Staying active is a year-round healthy habit, however, holiday time and new year’s resolutions bring reflection on how to stay physically and mentally fit. Exercise routines vary by individual and do not have to be based on age.
Tune into this podcast for a better understanding of ageism in the gym and get up to date ideas on how physical fitness and brain training go together in a very unique way.
Aging with Altitude is recorded in the Pikes Peak region with a focus on topics of aging interest across the country. We talk about both the everyday and novel needs and approaches to age with altitude – whether you’re in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida or Leadville, Colorado. The Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging is the producer.
BEACON Senior News is a proud sponsor/partner for this podcast. BEACON Senior News empowers Colorado seniors with inspiring local stories, timely coverage of senior issues, health and travel features, retirement and financial guidance, senior expos and local resources — all presented in a fun, engaging way that helps older adults lead happier, healthier lives. Catch all the news at: beaconseniornews.com/
Transcript
MELISSA MARTS:
This episode during the holiday times focuses on healthy habits to counter the holiday haze. Join us to learn more about being strong for life, just getting started, finding your passions. We have two special guests in the studio who are both personal trainers and are able to offer all kinds of insight and knowledge to have a healthy holiday and great new year.
VOICEOVER:
This is a Studio 809 podcast. Engage.
MARTS:
I’m looking forward to today’s episode on physical exercise and brain health. But first, I want to take a moment to thank our sponsor Beacon Senior News for their support of Aging with Altitude. Beacon Senior News is the light in our region, telling the stories and featuring all the great activities happening.
Whether you’re looking for music venues, volunteering, whatever you didn’t know you didn’t know, you can pick up a copy of the Beacon Senior News and find out what’s happening in the region. You can find them in grocery stores, libraries and more. And now on to our show.
Welcome to Aging with Altitude, a podcast providing information, advice and resources for seniors, families and caregivers to help you live your best life, courtesy of the Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging. We’re coming to you from the Studio 809 Community Podcast Studio at the Next Us, a professional cooperative environment for small businesses in downtown Colorado Springs. I’m your host, Melissa Marts, with the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments’ Area Agency on Aging.
Welcome to today’s episode, happening during mid-holiday time. People are out shopping, eating, drinking, all the things. Today, we are here to explore healthy aging through movement and brain health. We’re also going to talk a little bit about ageism and how we end up kind of pigeon-holing people in their 60s or their 70s or their 80s, and why we do that and what we can do to get around it.
I have two people in the studio with me today. One of them I know a little bit better than the other. I’m happy to have them both here with me today.
I’m going to introduce them and I want them to share a little bit about what you’re doing and how you got there. And I’m going to start with Shay Gann. So Shay, tell us a little bit about what you do and how you got to be where you are.
GANN:
Hello, I am a certified personal trainer and I am also a senior fitness specialist. I started my journey in personal training about 15 years ago. And then as I developed skills and gained exposure to clients, developed a passion for working with seniors and helping them to live their best lives.
MARTS:
And when you say seniors, what’s that age?
GANN:
Usually 55 and up. I know senior technically is older than that, but I feel especially with women that when they hit that 55 mark is when things kind of start to change.
MARTS:
Yeah. And so why did you develop that passion for kind of tapping into a group of folks that are 55 and older?
GANN:
I think part of it is my own aging. I’m now in my mid 50s as well. And just seeing the importance that women have in their family units in both fitness and nutrition, they really have the power to change that in their families.
A lot of older women, when they were growing up, fitness for women just wasn’t a thing. And now as women and leaders in their family with their kids, they have a chance to change all that for generations going forward.
MARTS:
Great. Well, thank you for filling us in a little bit about your background and how you got there. And I also have in the studio with me, Erin.
And Erin, I always struggle with your last name. Can you share your last name for me?
ERIN ELEUTERIO:
Yes. It’s Eleuterio. And I say it sounds like eat your Cheerios.
MARTS:
Eleuterio. Erin Eleuterio. Tell us a little bit about what you do and how you got there.
ELEUTERIO:
Yeah. So currently I’m teaching classes for older adults at a senior living community center and at the senior center up in Monument. I do a little bit of personal training as well.
