Fitness for seniors? We're not seniors in our minds or bodies, but marketers still haven't caught on

Fitness for seniors is not a term we prefer. Unfortunately a lot of marketers haven't caught on yet that we're not seniors, not in our minds, and often not in our bodies. So they blithely call people over 50 "seniors". If we use the term doing internet searches, we find a lot of valuable information about the 50 + years.

But our parents’ generation didn’t usually put those terms together either – fitness for seniors. After all, did your parents go to the gym?

A few years ago it was very rare to see the older generation in the gym. The retirement years were supposed to be the years where you took it easy.

But today’s over fifty crowd has a whole new take on fitness in the second fifty years. First of all, we don't think of ourselves as seniors. And second of all, we don't plan to age the same way our parents aged.

We still believe firmly that we can become fit if we aren’t already that way. It’s just a matter of putting our minds to it, and then we will put our bodies to it!

Is fitness over fifty one of the keys to designing your own retirement?
This generation says yes it is.

First of all, we believe that fit is good because life is better when you feel good.

But we also have some pretty specific reasons for wanting to become and stay fit.

Survey after survey shows that the fifty + crowd plan to be active as volunteers, engage some form of work after leaving the full time job, pursue life-long learning and contribute energy to changing the world, just the way we did in the sixties.

We plan to be active throughout those second fifty years. Lying in the hammock and sitting by the fire may be part of what we will do, but it will be our down time, not our regular time.

We want to garden, bike, ski, and go to exercise class. We plan to travel solo, with our friends, with our children and our grandchildren.

We want to enjoy taking our grandchildren out for the afternoon, taking them on day trips and even on special grandparent/grandchild holidays that are popping up all over.

Many of us plan to enjoy these adventures with our grandchildren or other young relatives.

The venerable Elderhostel group offers what they call "intergenerational” travel.

For example, they offer a north woods adventure, where you and your grandchild learn outdoor skills, take a dogsled ride, go snowshoing and even climb indoor walls.

Or you can sail a tall ship together, learning some basic sailing skills such as raising the sails, and steering at the helm.

The key is you need to be reasonably fit to enjoy this kind of travel.

Keep on dancing to keep on driving
For many of us, being able to drive is a key symbol of independence into later years.

Driving safely means we need to keep our vision adequate, our hearing good and our flexibility to twist, see traffic and get into a parking spot. We also need to keep our brains nimble to react quickly and keep on making those left turns safely.

There are plenty of attractive and fun ways to stay fit and mentally agile. For example...

And dancing is now touted as the most important activity for keeping brains nimble and building new brain connections, even more than reading, crosswords and other mental activities.



Well, how else are we going to stay fit, keep our drivers licences and take our grandchildren on trips?
The market is helping us out. The market has recognized that seventy million boomers are going to be into fitness in their second fifty years.

Go to Amazon.com or to your library, or your bookstore. Go to the internet and look for fitness over fifty.

Look up fitness for seniors too, even though you don't think of yourself as a senior. As I said above, many of the marketers haven't caught on to the fact that fitness for seniors means our parents to the fifty+ crowd. So you could miss out on helpful information if you shun the outdated heading of fitness for seniors.

All kinds of programs and choices come up

• Special Pilates programs devoted to the over fifty crowd
• Women’s fitness programs like Curves that encourage women of all ages to feel at home in their gyms
• Books, and dvds that outline programs for people who want to be active over fifty
• Programs that are called fitness for seniors but really mean fitness over fifty
• Nutrition/food regimes that promote energy
• Dramatic changes in approach to vision care
• Dramatic strides forward in hearing loss help for a generation that listened to the Rolling Stones through headsets at high volume. Check out more details by clicking here.
• Driving simulators to help you practise driving skills
• Driving courses specially tailored for the over fifty crowd
• Exercise clothes for older boomers

Holiday fitness is a special topic, with special seasonal tips.