Corporate Fitness and Active Aging

What if a single metric could help predict your risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or even early death? Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) can do exactly that! In a world focused on numbers on the scale or BMI metrics, simply comparing the circumference of your waist to your hips can provide insight into fat distribution within the body that weight and BMI cannot, a key factor in understanding overall health. Two people of the same height, weight, and body fat percentage may face disparate health risks due to fat distribution. WHR has become an essential and helpful tool in preventative medicine.

How does one measure WHR?

WHR is the circumference of the waist divided by the circumference of the hips. To measure the circumference of the waist, start by standing upright and exhale. Measure the circumference of the waist with a tape measure, placed above the belly button, at the smallest part of the waist. Measure hip circumference by positioning the measuring tape around the widest part of the hips. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), people may have abdominal obesity if their WHR is above 0.85 for women and 0.90 for men.

WHR allows for a clearer picture of fat distribution. Where the fat in your body is located could have a direct impact on your risk for specific health conditions. Too much fat around the waist, abdominal obesity, may be indicative of visceral fat, adipose tissue that surrounds the organs. This dangerous fat distribution can cause systemic inflammation, leading to higher cholesterol, blood pressure, blood glucose, and triglycerides, a type of fat in your blood, increasing the probability of developing cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke, kidney disease, and type 2 diabetes. WHR is a superior determinant of these health risks than other metrics, including BMI, obstructive sleep apnea in males without obesity, and infertility in females.

How can we help maintain a proper WHR?

Setting realistic goals, portion control, balanced diet, getting enough sleep, and exercise are a great start. If your WHR is above the standards set by the WHO, consider speaking with a medical professional. Abdominal obesity could be a result of underlying health conditions such as thyroid disease, PCOS, Cushing’s Disease, stress, anxiety, or depression. Exercise can help manage the symptoms of these diseases. Try to achieve a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise each week.

While weight and BMI have long dominated health conversations, WHR allows for a clearer understanding of metabolic health and disease risk. WHR is not just about aesthetics but instead, preventative maintenance on our bodies. Understanding and monitoring your WHR are important steps in improving your overall health. With WHR, your shape tells an important story.

Staying active and making healthy choices is important, especially as we get older. Strength training and maintaining a healthy body composition can make a big difference in how we move, look, and feel as we age. 

Understanding Body Composition 

Body composition is the balance of muscle, fat, bone, and other tissues in your body. As we get older, this balance tends to shift. Without regular exercise, body fat usually increases, and muscle mass can start to decrease. This change can impact your health and increase disease risks. 

Muscle loss, known as sarcopenia, often starts in your 40s and speeds up with age. At the same time, fat storage—especially around the belly—can increase, even if your weight stays the same. This shift in body composition can slow your metabolism, making it easier to gain fat. Hormonal changes, such as lower testosterone and estrogen levels, also contribute to these changes. 

Why Strength Training Matters 

Strength training, or resistance training, involves exercises that use weights, resistance bands, or body weight to strengthen muscles. It’s one of the best ways to combat age-related body changes. Here are some key benefits of strength training as you age: 

• Maintains and Builds Muscle: Strength training can help you prevent muscle loss and even build new muscle. 

• Increases Metabolism: Muscle burns more calories than fat, even at rest, so by building muscle, you’re boosting your calorie burn all day. 

• Helps Burn Fat: Strength training not only builds muscle but also helps burn fat by raising your metabolism. 

• Strengthens Bones: Lifting weights improves bone density, which reduces the risk of osteoporosis. 

• Improves Balance and Flexibility: Strong muscles around your joints help you stay steady and can reduce the risk of falls. 

• Lowers Chronic Disease Risks: Strength training can decrease the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis. 

Adjusting Your Strength Training Routine by Age 

As you age, your strength training goals may change. Here’s a general guide for each stage: 

• 40s: Focus on maintaining muscle and preventing early muscle loss. Include exercises like squats, lunges, and deadlifts to build strength. If you’re new to strength training, start slowly and increase intensity gradually. 

• 50s and 60s: Prioritize functional strength and flexibility. Exercises that improve balance, such as planks and resistance band work, are especially helpful. Make time for recovery and add stretching or yoga for flexibility. 

• 70s and Beyond: In your 70s and beyond, it’s all about maintaining independence and supporting everyday movements. Light weights, resistance bands, and bodyweight exercises are ideal. Listen to your body, and make adjustments to stay safe and comfortable. 