I had started off after college, I got my bachelor’s in kinesiology and then I went into clinical exercise. So I was doing cardiac rehab, worked with older adults, and I absolutely loved it because I saw how much it was increasing their quality of life. So I decided to just continue on that path, took a little break, but went back to it.
And that’s all I work with. So most of the people I work with are 70 up. And then at the senior living community, it’s mostly 80s and 90s.
And I teach a lot of fall resiliency, helping people build the strength and capacity to withstand falls. And a lot of that’s based on parkour principles. And then, yeah, and then I teach exercise classes at the senior center.
MARTS:
Okay, super. So we have a little mix in the room today of really in-depth personal training, kind of one-on-one, really working with folks. Then we have kind of group lessons and group work and encouraging people in a group setting how to move and do things well.
I love, and I always forget to call it fall resiliency, versus fall prevention. Talk a little bit about the fall resiliency and why we maybe call it that, since you brought that up already.
ELEUTERIO:
Yes, I feel really passionate about using that term in addition to fall prevention, because falls are just a part of being a human. It’s not an older person thing. It’s a human thing.
And so when we give people the skills and the ability to withstand falls and get up from a fall, recover from a fall, that’s much more empowering than saying, don’t fall, because it’s going to happen. So when we say fall prevention so much, it’s almost like if you fall, you have failed. But if you fall, you’re just being a human being. That’s just part of the human experience.
So fall resiliency, I found is a much more empowering term and just coming to terms with the fact that there’s people, you’re either in the camp of you have fallen, or you will fall. So how are we going to deal with that? And how do we get the movement skills for that?
MARTS:
Great. And so I am 57 years old. And how I ended up meeting Shay, I fell, you know, really, I fell when I was 55. I fell six times in six months. I was a very active person. I hiked, I walk my dogs all the time.
But I’m a caregiver for my mom. And I learned a little bit after those fall episodes, I broke my elbow, I injured my shoulder, had to do a lot of rehab, and found myself at Fit Body Studio where Shay is at. And I started doing personal training, because I wanted to build muscle and work on my balance.
So when Shay mentioned a little bit about, you know, women’s bodies start to change in 50. So there is a little bit of science behind looking at people’s aging process and being able to compartmentalize aging into the 50-plus year old or the 60 year old or the 80 year old. And we’ll dig into kind of some of that stuff here in a little bit.
But I really want to emphasize how, you know, you’re just kind of going along living your life. And this is true for my 80 year old women friends who have never fallen. And then all of a sudden, they fell.
And they were like, how did this happen? You know, I thought I was doing great. And so it is about that resiliency.
And how do you get up? And then how do you take care of yourself going forward? And so I’m grateful to have the two of you guys in here today to share some knowledge and ideas.
And so as I threw that out there, Shay, about coming to Fit Body Studio, and really working on rebuilding myself, talk a little bit about some of the folks that you’ve worked with and done some personal training with to help them regain their sense of excitement for the world and get better.
GANN:
Okay, I think I will discuss a male client that I have that is in his actually late 70s. He came to Fit Body Studio because he had been seeing a functional medicine doctor and working on nutrition and gut health. And that functional medicine doctor talked to him about bone density and muscle mass loss at his age and encouraged him to start pumping iron as he likes to say.
And so he came in, and we started working. I like to work on a lot of their daily activities, functional living. I found out he was a golfer. And we worked a lot on spinal mobility, hip mobility, shoulder mobility, as well as building strength and balance.
And he has improved so much in all the areas. And about two weeks ago, he came in, and he said, I played the best golf game I’ve played in years.
MARTS:
Wow.
GANN:
And so for seniors, I think those little personal rewards for themselves, in being able to continue the things that they love to do or see improvement in the things that they love to do, is important and keeps them coming back and keeps them wanting to engage.
MARTS:
Exactly. And I think that one on one understanding what makes a person tick and wanting to help them continue to be able to be engaged in whatever they find joy in, is super important. And so great story with him.
And the counter side to that is when we hear, and I’m going to get into kind of a little bit of an ageism conversation here with Erin for a minute, because, you know, it’s like somebody, you know, 50 and older needs to do this kind of exercise, or somebody 60 and older needs to do this, or, you know, forgetting that maybe we need to find out that this man that you worked with Shay is a big golfer.
