Meet the inspiring women who lead our new Healthy Aging Training Series.
Use it or lose it.
We hear it all the time, but staying active is important to maintain strength, balance, and coordination as we age. But ending your day with a morning walk isn’t enough. To stay healthy into your 60s, 70s and beyond, you need to work the muscle groups you took for granted before you became eligible for Social Security.
Pilates is the best way to achieve that, says Lindy Royer, a physical therapist and instructor at LindyWell, which offers online classes.
Royer is living proof of the power of this low-intensity, low-impact exercise: She’s 69, and when we spoke, she had just returned from a weekend of skiing in Chamonix, a notoriously tricky pass in the Alps that would pose a challenge even for experienced skiers with much younger knees.
Royer has been a dedicated Pilates practitioner for the past 25 years, which she credits with helping not only maintain her exceptional health, but also turn her life around. She was 45, in rehab for alcoholism, and had just been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease when she first stepped on the Reformer. She says the workouts helped her center and focus on aspects of her physical health within her control.
That’s the beauty of Pilates, says Royer: “It can meet people wherever they are.”
That’s the idea behind a new workout series that Lindiwell and Royer created specifically for Katie Couric Media. These short guided sessions are Anyone No matter your age or fitness level, you can exercise without expensive equipment. Each video provides exercises that measure your strength and mobility and help you improve over time.
These exercises are specifically designed to prevent age-related muscle loss, which begins in your 30s and progresses to the point where it’s hard to get your bag out of the overhead bin. The less active you are, the more significant your muscle loss will be. However, muscle loss is not irreversible. “Our bodies are plastic. If we act now, they can change and adapt,” says Royer.
Over the coming weeks, I’ll be rolling out these simple routines in my Wake Up Calls and new women’s health newsletter, Body and Soul , so subscribe here (for free!) and stay tuned for more from Lindy and the Lindywell team.
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