Additional Tips to Support Muscle Mass 

• Eat Enough Protein: Protein helps your muscles repair and grow, especially after workouts. Foods like lean meat, fish, beans, and eggs are excellent sources. 

• Stay Hydrated: Hydration keeps your muscles working well, so be sure to drink enough water daily. 

How to Start a Strength Training Routine 

If you’re new to strength training, start with bodyweight exercises, light weights, or resistance bands. As you gain confidence, you can increase the weight or number of reps. Set realistic goals and track your progress to stay motivated. Consistency is key—strength training provides benefits that build over time. For personalized support, visit your onsite NIFS fitness center, where our staff can help you get started! 

Strength training is one of the best ways to improve body composition and support your health as you age. It’s never too late to start, and by making it a regular part of your routine, you can set yourself up for a stronger, healthier future. 

One of the best things you can do when it comes to tracking your progress with fitness is a fitness assessment. A fitness assessment is roughly a 30–60-minute consultation with a health and fitness professional where you are tested on the 5 components of fitness: body composition, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and cardiovascular endurance. Some assessments may also test for balance, mobility, or more sports performance biased like power and agility. But for the sake of this article, we are focusing on the 5 components of fitness.

Generally, a health professional will want a client to go through an assessment before they start any form of a fitness program so they can best create a program that is going to work for them based on their goals and outcomes from the assessment. After the initial assessment it would be a good idea to reassess your progress 3-6 months later to see if you made any progress and how you can continue to improve. Fitness assessments are also scored and evaluated based on your age and gender. A health professional will sit down with you after your assessment and compare the results to normative data or age-adjusted charts to show where you should be based on data that has been researched to be accurate.

Why Are Fitness Assessments Important?

• They serve as a baseline measurement that a personal trainer or health specialist can use to compare results over a period of time.
• Serves as a source for a health specialist to build an exercise and/or nutrition program around.
• Evaluates strength, endurance, cardiovascular health, flexibility, and body composition that may shed light on how you can best reduce the risk for injury.
• Can increase motivation for a client to participate in an exercise program.
• Build trust between a client and health specialist that can cultivate great relationships.

3 Ways You Can Benefit from a Fitness Assessment?

1. Fitness Assessments Give You More Information Than a Scale.

One of the biggest benefits of a fitness assessment is they give you more information to use than your generic bathroom scale. This is not to say tracking your weight isn’t valuable, because it definitely has its place, but a fitness assessment will allow you to see how you perform from a physical perspective. There are more data points that show more change over time which could lead to longer involvement in a fitness program and healthy habits.

2. The Assessment Will Help You Set Goals.

With the ability to dig deeper into learning more about your body via the assessment, you can create more specific goals that are going to beneficial for your overall health and longevity. This will allow you to have more intent with your fitness program, so you have something more specific to work towards.

3. The Assessment Will Help Keep You Safe.

There are so many ways to program for different types of people. A fitness assessment allows a health fitness specialist find out what exercises they can incorporate and what exercises may not be best for an individual. The assessment will also uncover any underlying issues that could be made worse by engaging in a fitness program.

Before starting an exercise program, a fitness assessment can be really beneficial in measuring the 5 components of fitness: muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular health, flexibility, and body composition. The results from the assessment will also help a health fitness specialist design your individualized fitness program. Many benefits come from these assessments and can help uncover more about your body and how to keep it safe and live a healthier life. Now that you have more information on fitness assessments, reach out to your local fitness center staff and get your appointment scheduled!

See how NIFS can help your employees when staffing your onsite corporate fitness center! 

While practicing social distancing remains a priority for everyone, finding ways to stay physically active should also remain a priority. This is particularly true for older adults who may find themselves feeling increasingly isolated and vulnerable to remain safe. Exercise has long proven to provide numerous health benefits both for your physical well-being as well as your emotional well-being including:

• Improved blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels
• Improved immune system response
• Improved blood circulation and joint comfort
• Improved mood, sleep, and happiness levels
• Decreased feelings of depression, anxiety and stress

The National Institute on Aging has an even lengthier list of benefits if you need more convincing. Truly there is no magic pill or treatment that can provide the combined physical and emotional benefits as exercise. Yet in these uncertain times, it may feel difficult to come by safe and effective exercise options while access to fitness centers, pools and recreation outlets are restricted. Lucky for all of us, that’s the other great thing about exercise in how adaptable it can be. If you feel like throwing in the towel until you can get back to your favorite class or routine, give this some thought:

