Condrick teaches seniors how to 'age gracefully'

OK, it’s time to play. Sit in a chair with both feet on the floor. Now, pretend you are an elephant. Create your trunk by putting your arms together. Now swing that trunk down to the floor in front of you, then lift it high over your head. Swing it down again, then to the left and right — there must be a peanut down there somewhere. Now make a loud, happy elephant sound — it doesn’t matter if you know what an elephant sounds like. And lift your feet alternately to paw the earth.

What you are doing is exercise as it is done in a new program called Ageless Grace. You flexed your spine, then extended it to lower and lift the trunk, and you took your shoulders through their range of motion on the frontal plane. Swinging the trunk left to right involved spinal rotation and core stability to keep your torso in place. Lifting those elephant feet activated the hip flexors and required planar and dorsal flexion of the foot. And making that sound certainly challenged the breathing apparatus.

This particular movement fits into a category called “Zoo-ology,” which is one of 21 exercise tools that make up the Ageless Grace program Denise Medved created. Medved is a fitness educator whose passion is helping those whose movement is restricted, whether by age, injury or chronic illness, including people with Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, Parkinson’s disease and MS. Her 21 simple exercise tools are designed for all ages and abilities; they are simple to do at home and are performed seated in a chair. Almost anyone can do them.

Ageless Grace is new; Medved started certifying instructors in January, smartly focusing on areas such as ours, where the program is particularly relevant. Gail Condrick, known on the Key for her Nia classes at the Bayfront Park Recreation Center, is already teaching at the Aging in Paradise Resource Center at the Longboat Island Chapel. She also does workshops in communities that want a movement program in their own venue.

Condrick says that are three important differences in Ageless Grace. First, it is movement that can help both active adults and those with limited mobility, because it’s done in a chair. She reports that active people are surprised by the amount of abdominal and core strength it takes to work in a chair, while those with limitations are pleased to discover how much they can do.

Second, Ageless Grace combines a lot of brain activity or cognitive function with the physical work. Many exercises are designed to be movement “brain teasers” — among them an advanced version of rubbing-your-head-and-patting-your-stomach that involves simultaneously forming three different shapes with your arms and legs. Suffice it to say that this kind of thing often produces laughter while activating different parts of the brain that don’t normally fire together.

Finally, Ageless Grace is a lifetime commitment but one that should be accessible to most. The program specifies that you commit 10 minutes a day to your choice of three of its 21 tools “for lifelong fitness and ease,” says Medved. Her mission is nothing short of changing the face of aging in America, and her belief is obviously that staying physically and mentally active on a consistent basis is going to do that.

Condrick stresses that Ageless Grace is easy and fun. It offers the opportunity to move in ways that are different from our usual routines. Most of us don’t realize how much we do things in the way we are accustomed to doing them. Unconsciously or not, we live and move in a rut of our own making — reaching for the same things the same way, getting in and out of the same vehicles, playing the same sports and doing the same exercises.

“It doesn’t have to be Ageless Grace,” Condrick says, “but it needs to be more than reading a book. Maybe it is taking a first tai-chi class. The point is always to be learning something new to challenge the body and the mind both.”

For more information on Ageless Grace, call Condrick at 552-8330 or [email protected].

Molly Schechter is an ACE-certified personal trainer with a specialty in older adult fitness plus YogaFit Instructor Training, SCF Yoga Fundamentals and Power Pilates™ Mat Certifications. She teaches classes at the Bayfront Park Recreation Center and the Longboat Key Club. E-mail her at [email protected].