Feel Young Again!
What if I told you there was a type of exercise that decrease your chances of falling and fracturing a bone, improved your independence, and kept your body young? This may sound like it’s too good to be true… but in fact SAQ drills for older adults could be the miracle exercise that all seniors can add to their exercise routine to truly stop aging. Let’s take a look at what SAQ drills are, and how they can improve your quality of life, easily.
SAQ Drills for Older Adults
Now, what in the world is SAQ? SAQ drills are simply an acronym for speed, agility, and quickness. Now, why in the world should seniors be doing SAQ drills? Isn’t agility for high level athletes and those types of people? Although these populations do benefit greatly from these exercises, seniors can also benefit as well. This is because older adults often lose the ability to move quickly as they age, usually in part with being less physically active. With modified SAQ drills added in to a senior workout program, you will be able to move quicker in your daily life, improving your muscle capabilities, decreasing fall risk, and in part improving your independence as well. Now that’s all fine, but how can we work speed and agility safely? Let’s take a look at some of my favorite SAQ drills for older adults. Feel free to view the video above for full video demonstrations on how to actually complete each exercise. I am also going to link the products used in our demonstration video above, below for you to check out if you would like to view them.
Balance Dot Taps
An incredibly simple and effective SAQ drill for seniors is what I called balance taps. This exercise challenges single leg speed and stability, while also working your fine motor skills as well.
Side Hurdles
Side hurdles will work your quickness in a side to side fashion. What often happens for older adults, is that they aren’t used to moving left and right in general, leading to decreased balance capabilities in those directions. By doing hurdles left and right, hip mobility is challenged, as well as quickness in a different plane of motion.
Quick Sit to Stands
Sit to stands are a great exercise that challenge your leg strength and stability. We can make this an agility and quickness exercise by trying to do the movement as quickly as possible. You will be greatly surprised at how well this can improve your fitness, and also improve your speed. If you need to boost yourself up, feel free to add a pillow or balance pad to raise the height, allowing yourself to move through the movement extremely quickly.
Ball Drops
Grab some of your old tennis balls in your garage, and let’s use them to improve your agility! One of my favorite exercises to do with seniors is ball drops. Simply by having a ball out in front of you, and dropping it, you can work your agility and hand eye coordination by trying to grab the ball once it drops on the ground one time. Try different positions in front of you and to the side to work different planes of motion.
Deceleration Practice
Another excellent way to improve your overall agility is by practicing accelerating, and decelerating extremely quickly. I like setting up a cone about 5 to 10 feet in front of my seniors, and trying to have them run up to the cone as quickly as they can, and then try to stop their body before moving forward, once they hit the comb. This will practice deceleration, which works many different muscles that help with balance and coordination, and keeping you steady on your feet.
Shuttle Run With Ball
And of course, we can’t forget about doing a shuttle run with a medicine ball. This exercise is excellent for improving your quickness, ability to bend over and pick up objects, and challenge your bodies capability to adjust to the center of gravity change through space. Make sure to check out the video above for a full tutorial on how to do this exercise, so you can get the most benefit from it. If you don’t have a medicine ball to use for this exercise, you can try doing it with any object around your house.
Before You Go
If you want to continue to improve your health and knowledge of the gym, regardless of your current abilities in life, you need to subscribe to our blog. In addition to this, I also am going to link another agility and balance article for seniors below, giving you a few more great ways to reverse your age!
Agility Drills for Seniors – Reduce Falls and Improve Quickness (Balance Pad Exercise)
When it comes to the common health and fitness concerns I address in older adults, reducing the risk of falls is always on the top of the objective list. Whether it is due to frequently falling in the past, or being afraid of falling in the future, the need to improve balance and overall steadiness…
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