by Rob Hofman, Care Manager, New York City Exercise Specialist for the Elderly for SeniorBridge. Certified by the American College of Sports Medicine since 2000.

Not everybody likes to exercise. That’s why, as the Exercise Specialist for SeniorBridge, I like to introduce the concept of "being active."

Being active, like exercise, has four different aspects:

• Building muscle strength

• Improving balance

• Increasing endurance

• Increasing flexibilityand range of motion

Strength, balance, endurance and flexibility can all be improved through a wide range of activities.

Let’s start with increasing leg strength. Instead of leg strengthening exercises on a leg press machine, or weights strapped to your ankles, consider climbing stairs. Did you know that even while walking on an incline you improve your leg strength?

The best balance activity is kicking a ball while walking. Those long hallways in apartment buildings are a great place to play soccer with a light beach ball. Every time you kick the ball, you shift your body weight to one side to make sure you keep your balance. It’s great fun. I wouldn’t call it exercise, but it’s an activity that will improve your balance. So is dancing. Put on your favorite music and dance by yourself or with a partner, holding or not holding on to each other. While you move to the music, you constantly shift your weight from one leg to another as your body and balance system work hard to make sure you do not end up on the floor.

Any activity that brings your heart rate up will increase your endurance if you continue that activity for a longer time. If you accelerate your walking speed from a nice, leisurely pace, or keep your pace while going uphill, you increase your heart rate. Keeping up the increased pace gives you an endurance or aerobic workout. There is a simple test to make sure you are in the safety zone of your workout—as long as you can talk, you are doing fine.

To increase flexibility and range of motion, the beach ball comes in handy again, particularly for upper body flexibility. While seated, throw the ball back and forth with another person so that it comes back to you from different sides and you have to reach with your arms from different angles in order to catch it. Or, let the ball go from one side, behind your back, to the other side. Hold the ball up and let the other person reach for the ball from different angles, high reach, low reach, side reach, etc.

Other fun activities for the lower body, hips, trunk and legs include walking in different ways, such as walking on a line, or crossing legs in front of each other or sideways, while making the steps as big as possible. Or, seated on a chair, move your legs in different directions and patterns in time with music.

As you can see, the possibilities for being active are endless, and the variety of activities is limited only by your imagination and what you like to do.

That does’t mean that I don’t use standard exercises. In my strength and balance exercise groups, I also use weights with exercises like the very recognizable bicep curls, tricep extensions, shoulder presses and squats, among others. But this can be done in a fun, stimulating way, with music and lots of variety in the program.

Above all, these activities, whether done in groups or individually, should be fun and functional. Enjoy your workout all year long!