Worried that a weight lifting routine he had been following for years may no longer be appropriate for his present 8th decade of life, a relative enlisted the services of a personal trainer. The trainer, young and inexperienced, submitted him to certain movements that resulted in a visit to a sports medicine specialist and several weeks of physical therapy to repair a torn ligament. No good deed goes unpunished.
The trainer‘s mistake was that he was oblivious to the fact that the aging body probably does not have the flexibility and durability of a body 40 years younger. This is not an uncommon mistake, and some national health club chains educate their trainers to prevent injuries such as the ones experienced by my brother-in-law. The manager of one such chain told me that this is usually not a problem; the average age of their members maxed out in the mid-thirty range, and older members (people over 40?) were in the minority.
It should not be necessary to go to a physical therapist to learn which exercises are age-appropriate for bodies suffering from a variety of malaises ranging from worn out knee cartilage to pesky back aches. Nor should such a specialist be needed to formulate programs for unfit people of any age who are attempting to increase muscle mass and stamina after even decades of inactivity. This population also is at risk for injury if they take classes or use exercise machines without knowing what their bodies are capable of doing.
There really seems to be a disconnect between giving advice to the unfit to start to exercise and the ability of that gym to work out exercise programs that succeed in improving fitness without the possibility of injury. How many health clubs have experienced trainers wandering the floor ready to point out to a member that his or her posture is incorrect for a given exercise and may lead to injury, or that the speed and resistance setting on a treadmill or elliptical climber is too low to give an effective workout or too high for the person’s age and heart rate? Sure, you can pay a trainer to do this, yet why is it rarely available just with the cost of a membership?
Exercise classes can also vary in the degree of personal attention given to the inexperienced or injury prone. If a yoga class has one instructor and a floor full of participants, the instructor will most likely not be able to attend to the needs of someone whose body is twisted into the wrong shape. A few months ago, I took several Zumba classes on the advice of a fellow gym memmber. Fortunately I could not follow her steps because the class was so crowded I could not see the instructor and the music so loud I could not hear anything she was shouting. ( I decided in the interests of maintaining my hearing to drop out of the class.) How can the novice health club member learn what to do without paying extra for this information? And even if willing to pay for a trainer, how can one be sure that the trainer has the expertise to work with someone whose body is not young, fit and supple? What if the personal trainer insists against protests of discomfort? Why and when does a person stop feeling shamed for letting themselves go too far into a state that disqualifies them for the Olympics?
Might the answer come in the form of exercise equipment that is more user friendly for the less than perfectly fit? Could treadmills, stair steppers, rowing machines, and stationary bikes have programs that can assess the stamina and fitness of the participant and model an appropriate program that can be watched on a screen attached to the machine? This technology probably exists already but who pays attention? Should machines used for weight training come with cameras to detect incorrect positions so the gym member will do the exercise with the proper form? If cars can help us park with cameras alerting the driver to obstacles, why can’t exercise equipment tell us we are holding our elbows incorrectly or arching our backs?
The unfit are a particular problem for health clubs according to the manager with whom I spoke. He said that many potential members are reluctant to join because they are embarrassed to reveal their overweight bodies or inability to exercise vigorously to the more fit members. “ People tell me that they will join once they lose weight and are able to exercise. It doesn’t make sense, of course..." he told me, "...since the point of joining a health club is to become more fit, and if necessary, to lose weight.”
Perhaps the answer is to redefine physical therapy so it is not just for the injured and those in need of rehabilitation from strokes or operations. If health clubs provided, ‘therapy for physical well-being’ it might attract people who otherwise would be embarrassed to go to a gym but would be willing to seek help to increase the strength and stamina of their bodies. This might spawn a new type of health club service provider; i.e someone who has skills in physical therapy as well as personal training who will know not to train someone who is 70 as if he were 23.