And so what can we be doing to help him better his golf game and be focused on that. But, Erin, you actually were able to publish an article in the Journal on Active Living. You were a co-writer with a couple of folks, and you guys wrote about ageism in exercise. And so can you share a little bit about how you guys came to write that article?
And maybe we’ll start with that. So what made you guys want to write that article in that journal?
ELEUTERIO:
Yeah, so I joined a few of my colleagues, and we were all seeing ageism show up in the fitness industry and around physical activity. And we were noticing that a lot of societal expectations of older adults really was influencing their own physical abilities. And the way that that shows up a lot of times in fitness is that we’ve had classes, specifically for older adults, senior yoga, senior strength.
And we were questioning that, like, why are we doing that? Why is it because this person is older, they need a completely different class than somebody else? And why are we labeling it that and why don’t we just age neutralize it to say ‘strong for life’ or something neutral.
So we addressed that with the article in regards to how we describe classes, and really making it about people’s ability levels and what they want out of an exercise class, not about their age. And so that’s one of the big ways we’ve seen this, is classes that are targeted for people out of a specific age group.
And there’s a number of other ways. but that’s really what the main thing that we had spoken about or written about in the Journal on Active Aging.
MARTS:
Yeah. And so have people been talking about this for a long time, understanding that we shouldn’t just be compartmentalizing people based on their age? Or is this a newer kind of conversation in the last three to five years?
ELEUTERIO:
I think it’s a newer conversation. This concept actually got noticed by the Mather Institute as a promising practice. So we won the promising practice award as an innovative idea in the active aging field.
So I think it’s, I think it’s catching hold. But I still think that it needs to be brought up and questioned about like how we are describing classes, how we are naming classes, why are we targeting certain age groups? Why is it that the HIIT classes and these high intensity classes were only showing younger people? Why aren’t we showing older people in those classes?
So it’s starting to question the way that we are using our images that we see a lot of times and we get inundated with images of older adults sitting in chairs, holding tiny dumbbells. And it makes me crazy.
And, you know, we live in Colorado and we see a lot of athletes at all ages. So we’re kind of in a bubble here in Colorado. But there is a lot of imagery around older adults sitting in chairs.
And we know that there are people at all ages doing things out of the chairs. They are athletes. And there’s not a lot of representation in that in mainstream media.
And that’s why I feel like a lot of times older adults have gone to social media because they do not see themselves represented in mainstream media. So they’re going to social media and they’re showing themselves doing sports like snowboarding and surfing and skateboarding because we don’t see a lot of images with older people doing those sports, and they are perfectly capable of doing it. And when people don’t see themselves represented in those images, this internalized ageism starts to come in, and they start to believe I can’t or I shouldn’t be doing that, because they don’t see themselves represented in any images that they see.
So then they don’t do those things. And now we kind of start this downward spiral of their physical abilities based on their beliefs on age and no other reason. So it’s really starting to question the images that we show and the descriptions we use and how we are talking about physical activity for older adults.
MARTS:
I think that’s really important. And it is interesting to see the changes in media a little bit. And I’m grateful that that’s happening and look forward to it happening more.
I want to kind of reiterate this Journal on Active Aging. And can people find that on the internet? Is it possible to do a search for Journal on Active Aging?
Is that relatively available for people?
ELEUTERIO:
It is a subscription. However, I have a website, Agents of Movement is my website. And I have a podcast that is my podcast, Agents of Movement. And I do have a blog post on that has that article on it. So that’s accessible to anybody.
MARTS:
Great.
ELEUTERIO:
So that’s the best way to read it.
MARTS:
Okay. I think that it’s really, a very informative piece for people to take a look at, because it also talks about some of the ways that classes can be modified a little bit for folks. So again, when you’re in a group workout setting, it is a little bit more unique than a one-on-one kind of opportunity.
And Erin, one more little comment. Can you share how people might be able to, if you’re an older adult, you’re in your late 60s, and you’ve decided to join an exercise class, what are some of the things that person might be looking for when they go? And if it turns out that they do feel a little uncomfortable, how could they approach the instructor to feel more comfortable in the class?
ELEUTERIO:
Yeah, I would say first thing is take a look at the class descriptions, see if anything there, hopefully they’re written well, that sounds like something that you’re interested in, or you would want to do, or able to do. And definitely talk to the instructor. If you have any issues, physical issues, talk to the instructor beforehand and say, this is what I’m dealing with. This is what I’m working with.
