brilliant so the positioning of this exercise is you sit up wium flex our knees to about00:00:32 45 degrees and keep our heels on the floor we lean back ever so slightly we make sure our back is nice and straight so we have a plumb line coming up our back we put our arms out in front of us and what we're doing with this exercise is letting the weight of our arms fall from side to side just like that keeping our belly button pointing forward the entire time this is perfect was demonstrating accidently common mistakes that we've seen with this exercise what we're moving on to now so the first00:01:01 mistake people go through is with a really hunched back so was going to hunch your shoulders forwards and then move his arms from side to side and this isn't great because we've lost that nice straight cut that nice straight line of her back we've got this curve in this place let's deactivate some of the core muscles and it means the exercise isn't quite as efficient so it was now going to correct this by imagining a plumb line keeping us back nice and straight brilliant the second most common mistake00:01:25 that we see is that rather than moving the weight of our arms just from side to side keeping our belly button forward what we see is people rotating their entire lower back coming all the way across with their belly button moving from side to side as well so I was not going to demonstrate this so as you can see his lower back was rotating as he does his exercise and his belly button rather than pointing forward he started to point from side to side just like this this isn't great because we're not00:01:50 actively engaging our core which is lefting a lot of that do the rotation than having to pull ourselves back to a neutral position so was now going to demonstrate in perfect position so his belly buttons pointing forwards he's only moving his arms as far as though his belly button doesn't move across and he's moving back to neutral perfect excellence and ours going to move on to progression too which was going to demonstrate now it's very similar to the first progression perfect brilliant so as you can see the00:02:20 difference with this progression is that his feet are no longer on the floor they're up a few inches off the ground this means that we engaged both the upper and the lower abdominal muscles in order to keep this nice v-shaped posture again it's important to have them really straight back and arms out at a couple of lessons in front of you so what's going to demonstrate this now move side to side perfect and perfect the mistakes for this a very similar to the second progression whereby you don't want to00:02:46 over rotate with your lower back like this and you don't want to hunch your shoulders forward like this so now the perfect position again and finally one out of the extra mistake that we often see because our legs aren't anchored on the floor what happens is that as we move from side to side our legs move the opposite way so as to counterbalance the weight of our arms now doing this we're not actively engaging the bottom of us our bottom of our abdominal muscles which is letting our legs do the work00:03:12 and and counterbalance the weight so was going to demonstrate this now so you can see his legs are moving from side to side as he does this so now if he does it with perfect technique him his legs nice and still he's really using his core to keep stable and keep balance excellent we're going to relax a really nice progression of the Russian twist is to do it with weight in our hands out in front of us now how much weight you have depends on your abilities and how strong you're feeling but one of the really00:03:42 common mistakes that we see with this is that people when they go from side to side they put the weight down and then pick it back up again and then put the weights down and pick it back up of them and this is actually a really common mistake because when we do this we've disengaged and destabilize the core muscles that were using to work - the important thing with this exercise when we do it is that we use the same the same motion as in the second progression whereby we only move our arms the weight of our arms to the side00:04:06 until our belly button stops start stops pointing forwards as soon as it starts to move to the side you've gone too far and you're rotating your lower spine so again just keep it to the center make sure your belly button points for with the entire time and keeps your core nice and strong thanks for watching let's get exercise confident video

00:00:04 sitting arm circles to first start in the seated position you want to sit on the edge of your chair create a nice arch in your low back so you're sitting nice and tall bringing the ear shoulder and hip in perfect alignment from the front view our ankle knee hip and shoulder in alignment so that creates the space we need and then what she's going to do is she's going to go ahead and touch the tips of her fingers to the pads of her hand and she's going to reach her arms and extend them fully out locking the elbows00:00:30 out so when she does this this creates a little bit more extension in the spine and it works the back muscles and is putting more extension in the thoracic spine as well and then she's just going to go ahead and do some circles forward as directed by your practitioner and how many so we're working the shoulder joint reestablishing the way the shoulder joint articulates getting some movement in the scapula really getting that thoracic extension strengthening the back muscles shoulder stabilization and then she's00:00:58 going to after she does it she's going to reverse her finger her hands so she's getting external rotation now in the humerus before she had medial rotation so you're getting a little bit more opening in the chest and repeat as directed by your practitioner for sitting arm circles

00:00:01 foreign [Music] with your feet shoulder width apart bring your right elbow forward at the same time as you bring your left knee up repeat on the opposite side by bringing your left elbow forward at the same time as you bring your right knee up continue to alternate these steps and try to bring your knees up to a comfortable height throughout the exercise keep your upper body upright and core engaged [Music] marching in place is a low impact exercise which helps to burn calories therefore it is ideally suited for 00:01:00 incorporating into a training program for beginners and older adults this exercise can also be added to warm-up routines as it helps to increase heart rate loosening of hip sockets and warming up hip flexors and shoulder muscles thanks for watching this video if you have enjoyed this video don't forget to like and comment to watch more videos like these please subscribe to our Channel and turn on the notification

00:00:04 for standing heel raises you want to grab the back of a chair for balance and you want to push up onto all five of your toes and lift your heels off the floor you want to hold this position for about five to ten seconds and repeat this for ten to twenty times make sure not to feel pain and also make sure not to lean your body forward just push up straight towards the ceiling [Music]

00:00:02 [Music] the name of this exercise is called single leg balance the purpose of this exercise is to strengthen the muscles of the leg that are going to improve your stability and balance to perform this exercise you'll stand on a flat stable surface on one leg having a slight Bend in your knee and hip you might want to use your arm for support when first trying this exercise standing on one leg with a slight Bend in your knee trying to maintain this position without your knee deviating in or out you will try to maintain this 00:00:41 position for 30 to 60 seconds to further progress this exercise or to make it more challenging you may want to stand on an unstable surface such as a foam [Music] pad

00:00:01 The next exercise involves performing push-ups against a wall to strengthen your shoulder, elbow, and chest muscles. Stand with your feet away from the wall and your hands at shoulder height against the wall. Push through the hands to straighten the elbows and then bend the elbows. Try to stay on your toes with the body perfectly still with no movement in the shoulder blades. The only moving parts are the elbows. Common mistakes for this exercise involve dropping your chest and hips towards the wall and moving the shoulder blades00:00:37 together. In this clip you can see that the body is not maintaining the straight neutral alignment. Another mistake is letting your pelvis move backward and your shoulders coming together or coming apart too much. Avoid excessive shoulder blade motion throughout this exercise.

00:00:01 - Side plank raises, modified. So here you're up against a wall. You're gonna raise up your arm so that your elbow is against the arm, and then you're gonna step away till you have a nice little lean into the wall. From here, you're gonna dip into the wall, and then from here, you're strengthening the outer part of the thigh and the hip rotators. So you're going in, and you're going out, you're going in, and you're going out. You're gonna do 10 of these. And then you're gonna repeat it on the other side.00:00:30 So these are called the side plank raises, modified.