Benefits

I touched on some of the benefits of Seated Exercise in the last blog post, but let’s look a little deeper into them.

Heart Health.

We all know that our heart needs looking after. It needs exercise as much, if not more, than the rest of our muscles. At Seated Exercise our heart benefits in several ways.

1. We start every class with a 5 minute Cardio Booster. We begin very gently with some toe tapping. We let the body know that some exercise is coming it’s way, by getting moving with toe taps, heel raises, arm swings and some on the chair marching.

2. We do a second Cardio Booster, a little later, and increase the intensity this time by adding a ‘tap and clap’ section. We clap high, we clap low, we clap to the right, we clap to the left. It may sound silly, but it is a great way to get the heart pumping that little bit harder.

3. Our full Cardio section is 10 minutes of continuous activity. In this section we aim to get a bit out of breath, so that we know we have elevated our heart and respiration rates. We do everything mentioned above, but add chair boxing, a tap and clap with a clap under the leg, hand jiving and a 3 minute march and sprint – all done from the safety of our chairs. (After this section we take a 2 minute break to get our breath back!)

4. My Seated Exercise classes last one hour and that means that whatever exercises we are doing, we are active for 50 of those 60 minutes. Although the peak heart rate comes at the end of the main Cardio section, the heart continues to be exercised throughout the class.

What my classes do is exercise the heart in a gradual and safe way. We do a longer warm up than traditional ‘keep fit’ classes and the last 10 minutes of each class is spent doing exercises with no Cardio component, so that by the end of the class your heart and respiration rate is back to your normal resting rate.

Why My Seated Exercise Class In Particular?

What makes my seated exercise classes different to most other classes out there, is that it was written for people with health concerns. Often, we think of health concerns that we can see: loss of strength, loss of mobility, loss of balance or flexibility and it certainly addresses all of these issues, but it goes further.

I know that certain exercises are detrimental (or possibly even dangerous) for people with heart conditions that are not being kept in check with medication. I call these ‘uncontrolled heart conditions’ and for anybody in this situation I tailor the Cardio activities accordingly. The last thing someone who is back to, or new to, exercise after a heart attack should be doing is lifting their hands above their heads – this puts too much strain on the heart.

My program accepts the differing health needs we may have and the changing health needs we may have. In most classes you have to try and do every exercise that the instructor is doing, in the way that the instructor is doing it. This is not the case here. I ask clients to appraise me of their medical history and especially anything that pertains to the class. This can be anything from a sore back from too much gardening that weekend to the more serious conditions like Angina, M.S. and stroke.

Armed with this information, I can do my best to ensure that each person is exercising within the parameters that their health allows. We have a set program, of course, but it can be manipulated to reduce risk as much as possible. I want to keep you healthy!

My first and foremost responsibility to each and every client that comes to one of my classes, both on Zoom and in room classes, is SAFETY!