And a lot of times instructors can adapt classes based on what your physical needs are, because the older we get, the more individualized we get in our bodies, because we have had more time on this earth for injuries and other things. So I think the best approach is to really talk to the instructor. But hopefully there’s, you know, we’re offering a spectrum of classes for older adults. It’s not just chair exercise.
MARTS:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I came across, I think, an Instagram kind of channel. And I don’t remember the name of the individual, but it was a lot of, kind of, flow movements. And I think there’s probably a term for the exercise that he’s teaching. But a lot of it was maneuvering around on the floor, and then launching yourself up.
And so again, one of the little stereotypes that I’ve lived by in terms of aging is, you know, can you get up off the floor? And if you can’t, it’s time to do something about it. But I don’t know that, you know, sometimes I think that’s oversimplifying things a lot for people. And then for some people, it’s super scary.
Like all of a sudden, they realize they can’t get up off the floor. And so now what do I do? And maybe not everybody has to get to that level of being able to get up off the floor. But it doesn’t hurt to just start doing some movement and exercise and, you know, kind of get more comfortable with your body again.
I do want to talk a little bit about hormone replacement therapy, both men and women, and also brain health a little bit. And so again, it seems like with hormone replacement therapy, people are talking specifically about ages when to start when to not start.
And unfortunately, I attended a couple of years ago, a presentation up in Denver from UCHealth from a geriatrician up there. And it was a woman. And she said that hormone replacement therapy is absolutely the best thing ever.
And so it was interesting for me to sit in a room with a geriatrician from UCHealth, who’s saying that out loud, because I’ve not really always been a fan of it. And I think everybody’s still learning and trying to figure some things out. But I’m curious if either of you have thoughts on, kind of, body changes and how to navigate that hormone replacement therapy conversation.
I’m just going to open that up, possibly to Shay or Erin. Just curious if you have some thoughts on those things.
GANN:
I’m actually also just learning because I was like you no hormones, but I’m learning now how much more scientifically developed they can be and helpful in the anti-aging, or helping with improvements in your aging process. I would say honestly, it’s really between someone and their doctor and monitoring hormone levels.
MARTS:
And seeing what happens
GANN:
Yeah. And I like, for me, a lot of cancer runs in my family in the females. And so I’m restricted on what hormone replacements I can take.
MARTS:
And I’ve always felt like, I just want to work with my body and what it can do. But on the other hand, also, it’s like, well, if there is some medicine that’s going to help my body do better, maybe I want to try. But again, I lead a pretty simple life and don’t want to overcomplicate things with a lot of, you know, trying to have to monitor meds.
So it is, I think, a very personal choice. But it’s something that I think more and more people are starting to talk about. And as a younger generation starts to age into hormone changes, they’re going to be asking more questions.
And it’s interesting to talk with, I have some older women friends and kind of asking them about their path. And fortunately, I have those women in my life to talk to them. And it’s nice to be sharing some stories a little bit more and talking about things.
GANN:
Yeah, now there’s development to have the bioidentical hormones that are supposed to be safer for you to take with less side effects.
MARTS:
Yeah, yeah. So I guess keep reading, keep learning, keep an open mind about that. Shay, talk a little bit about brain health and how you incorporate brain health into your training routines and regimens with folks.
What does that look like?
GANN:
It’s actually pretty fun. So incorporating cognitive training, in addition to the physical training, it helps stimulate blood flow to the brain. it actually can improve gray matter in your brain. And so it’s just, we do fun exercises, it starts pretty simple.
It’s similar to physical exercise where it’s based on their current level. There’s actually a form that they fill out for me that kind of gives me an idea of where they are cognitively. And we start with basic stuff.
So we’ll start with physical exercise, like maybe bodyweight squats. And we make sure their form is good, and they’re doing that. And then we throw in a little cognitive exercise, something simple like, okay, as you’re doing these squats, without slowing down, say the days of the week for me.
MARTS:
Oh my.
GANN:
And so if they can do that, and they’re, you know, it’s fine, you have them gauge it, how difficult was it, wasn’t difficult at all. Okay, well, let’s do it again. But let’s say the days of the week backwards.
