Healthy Living: Exercise is Valuable Across the Lifespan
He was a competitive body builder in Belize in the sixties and now at the age of sixty-seven, exercise and healthy living is still a priority for the athlete. Now, he’s trying to get other elderly persons active and in shape at his gym at the Bernice Yorke Activity Center located in the HelpAge compound in Belize City. Tonight in Healthy Living, we drop by Mac and Davis Gym to find out from veteran trainer Joseph McClaren why exercising as you age is improves your quality of life.
Marleni Cuellar, Reporting
Over the course of his life, Joseph McClaren has done thousands of push-ups. Since his twenties, he was a competitive body builder and exercised religiously to perfectly sculpt his muscles. But now at the age of sixty-seven, he still keeps himself in top shape. He has trained many body builders over the years but now he’s taken on some new clientele.
Joseph McClaren, Trainer & Former Bodybuilder
“As you age your body starts to change slightly. But if yo let it go, it gets worse so the only thing to help it is exercise.”
The Mac and Davis gym is located on the HelpAge compound at the recently remodeled Bernice Yorke Activity Center. In addition to the gym’s regular users, McClaren also does regular exercise routines with the elderly.
Joseph McClaren
Joseph McClaren
“You have sixty-four, sixty-five up to a hundred and two/three. For me, it is a god gift to me. I had my grandma live till one and seven years of age and I wanted to fit something because she used to do some exercise at her age and I wondered how comes you do it. And then I started to picture myself doing bodybuilding where muscles is what the body has—it has tissues, it got vein, it got blood and it got cells. If you don’t use them to make the body reproduce it, it all falls down. And I had to find something that attract me to follow her footstep and her age. There’s so much muscle the body have and if you don’t use it; you lose it. And the body becomes fatigued and restless and eventually the body go down the aging road before time. But once you exercise, exercise give you a balance to the body and mind and when the balance of body and mind are together, you’re able to function a long, long time because people hundred and exercise right here. It would be surprising to know that despite her age. She could move her body about sixty percent more than women who have no exercise program.”
In fact, medical research found that when seniors who are sedentary start exercising their risk of suffering disabling injuries decrease. So, while some falsely believe slowing down as they age is best, the recommendation is really to just keep going.
Joseph McClaren
“You’re body will not allow you to jump like a young person, so you will be able to stabilize movements as good as any, but not with the speed or the power but in the motion of movements, you will be able to do that. That where exercise comes in. The reason a lot of men and women don’t want to go gyms is because they feel inferior that the younger person looks at them that they are not fit enough to be around them. It is important for them to be in a group where they feel comfortable with themselves. Exercise can be done anywhere. You can use anything in your house: can foods, use your steps to do exercise.”
The CDC recommends that persons over sixty-five should aim for one hundred and fifty minutes of moderate endurance exercises over the course of one week. The exercises should help build or maintain strength, flexibility and balance. Exercise can even help to improve memory. That’s why McClaren says you’re never too old to start.
Joseph McClaren
“Never too late to exercise no care how old you get. I believe if you put the mind together the body will kick in. the basic thing you need is the family to be part of it with you.”