• Shorter bouts of activity are just as beneficial! You gain the same health benefits exercising at a moderate intensity for three, 10 minute bouts as you do exercising for 30 minutes straight. If you are stuck at home, consider adding in these shorter bouts of activity throughout the day to decrease boredom and maintain conditioning.
• It doesn’t require expensive equipment to get in a good workout. By adjusting your number of sets and repetitions and performing a variety of body weight movements, you can still challenge your muscles and overall endurance very effectively.
• If you’ve been doing the same routine or class for quite some time changing things up with a new at-home workout might be just the thing your body needs for a new challenge. Over time our bodies adapt to the demands we place on it so if you aren’t trying new exercises, increasing the resistance you are working against, etc., your body isn’t getting the same benefits. Utilize this time to experiment with new exercise options to challenge your body and your mind as you learn a new routine.

Now you might be asking, how do I get started? Where do I find exercise resources? How do I know if I’m doing them safely and effectively?

• Contact your gym or fitness center and see if they have trainers providing virtual fitness coaching. NIFS is proud to continue supporting the residents in the senior living communities we serve with a variety of home-based exercise options to keep our participants moving and your gym might have resources to share as well.
• Get resourceful with items you already have at home to replace the small equipment you use in your normal routine. Canned goods or water bottles can replace hand weights, a bath towel over carpet can replace a floor mat, a chair back can replace a handrail for balance work, etc.
• Explore online resources for “senior fitness” or “senior exercise” on Google, YouTube and Amazon. There may be videos for purchase and free trials you can experiment with in your endeavors at home.

Most importantly, focus on your mindset while you are exercising. Recognize that some movement is better than none each day and always listen to your body. Exercise should never be painful so if you try something new and it doesn’t feel quite right, try something else. Consider this chapter in our lives as an opportunity to try new things, keep your body moving, and play it safe. It isn’t a time to push yourself well beyond your comfort zone and limits. Also consider nourishing your body with proper nutrition. It too has a strong impact on mood, energy, and sleep quality.

For years, fitness professionals have been trained to use Body Mass Index (BMI) as a prescreening tool when individuals join a fitness program. It was part of the recommendations by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) for evaluating health risks; tobacco use, cholesterol profile, and family history for cardiovascular disease were also part of that process. In 2015, the ACSM updated their guidelines, and guess what? No BMI screening was included.

(Find out more about the changes to exercise prescreening in this FAQ.)

Why Is BMI No Longer a Screening Tool?

The changes to the ACSM guidelines were positioned largely around decreasing barriers for individuals to start an exercise program. After years of research, what they found was that BMI was not a driver of cardiovascular events during exercise. Anecdotally, I can say from experience that I had a lot of (sometimes angry) individuals wanting to join the corporate fitness center who needed a medical release because their BMI was "too high" and they had one other risk factor, such as not knowing their cholesterol or current tobacco use. So for our staff and their members in corporate fitness environments across the country, I thought this was a positive change.

But it leaves me wondering if we should be looking at BMI at all. There's a lot of back and forth in the wellness community about the "value" of BMI. The screening tool was always meant to be a field test to determine appropriateness of weight for a given height. And truly, it's an easy measure to determine; there are BMI calculators all over the internet. But that may be the end of its utility as a screening tool. There are a lot of questions about how meaningful the information really is to either the individual being assessed or the practitioner with whom they're working.

If We Don't Use BMI, What Should We Use?

This is something of a loaded question and points to our cultural obsession with "healthy" body weight. Do we need to screen for fatness? What's the value in those figures? Certainly measuring percent body fat or circumference might provide more meaningful ways to track an individual's desire to lose weight. But there are caveats on providing that information, too. Our staff members are providing those measures as field tests in our clients' corporate fitness centers, and the accuracy can be questionable, particularly for body fat assessed by skinfold testing.

We have a responsibility in our clients' fitness center environments to help the members live well in the ways that are meaningful to each individual. That might mean helping someone work on gradual, healthy weight loss. It might also mean working with someone to help them learn to appreciate the difference between feeling good when they move their body and feeling bad when they step on the scale.

The goal for our staff is to help the members they serve improve their health in all the ways that are articulated. When tools like BMI are so limiting (and potentially harmful to the psyche), we have to take a hard look at whether those tools are helping us achieve that goal. With so many other fantastic programs in our books to help people move more, try new areas of healthy living, and even remember what it felt like to play at recess, I think we have just what we need to create positive, successful, healthy environments for our corporate and senior living clients.

Check out our creative and effective programming to help keep your members active.