Kati Rose Fitness, M.S.

Did you know that exercise is good for your gut?

Did you also know that gut health plays a significant role in Parkinson’s disease?

A new review (referenced below) provides insight into this fascinating topic. Gastrointestinal dysfunction is a significant factor in the development of Parkinson’s disease. Your gut and your brain are in constant communication back and forth. A healthy gut helps promote a healthy brain! New research aims to understand how exercise affects the gut and, therefore, Parkinson's disease.

Exercise can:

-Prevent harmful substances from entering the blood stream by strengthening the intestinal barrier

-Promote the production of healthy gut bacteria and

-Release substances from muscles which can cross the blood-brain barrier and promote neural growth and health

In short: working out keeps your muscles healthy which keeps your gut healthy which keeps your brain healthy!

(Exercise is loosely defined in this review, but they do mention that aerobic and resistance training can have positive effects)

Reference: The Power of Exercise: Unlocking the Biological Mysteries of Peripheral-Central Crosstalk in Parkinson’s Disease

What they don’t teach you about training seniors...

Guidelines for personal trainers working with seniors are often vague and lack specifics.

These are three things I’ve learned by working with seniors:

1. Exercise is a cognitive challenge.

This means that exercise is great for seniors to help maintain cognitive function. On the other hand, it also means that seniors may have a harder time talking, counting, or otherwise multitasking while exercising. Seniors may also need more form reminders and may not as easily remember exercises from previous sessions. This all requires the personal trainer to modify their approach when working with seniors such as limiting chitchatting while the client is performing the exercise and repeating exercises until they are very familiar.

2. Fitness and range of motion standards for younger populations are less applicable to seniors.

For example, a personal trainer may expect a younger client to be able to squat to 90° before progressing in weight. However, a senior who is just starting to exercise in their 80s may not ever have the range of motion to squat to 90°. Yet, you can still slowly and safely increase (or at least maintain) their muscle mass using the range of motion that they do have. For example, they can do sit-to-stand exercises from a chair holding a five pound weight and work their way up to eight or even ten pounds! Trying to get your senior client to meet the “ideal” standards will leave you frustrated and your client receiving minimal benefit.

3. Progress looks different with seniors.

I have found that personal trainers often either treat seniors like they are made of glass or swing too far the other way and treat them just like a healthy twenty year old. Seniors can build muscle mass and progress in the gym, however, they face different challenges than younger people which need to be accounted for. Fluctuating pain levels, medications, malnutrition, and aging all play a significant role in the progress a senior sees in the gym. A good trainer needs to be highly adaptable to the current state of their senior clients and accept that sometimes, maintaining muscle mass is a great goal for an advanced senior!

Helping seniors feel comfortable while working out starts with understanding their unique situation!

My hero💜

I never would have known dental school was hard work because you accepted every challenge without complaining and always made time for me. I’m so grateful to have gone on this journey with you. My biggest inspiration in life😍

I thank God every day for bringing me you as my husband🩵

Incorporating activity throughout your day ✨

Going to the gym for a sixty minute workout is the easy part. Being active throughout the entire day (which is more important for general health) is the hard part. With the colder weather, it can be difficult to maintain physical activity especially if you are someone who does things outside. I know that I struggle with these changes in the winter.

Ways I try to keep active throughout the day outside of my gym sessions:

Bike or walk to clients or errands
Take the stairs instead of the elevator
Incorporate short walks throughout my day
Do active chores around the house
Do laptop work while walking slowly on an incline

Small movements throughout the day add up.

I use my FitBit to track my calorie burn to determine if my activity is less or more than the previous weeks. I don’t use the calorie burn to determine how much food to eat because calorie burn is not accurate on wearable devices. It is a useful tool to observe your own activity trends, however, because it will at least be consistent in its inaccuracy (reliable).

Don’t underestimate the power of a few 5-10 minute walk breaks sprinkled through your day!

Doing all the fall things while I can 🧡