Corporate Fitness and Active Aging

In my last post about our launch of Balance Redefined, I wrote about the importance of building a group fitness calendar that includes stand-alone balance classes. Now I want to address how your community can move beyond the classes on the calendar to build a wrap-around fall prevention program.

In truth, if you want to cultivate a robust balance program, you'll have to get more people than just your fitness center manager to the table. Here's how we make that happen for our clients:

[Related Content: How NIFS fitness managers spend their time]

• Partnerships: Therapy, home health and nursing staff are invited to observe a balance class to aid in resident referrals for those who could benefit. Many of the therapy teams we partner with will provide patients with a handout of exercises to continue upon discharge from their services with additional instructions to participate in the balance class. Our staff are involved in the discharge plan and participate in a hand off of a resident from their therapy regimen to a preventive program in the fitness center.
• Assessments: Using the Fullerton Advance Balance Test protocols in conjunction with the Senior Fitness Test, we assess how a resident’s vestibular, somatosensory, and/or visual senses impact their balance. Based on the results, we prescribe specific exercises to improve specific areas of weakness. We believe strongly that working with residents to identify the underlying cause of a balance deficiency opens the door to further educating and empowering the individual on a path to improved well-being both emotionally and physically.
• Education: Empowering residents through education and resources on fall prevention is key to improving confidence and helping residents identify the services best suited to their needs. NIFS offers an array of educational programs ranging from fall prevention lectures partnered with the therapy department, to seminars on coaching residents how to fall safely or get up from the ground, as well as signs/symptoms to look for with concussions and the long-term impact one can have on a senior’s stability.
• Balance Fairs: Think Health Fair with a creative twist to showcase everything balance and fall prevention related! This collaborative effort taps into internal and external partners to communicate services and resources for residents. Examples of vendors for the fair include an assistive device tune-up clinic from rehab, a balance assessments from the fitness staff, a "balance your plate" booth from dining services, a local podiatry practice educating on proper footwear, the community pharmacist speaking about medication side effects, internal clinic/health services offering blood pressure screenings, a local chiropractor providing posture checks, and more.

This may be a unique approach for your community, and if you don't have adequate fitness staff in place, it could seem like a heavy lift. If you need to rally your staff around the concept, forward on this blog to start the conversation, or download our quick read on the importance of balance training. With services ranging from fun balance circuits to balance sessions using the Wii Fit or Biodex Balance System to aquatic balance programs, prospects will quickly see how much more your community offers.

Based on the consulting work I've done with communities across the US, this is a comprehensive, prevention-based approach that helps our clients stand out from their competition. If you want to find out more about how to bring NIFS and Balance Redefined to your residents, connect with us.

While the size and shape of fitness spaces can vary dramatically from one senior living community to the next, it is very common for there to be at least some dedicated space with exercise equipment for resident use. It’s also quite common for communities to offer group exercise classes as part of the activity program. In some cases, communities also offer a personal training service.

However, that’s often where the fitness-related services for seniors stop. Below are three additional considerations that will elevate your exercise program to better serve current residents and to attract prospects who are looking for their next home.

Membership

Establishing a membership practice for your fitness center will serve a few key purposes.

• The first is to help manage your liability tied to the community’s fitness spaces as well as to protect the seniors you serve. Fitness facility standards outlined by the American College of Sports Medicine are designed to be an industry-standard set of practices for the safe and effective management of fitness areas. Adhering to as many of their standards as is reasonable will help ensure the fitness program is successful for both your community and the residents.
• The second is to establish a database of active participants so that staff can accurately track who is using the fitness programs and services and how often. Tracking attendance by member allows your staff to proactively reach out to residents who have historically been regular participants and who may have slowed or stopped their activity, or to those residents who have not yet joined the fitness program.

Exercise Prescriptions

Many of today’s residents haven’t engaged in regular exercise outside of their lives in your community, so it’s intimidating for them to approach a treadmill, recumbent bike, or strength equipment. Providing residents with an expert who can create an exercise program based on individual goals and limitations is a great way to help a novice exerciser start to understand how to use the equipment. Following up the exercise prescription service with regular support during each workout demonstrates a real commitment to physical wellness in your community.

Senior Fitness Testing

Getting a baseline on your residents’ fitness level is a great way to help them understand the progress they can make in the fitness center to either maintain or improve their physical well-being. The senior fitness test provides those results and feeds well into the exercise prescription service outlined above. There is inexpensive software (and a manual) that can be used to administer the testing and provide the participant with results. The equipment for each test is also relatively inexpensive and includes items like cones, a step bench, and a timer, among other equipment.

In addition to residents benefitting from their individual results, the community can use aggregate fitness testing data to determine strengths and weaknesses within the fitness program so that classes and other programs appropriately target residents’ fitness needs.

What’s Next?

To be fair, the membership piece could be managed by a lifestyle director. But the exercise prescription and fitness assessment pieces need to be managed by a trained exercise professional who understands the ins and outs of prescribing exercise for older adults. Read about how to hire a qualified fitness professional for your community, or consider working with us because NIFS managers provide these key services as part of our standard senior living fitness programming. Or, click the button below if you’re looking for more ideas about what you should expect from a robust fitness program.

Stand on the street and ask 100 random people their feelings about going to school as a child and you will get 100 different answers. If I were asked my response would have sounded something like this, “I just want to graduate and get a job so I can be done with homework and live the easy life like adults.” I’m shaking my head as I write this, but that is how I truly felt back then. No matter whom you are certain days in school were destined to be fun, and those days were when we had a SUBSTITUTE. Well today I am going to be that sub, except I won’t be in a classroom with books, I will be on a track with kettle bells, plyo boxes, and resistance bands; I’m subbing for an outdoor boot camp class.

Personally I love to cover other instructor’s classes, because I am guaranteed to encounter something different. The something different part is what we should all look for no matter our profession, new experiences break the monotony of our every day schedules and will positively affect our brain function. As I’m preparing for class my mind is racing and I love it, what music should I play, I wonder how many people will come, how fit are they, what if they can’t do an exercise, what if we don’t have enough equipment?  Are just a few of the questions racing through my mind, but instructing the class and facing those questions gives me the opportunity to hone my skills, meet new people, travel to new places, and hopefully become a better instructor for the classes I already have, and for  those I will sub for in the future.

I hope the same benefits I receive from instructing a new class is passed on to the class I am leading. Any fitness professional will tell you to vary your workouts to reduce boredom and to aid physiological changes. Well nothing will change things up for a group fitness program like being led by a different instructor. No matter how similar two instructors are, there will always be some differences, for example a different cadence will require a higher level of mental focus so that you can stay in sync with the instructor. Often people who have been working with the same instructor for long periods of time can go into “auto-pilot” or turn their brain off during class because they are so familiar with the routine that their body just moves without much thought as to what they are doing.

This blog is not meant for just group fitness instructors and exercise class goers, it’s meant for everyone. Break your everyday cycle and try something different. It will affect an area in your life positively. For all my class goers: when that sub does walk through the door, don’t pout, your instructor will be back, but in the mean time act like a kid again, let all that energy out and have a great class, after all it’s only a sub!