MARTS:
Oh, great.
GANN:
And then if they, you know, that’s not a thing, as they advance, we can start doing some agility work, like with an agility ladder, or little hurdles or agility dots. And so the footwork, the physical exercise, gets a little more complicated and incorporates the brain.
But then you still throw in the cognitive end of it with a list of five words that they have to repeat back to you.
MARTS:
love it.
GANN:
And memorize. And then you can throw little changes, like give them a list of different five words. And then you go back to your original list.
And so incorporating those kinds of cognitive exercises, and there are many, many options that you can do, helps prevent cognitive decline at the same time that we’re helping to prevent physical decline, and see improvements in both areas. And it’s fun, they enjoy it. It’s a fun little, little addition to their exercise program.
MARTS:
Yeah, well, even just thinking about it right now, I’m having a fun time thinking.
GANN:
We can try it next time you’re in studio.
MARTS:
Yep, I can see that happening. We’re graduating from, am I using my right leg and my left leg, to now I’m actually having to speak out loud at the same time that I’m moving. So I think that’s a good evolution of getting people to engage and connect and use different parts of their body, including their brain. So really, really, that’s a great thing.
So, Shay shared a story earlier about a man that you were working with and helping him get more connected to his golf game. And I would like for Erin to share a personal story. One of the things that I think is helpful on the podcast is to just know another person’s kind of evolution.
And so I’m hoping, Erin, that you might have somebody pop into your mind right now that you would share kind of their story and how they engaged in some physical activity and exercise and how that’s changed their life.
ELEUTERIO:
Yeah, so this is going to go to the fall resiliency that I teach at the senior living community. And I had a lady in there, she’s in her 70s, and the class that I do is based on a lot of parkour principles, which is essentially getting people to move around their environment in new and different ways and feel comfortable navigating their environment, and also just navigating their body and having more body awareness.
So we do lots of variety of activities in that class. And it is centered on, you know, how can they recover from a fall and be able to withstand those forces. And so this lady that came to class, she was a regular, she had at one point was having vestibular issues, and she had fallen in her apartment and she fell three times, which sounds like a terrible thing. And it is. But there’s always context within falls, right? If you get injured, that’s a bad fall.
But if you can come back from it and not get injured, that’s not such a bad fall. But she had fallen in her apartment, she got back up, and she was so proud of herself for getting back up. And she was telling me she’s like, I fell three times. But I was able to push myself up from the floor and stand up.
So three times she was able to do that. And she was so proud that she was able to get up from the floor three times.
And of course, there’s definitely she’s has to go to the doctor and figure out what’s going on. So there’s some definitely seriously underlying issues there. But the fact that she had that ability, and the confidence to do that was really rewarding.
And that same person was talking about how she had just kind of tripped and missed a step. But she said, but I just did a little dance and I kept on walking. She was able to correct her footing because we do practice that, like how can you correct your footing and have that speed to be able to stay upright and not go down.
And so she was able to do that. She said, I did a little dance and I kept on walking. She was just the poster child for me of fall resiliency that these things happen. And how do we deal with that? How do we have the movement skills and the confidence to deal with these things that will happen?
MARTS:
So true. And you know, when I brought up earlier about my own fall experiences, I didn’t highlight a little bit more, I had mentioned that I was a caregiver for my mom. And when you talk about trying to get to the underlying reason why falls might be happening, one of the things that I learned was stress.
And so I am a little bit younger to be falling, although you never know. It’s one thing to be a mountain bike rider and take some crashes, it’s another thing to be hiking in the woods and feeling pretty confident and then all of a sudden falling.
And so I learned that cortisol, speaking of brain health, Shay, you know, can have an effect on your vestibular system. And so the amount of stress that I was experiencing at the time, which I know I was experiencing a lot of stress, but I never would have dreamed that it would have led to me having dizzy episodes and lack of focus and attention and then leading to falling. And so, you know, your story about this woman also needs to get in and make sure she gets some things checked.
And people hopefully ask some really good questions of her to find out what might be leading to her falls, and not just being told, ‘oh, you’re just getting old.’ Right? So that’s the ageism piece that, you know, if you’re hearing that, don’t listen to that you need to keep asking because everyone’s path is unique and different and solutions are unique and different to the folks as well.
