Do you ever find it tough to motivate yourself to lace up those sneakers and hit the gym or the trail for a run? Does it make it easier when you have a friend pushing you to join them? I know for me, if the weather isn\u2019t perfect, there\u2019s no way I\u2019m leaving my room unless someone else is already dressed and ready to go. Exercising with others may be more beneficial than just helping you get off the couch, with even stronger effects as we age.<\/p>\n
Research has shown that exercise improves not only physical wellbeing but also cognitive functioning in older adults. Social engagement has also been linked to enhanced mental performance for this population. The next obvious step with these findings is to see whether combining the two into a single event would produce equivalent, if not stronger, effects on cognition.<\/p>\n
A study by Williams and Lord (1997) did just that. 94 healthy older women (aged 60+) participated in a 12-month group exercise program, with hour long classes comprised of aerobic and stretching exercises. The participants completed physiological, cognitive, and mood tests before and after the exercise program, and a group of 93 controls completed the tests only. Results show that the exercise group performed significantly better on all three test types than the control group. Specifically, significant improvements in memory span, muscle strength, reaction time, and anxiety level were recorded for the exercisers only. Overall, the researchers found that older women who participated in a group exercise program for a year benefitted both physically and mentally.<\/p>\n
These findings further validate the importance of fitness classes, especially those geared towards older adults, in gyms and community centers. They provide an opportunity for older adults to engage with each other while staying physically active \u2013 benefitting both the mind and body!<\/p>\n
Reference<\/p>\n
Williams, P. & Lord, S. R. (1997). Effects of group exercise on cognitive functioning and mood in older women. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 21, 45-52.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do you ever find it tough to motivate yourself to lace up those sneakers and hit the gym or the trail for a run? Does it make it easier when you have a friend pushing you to join them? I know for me, if the weather isn\u2019t perfect, there\u2019s no way I\u2019m leaving my room […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3572,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40864],"tags":[129793,130430],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3572"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5430,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions\/5430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}