Built to Last - 55+
Fitness for Seniors Age 55+
We use functional movements with our athletes, meaning we teach them how to move properly. You’ll learn how to stand up and sit down using the correct muscles. We’ll teach you how to brace your core when picking something up. We’ll safely elevate your heart rate to improve your cardiovascular system. And you’ll have a good time.
If a client has an old injury or a mobility concern, we simply modify movements and apply very moderate amounts of intensity. Intensity might be slowly squatting to a box with only body weight as resistance to start. That level of intensity might slowly increase to include a small dumbbell as resistance, and we might remove the box at some point. Then we might add a light barbell, and then a heavier one after that.
The idea is progressive overload with strength work, and we take the same approach with conditioning. Walking briskly might become running, which might become pushing a sled or using a rowing machine.
The overall goal is safely improving both strength and conditioning. And “intensity” just means “a little further than yesterday.” We are not taskmasters. We are fitness professionals who are 100 percent invested in your long-term health and fitness. Is the work challenging? Yes, but it’s tailored to your needs, and the results will make the work very worthwhile. We apply these same principles to the mobility and flexibility work that’s included in every class.
An example of an entire session is below. Don’t worry if you don’t know what the movements are. You will learn them in our classes. All workouts are led by a Certified Trainer. You will receive constant instruction and supervision.
- Rowing warm-up
- Core work: 3 sets of 10 lying leg raises
- 10 minutes of various hip-mobility work
- Back squat: 4 sets of 6 (modified as needed)
- Group shoulder prehab including work on the deltoids and external rotators
- Conditioning circuit: 3 rounds of a 250-m row, 15 ball slams (12 lb.) and 15 Russian kettlebell swings (15 lb.)
The best part of all is that the body of a senior athlete responds like the body of a younger athlete. We can improve levels of strength and conditioning, and we hope to help our older athletes retain muscle mass, increase bone density and improve their cardiovascular systems—all things that will help people live a healthy life and avoid injury.
“The question regularly arises as to the applicability of a regimen like CrossFit to older and deconditioned or detrained populations. The needs of an Olympic athlete and our grandparents differ by degree not kind. One is looking for functional dominance the other for functional competence. Competence and dominance manifest through identical physiological mechanisms.
We’ve used our same routines for elderly individuals with heart disease and cage fighters one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs.”
— Greg Glassman (CrossFit Founder and CEO)