As we come to a close here, I have two things that I’d like to focus on. The first is, as trainers that both of you are, can you put out your top favorite kind of training tip or training advice for an individual who might be listening today on the podcast? I’ll let you think about that for a second.
What would be your little piece of advice and coaching for people who are listening?
GANN:
I think the biggest barrier, especially for seniors is exactly what we’ve been talking about. Their perception of what they can and can’t do because of what they’ve been fed through society for all the years. And so I just want to say that you can do it. You just have to get started. And so just come in and see somebody and just don’t be afraid to get started.
MARTS:
Great. Okay, super.
ELEUTERIO:
Yeah, I guess I would say first and foremost, make it enjoyable. Find activities that you enjoy doing, and don’t worry about meeting these, I work in fitness, and I know we have a lot of these things that you should be doing strength training, you should be doing all these things.
And it’s great. If you love doing those great, do them. But at the same time, just do something that you enjoy.
And for my mom, you know, like she loves going out and walking and talking. She’s not going to do interval training, she’s not going to do strength training. And that’s okay. But that’s what she’s going to do consistently.
So consistency matters more than intensity, and find what you love and find a way to keep doing it. And don’t let age be a barrier.
MARTS:
Great. Yeah. And how can people find out more and connect with you both?
I’m going to start with Erin, because you mentioned a couple of resources earlier in the recording. And if you could just mention those again for us, how can people get in touch with what you do? And yeah, yeah.
ELETUERIO:
So Agents of Movement is my website. It’s also my podcast, I interview people that are doing innovative things and keeping older adults active. And I’m on LinkedIn, I’m pretty active on LinkedIn.
And I have a Instagram and Facebook that I use a little bit for my podcast. And again, it’s agentsofmovement.com.
MARTS:
Great, thanks. And then talk a little bit about kind of the things that you do right here in the Pikes Peak region in person as well.
ELEUTERIO:
Yes. So in person, I am an instructor at the Tri-Lakes Senior Center up in Monument, I teach a strength and stability class. So it’s a more rigorous class, there are no chairs.
And I do that on Mondays at 1:30. And Wednesdays at 9 a.m. If you ever want to come join class, you can always get your first class free at the senior center.
That’s probably the most accessible to the public. And then I do a senior living class again for residents at a senior living community in Monument.
MARTS:
Thank you. Great. And Shay, how do people find out more about you and get connected with you?
GANN:
I work at Fit Body Studio. It’s downtown Colorado Springs on Nevada. Our web address is just fitbodystudio.
You can email me at shaygann@gmail.com. I am not on Instagram or Facebook, fallen off the social media world for a little while. But you can reach me at fitbodystudio, our website.
MARTS:
Great. Happy to be in the studio there. Right?
GANN:
Yes.
MARTS:
So yeah, super.
GANN:
And not only do we offer personal training, but we have other holistic health services. We have massages, we have red light therapy, we have PEMF bed, we have a red light sauna. So kind of a holistic approach.
MARTS:
That’s right, yeah. Glad you brought that up to us. So good resources there.
And I’ll just close to, you know, Erin brought up that she teaches a class at a senior center up in Monument. We have the Colorado Springs Senior Center here in Colorado Springs. They have a variety of fitness classes. I talked with the director there, and he’s been interviewed a couple of times on our podcast. His exercise classes are often full. And so they’re waitlisted. And to me, that is a clue that we need more of these.
And so I’m glad to have Fit Body Studio in here today. I’m happy to have Erin in here, representing all the work you do, and then working up in the Monument area. And we just need more opportunities. And I’m glad that there are people who are over the age of 50, who are wanting to move, do some things. And then for the individuals who are just these stellar athletes and are people that we look up to, I’m thrilled to know that those folks are out there. But for the people who are still thinking, I don’t know if this is for me. The idea is to be strong for life, to just get started and find your passions.
Thank you for being in the studio today ladies. And we’ll see you out on the streets.
GANN:
Thank you.
ELEUTERIO:
Thank you.
MARTS:
That’s the show. Thanks to all of you for being with us today. Aging with Altitude is created by the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments Area Agency on Aging.
Visit us at ppacg.org and click on aging services for more information about the programs of the area agency on aging.